Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace, and Conflict [2nd ed.] 9780123739858

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A Aged Population, Violence and Nonviolence Toward James Calleja, International Institute on Ageing (UN-MALTA), St. Julian’s, Malta ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction Violence: Abuser and Abused Physical Violence Psychological Violence Financial Violence

Glossary Active Aging The fact of maintaining a participant role in society after the traditional retirement age, through continued employment, social interaction, financial and physical independence, and so on. Aged In this context, describing a person over 60 years of age. Dementia An acquired, ongoing impairment of general intellectual abilities to such a degree as to seriously interfere with social and occupational functioning, including memory loss and failures of abstract thinking and judgment, as well as personality changes; an

Introduction It is an undeniable fact that the world population is aging. It has been growing for ages. What is new is that today there is a rapid pace of aging. The US Bureau of the Census notes that, in most developed countries, more than 20% of the population is over 60 years of age. This phenomenon is also hitting less-developed nations as a whole with the difference that these countries are aging even faster than their more developed counterparts. The world’s 60 and older population increased by more than 12 million persons in 1995; nearly 80% of this increase This article is reproduced from the previous edition, volume 1, pp 1–16, Ó 1999, Elsevier Inc., with revisions made by the Editor.

Cultural Financial Violence Neglect Nonviolence and Training Further Reading

age-related condition and especially associated with Alzheimer’s disease. Marginalize To treat an identifiable social group, for example, the elderly, as if that group is not part of the central or core society, thus identifying them as less significant members of the society than others. Subjectivity The fact of interacting socially with another person, or interacting professionally in the case of a caregiver, according to the unique characteristics and behaviors of that individual and of the setting in which the individual lives.

occurred in developing countries. In 2006, 10.4% of the world’s population is estimated to be 60 or over; by 2030, it may be 16.9%. This changing global age structure is the result of various factors: low fertility rates, a decline in infant and childhood mortality, advances in medical science and therefore control over infectious and parasitic diseases, basic education for the widest possible population, and public old-age security, which safeguards the quality of life in the postretirement period. Of course these scenarios change from one socioeconomic and political context to another. But the trend is clear in that many more older persons around the world are living better, healthier, and longer. Certainly, living longer does not mean living better and happier unless the healthy conditions of an individual

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2 Aged Population, Violence and Nonviolence Toward

allow the person to be an independent old person. Dependency as a result of illness in old age or loneliness may lead to neglect, abuse, and often violence, especially when a person, due to a number of circumstances, is deprived of a close family circle. Creating structures to deter these conditions will be one of the major areas of concern for peace research as we turn our attention to the second millennium. More and more elderly people are asking for counseling and services to counteract these threats toward the end of their lifetime.

Violence: Abuser and Abused Violence is as old as humanity. The human being (like all other animals) is inclined to possess, secure, and defend given territorial boundaries whether physical, psychological, or emotional. In many cases an abuser/abused dichotomy is created when the solution to conflicts or disputes is provoked by violence: direct, structural, or cultural. In cases in which this violence is applied to older persons, such violence may easily lead to death since old-aged people are vulnerable compared to other age groups. The elderly are abused when others in relationship to them use them to their advantage. Similarly, old people abuse others, when, in their relationship, they exploit others to their advantage. Therefore, in an abused/abuser relationship it is important to keep in mind the diversity in role playing in the complex dynamics of interrelationships. The emphasis on the relational context of abuse is very important. In the first place the abuser/abused relationship is characterized by three conditions: cause and effect, contiguity, and a necessary connection. Whether it is the younger or the old person who is abused or is abusing, the condition has a cause that will lead to effect or effects upon the abused or the abuser. If, for example, an old person is bathed in cold water when this should be warm, then the abuser is certainly the nursing aid or the caretaker; the abused is the old person. But if an old person calls a nursing aid at regular intervals for trivial purposes or simply to attract attention then it is precisely the opposite. Abuser/abused relationships need to be contextualized in order to define preventive or remedial measures. The act and its actors must necessarily be related to advantages or/and disadvantages. It is from such acts that old people might take the advantage of being cared for more often by, for example, pestering the carer; a caregiver might use marginalization or neglect of an old person as a means to obtain favors from the elderly such as money or other valuable objects. Contiguity is a relationship that associates acts and actors with advantages and disadvantages. It is in this relationship that violence is often called for to sort out the end results in the least

possible time. In such a situation the impact on the actors can be devastating. Bearing in mind the vulnerability of dependent older persons, the impact can also be fatal. Now cause/effect and contiguity must necessarily be connected, otherwise the violence exercised by the abuser on the abused will not yield the damage any violence causes whether physical, emotional, and/or psychological. This necessary connection is the result of a process of structural violence in which the abuser plans and executes the acts of violence while the abused tries to deter such violence by protecting his/her own rights and personality from the aggressor. In many cases aggression can be hidden or manifest depending on the short- or longterm strategies the abuser uses in the process. The juxtaposition or proximity between the acts, and the contexts and the actors play an important role in the level of violence used and the results it is expected to achieve. Violence in old age by young or old people themselves will be on the increase as we move into the twenty-first century with an aged population on the increase, with increasing demands on the resources, and with new expectations that will ensure a good standard and quality of life even after retirement. In the second place violence can take place anywhere. In the case of older persons, violence through abuse, neglect, and other means occurs in institutional settings as well as in their own homes. It is therefore advisable to look into violence in these two different settings and to assess to what extent and for what reasons such violence takes place, by whom, and by what means. Research shows that there are strong links between the abuse of older persons or by older persons, the quality of residential care, and the level of education of carers whether professional or family based. It is in this connection that violence and aged populations require a more detailed investigation so that when the demographic projections for the next 20 years become a reality, the aged will be more protected and they themselves will be empowered to live a constructive, productive, and creative way of life, relying less on a service-society and participating more in development. In a society in which older persons will play a more active role in its development, policy is expected to define the framework within which older persons are protected against all sorts of violence and they themselves are bound to respect the extent of services and care available to them. The welfare state as originally conceived in the second part of the twentieth century is gradually giving way to an undefined welfare society in which age is not necessarily exclusive of participation in development. Although statistics show that there are more people who want to retire than those who wish to continue with their working life (or new occupation), the quality of life in most highly technological societies will make it easier for some people to continue working after the traditional retiring age of 61 or 65 or later and therefore extending independence or

Aged Population, Violence and Nonviolence Toward

mobility (depending on health) toward the late 70s. Active aging is one out of many measures that deters violence toward or by older persons. However, like the welfare society, active aging requires a conceptual and operational framework so that when old people look out for opportunities to give concrete contributions toward their society, they find the right structures and legislation that will ensure social and financial sustainability for as long as possible. In this way the satisfaction of basic needs, here defined as survival, well-being, freedom, and identity will be satisfied. Violence will be prevented as early as possible.

Physical Violence In discussing relations of older persons with other members of the family or with institutions, physical violence is one common expression of abuse of the elderly or by the elderly themselves. The majority of abusers are spouses and adult children in homes, and carers and fellow elderly persons in residential homes. In a large number of studies, alcohol abuse, a history of mental illness, and ongoing physical or emotional problems appear as the main causes of physical abuse. There are various reasons why the elderly are physically abused by younger generations. One of these is that the elderly are a vulnerable group of persons who are at risk in comparison with other younger groups. They are physically weak but at the same time they may have accumulated enough material resources to become prey to perpetrators. In fact the most common physical violence registered is that related to theft of elderly who may live on their own or who happen to be on their own at home at a particular time of the day. The assailants are normally young unemployed persons, often drug addicts, who desperately need money or objects to sell in order to obtain a new dosage. This is an increasing problem, especially in big towns and cities in developed as well as in developing countries. Old people are therefore subject to physical violence. But they themselves can use physical violence to attract attention or as a form of protest against younger generations or carers. In institutionalized homes this kind of behavior is very frequent, especially in institutions with amateurish organizational management. The elderly, like other vulnerable groups, want constant attention. Of course in institutionalized homes this is not always possible, especially when the ratio of carers to clients is very low. In developing countries this can be as far as one carer to 30 or 40 clients. In such situations and considering that dependent elderly need constant care and help, physical violence can be a natural reaction to unintentional neglect. In various cases caregivers have had traumatic experiences of elderly assault with unpleasant consequences. Patients suffering from dementia tend to be more aggressive since their memory span is very limited

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and therefore they cannot appreciate the care and love of those around them. Physical violence varies from independent to dependent clients. Independent elderly in their own home are more relaxed than those in residential homes for the elderly. The reason is obvious. When an elderly person is forced to leave his or her own environment and take up residence in a home outside his or her community, the first trauma is that associated with space – from a particular physical space that one has become accustomed to throughout a person’s lifetime to a limited space shared and confined with others. Many elderly persons living in such a new environment and having to share a room with others become introverts, and this affects their physical health; consequently, they become aggressive and die in a short time. In cases when families neglect the elderly, their behavior becomes even more aggressive and consequently carers and nursing aids find it difficult to cope with such behaviors. On their own part, the elderly resort to such behavior out of their need for socialization. Physical aggression may crop in if the elderly person is devoid of attention, although this varies from one person to another. When dependency becomes an irreversible condition, physical violence by the elderly becomes rare, but that of carers and social workers may eventually increase. This is due to the fact that the demands on the carer increase as the elderly person requires more services at regular intervals. In such cases, unless the ratio between carers and clients is reduced, physical violence is likely to increase to the extent that either the old person is partially marginalized or the carer is under heavy stress and often leaves the job for a more relaxed caregiving environment. In families, dependent elderly can really become a burden especially if the caregivers are not prepared to take care of the old person or they do not know how to. The situation can become worse if there are the following conditions within a household: and overcrowding • Poverty The presence • Unemploymentof several children • Continual family arguments • One person bearing the burden of caring for an elderly • relative without assistance and wives torn into two trying to please both • Husbands family and parent very demanding elderly person • ASocial of both parent and carer • A veryisolation dependent old person who may be paralyzed, • incontinent, or suffering from dementia In such situations the place of the elderly within the family becomes unbearable and therefore admittance in a residential home is inevitable although not always possible. Alternatively, what is often witnessed in such situations is an increase in physical violence on the

4 Aged Population, Violence and Nonviolence Toward

elderly and by the elderly themselves when ill health makes living very difficult for the elderly and for their carers. Dependency is very much prone to physical violence if the right professional and caring facilities are not available. It is very difficult to expect families to provide this service no matter what financial support they are given. These cases can only be resolved if professional care is sought as early as possible. Physical violence on the elderly can be of various forms. From surveys and interviews with older persons themselves it transpires that the most frequent examples of physical abuse and violence are the following: hitting, throwing something hard, tipping, burning or scalding, bathing in cold water, pushing and shoving, rough handling, unwanted sexual acts, spitting, tying to furniture, locking in a room, and forcing a senior to remain in bed. Why is it that carers resort to physical violence of the type mentioned forehand? There are two main reasons; namely, first that while elderly persons, dependent or independent, require constant attention, carers or family members cannot afford the time for regular individual attention; second, we live in a complex society in which the time for care is very limited; hence we neglect even those who require our attention. If abuse is to exploit, to one’s own advantage, another person’s weakness or insecurity, neglect is to abandon, to one’s own world, another person’s need for socialization. Now physical violence is often used by carers under stress as a means of neglect. In fact if any of the acts mentioned before is used on an elderly person, what follows is a break in communication between the carer (who could be a family member) and the older person. It is the communicative aspect of physical violence that needs to be studied in the relationship between the carer and the older person. With independent elderly this is less of a problem, especially among elderly citizens who remain active within their social circles. But, with dependent elderly, in particular those who are bedridden, physical violence serves as a means to control the increasing needs of the client. It is natural that after physical violence the old person is unlikely to disturb the carer for a period of time. In discussing physical violence and the elderly, mention has also to be made about the structures in which violence occurs. Overcrowding, poverty, lack of education, and mismanagement of resources are four basic contexts that provoke physical violence. Whether it is within the family or within a residential home, overcrowding is one of the major problems leading to physical violence. Experience has shown that one of the basic needs of elderly persons is privacy. In residential homes in which older persons are expected to share a confined physical space, determined company, and given carers, it is not easy to adjust to this new reality. The change in the environmental aspects of their new home often leaves

the elderly disarmed from those defense mechanisms they normally use to keep their status intact. The physical environment has changed; so does the cultural and social environment. The old person is now subject to new furniture surroundings, new rules and regulations, new sounds, new eating habits, new ‘comforts’, and an environment devoid of the freedom to do what one likes and at any time. As a result, both the elderly and the carers may resort to physical violence if the rapport between the elders themselves and the carers is difficult to establish on a short- or long-term basis. The impact with the new environment is extremely important and one has to make an effort to create an environment conducive to the old person’s original surroundings. Poverty is a second basic context that provokes physical violence. In a world in which the rich are becoming richer and the poor poorer, it is imperative that basic needs are met through income-generating activities. With the increase in the number of older persons and the decrease in fertility rates, the burden on the taxpayer will be larger compared to that in the so-called ‘welfare state’. Hence, the question of retirement should be readdressed in order to avoid the clash between the haves and the have-nots! Older persons, who are among the most vulnerable groups in society, are easy prey to economic recessions, a high cost of living, and a more demanding free-market economy. To avoid poverty in old age is therefore a prerequisite to development and a deterrence to the use of physical violence as a means to silence old people’s demands or old people’s protests. The issue of education is paramount to well-being in old age and to the avoidance of physical violence. The more a person reaches a higher level of education the less likely it will become for him/her to resort to physical violence. Investment in education has always been regarded by many governments as a priority in their development plans. However, in a society in which, in a few year’s time, one-fourth of the population will be over the age of 60, lifelong education should become compulsory in order to keep the older population as educated and trained in life skills as possible. The failure to educate people means that rights and obligations will be sought through might and not right. Finally, resource management is a necessary tool to ensure that as many people as possible share the benefits of economic growth and social opportunities. The lack of resource management may lead to the misuse of resources and therefore to a bitter struggle between the users (old people) and the providers (family members or carers) or between the users themselves. It is obvious that in cases where physical violence is used on the elderly or by the elderly themselves because of the misuse of human or financial resources it will be very difficult to reinstate a sense of partnership. The battle for resources is felt among older persons, especially those who either lack a regular pension or whose pension is inadequate to cope with the

Aged Population, Violence and Nonviolence Toward

rising cost of living. In this connection work after the traditional retirement age may well become a measure to avoid a lowering of the standards of living of older persons and a way how to avoid direct clashes between the users of finite resources.

Psychological Violence A common definition of psychological abuse among researchers is chronic verbal aggression. Verbal chronic abuse may lead to physical violence, especially if users and providers of services for older persons base their personal or professional relationship with one another on tolerance rather than mutual respect. Psychological violence is intimately related to a person’s inability to tolerate another when circumstances make communication difficult. Within families or residential homes for the elderly it is even more difficult to maintain such a relationship because the demands on the young are often disproportionate to their capacity of satisfying such needs. Verbal aggression is a way of reacting to such incapacitates that may be due to lack of personnel or funds or resources. In such cases the aggressor (carer) plays the role of an executive power ready to decide whether an older person in given circumstances should be rewarded or punished for his/her behavior. The roots of psychological abuse are varied but there are at least five causes that are intimately related to the aged, whether in family care or in residential home care: subjectivity, undue pressure, humiliating behavior, health problems, and exploitation. The subjective context determines any relationship. Many say that they either like or dislike a person; others tolerate diversity of opinion and style; while still others can respect another person notwithstanding the fact that they might not like the individual. Every person is different and has a specific way in which he or she perceives the other. Enemy images are built that way. So are friendships and professional relationships. In analyzing psychological violence the subjective context has to be constantly kept in mind. Old people in particular are sensitive to the way people communicate with them or relate to them. Within families you may find the quiet husband and the vociferous wife or the other way round! Similarly, within institutions such as residential homes, every carer and client is different and behaviors change according to one’s character, mood, or circumstances. It is extremely important that to avoid psychological violence in institutional care measures are taken to ensure that the right carers are employed and that regular training and in-house informal social activities are organized on a regular basis. An institution for older persons must be seen as a family in which every member is respected (and not tolerated) for what he or she stands for. Second, social

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activities such as birthday parties, anniversaries, special occasions, outings, discussions, and religious services serve to bring old people and their carer closer to one another in a spirit of partnership rather than mere professional collaboration. It is through this environment that the subjective aspects of relationships are established in which each individual becomes familiar with the character, style, and role of the other person and a spirit of symbiosis is established between the partners concerned. Subjectivity also varies among the elderly between dependent and independent older persons. Those who are generally bedridden will find it more difficult to relate to others and in certain cases to their carers because of their physical deterioration. Hence the carers must be more sensitive to their needs and less demanding on their expectations. With independent elderly, the situation can be very different, although experience shows that even when the elderly can fend for themselves they can still be very demanding on their family members and carers. It all boils down to the fact that in the care of older persons psychological violence is a variable conditioned by the individual’s disposition to accept or reject the attention from and the rapport with the other, whether the person happens to be from his/her own generation or younger. In this respect it is important to consider to what extent intergenerational relations are determined according to the psychological perspectives of the young vis-a´-vis the old and vice versa. In fact, most of the intergenerational conflicts that occur are normally characterized by psychological violence rather than physical violence – a fight of wits rather than fists! Psychological violence can be avoided if efforts are made to understand the individual as a subject in specific contexts, which include the physical environment, health, social, or/and professional status, family ties, peer relations and the rapport between the old person and the carer. Psychological violence is also the result of undue pressure that family members in particular, but also professional carers, exercise on older persons. The most frequent examples of undue pressures on the elderly are the following: legal documents or those poorly understood, • toto sign prevent access to legal help, • to move from ownership of the home, • to buy alcoholororrelinquish other drugs, • to engage in paid work to bring in extra money, • to avoid help for abuse of alcohol and drugs, • to make or change a will, • to change or not to change marital status, • to give money to relatives or other caregivers, • to do things the senior does not want to do, or • to go to places to which the older person does not want • to go.

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Undue pressure is often the result of selfish behavior against the elderly who, due to their vulnerable state, succumb to the will of those exercising such pressure. In surveys conducted among the elderly it transpires that very often the elderly are placed in situations in which they are given no options. Within families, younger relatives may use pressure on the elderly to sign legal documents to their own advantage. It is only after such acts that the elderly may realize the mistake they have made when it might be too late. Cases have also been registered in which older persons ask for legal help that they are denied on the basis that such advice is not required. Younger persons often abuse the trust that older generations place in them. As a result of this, old people often find themselves torn between members of the same family and end up dividing their loyalty between one member and another and are unable to create a consensual atmosphere for the whole family. This is one of the most painful situations that many elderly persons have to face toward the end of their lives. There are other situations in which old people are asked to pay extra money for services rendered and this psychological pressure can be detrimental not only to their health but also to their financial situation which, already at old age is undermined by limited income from productive work. Psychological violence is also used when old people decide to change their marital or social status. An old man or woman is not expected to remarry or to live with another partner, especially if she or he had children from a previous partner. Many old people find it hard to establish a new relationship because, in many societies, traditionally and culturally, it is not the norm to indulge into a new emotional partnership. Some old persons are also ridiculed for taking such a step in their later part of their life. Humiliating behavior can be physical, verbal, or psychological. There are at least five humiliating behaviors of the physical type associated with older person: a senior to eat unappetizing/unwanted food, • forcing treating like a servant, • treating aa senior senior like a child, • withholding information or • failure to check allegationsof ofimportance, elder abuse. • In discussing humiliating behavior and the elderly it is imperative that mention should be made of the fact that many family members and carers consciously and unconsciously treat old people like servants or slaves, or like children. Old people do not like being ordered around or asked to do things they do not wish to do. Neither do they want other people to talk to and treat them like children. But this often happens. A visit to a residential home for the aged will quickly unfold this reality, especially during bathing and lunch time or during social activities. The difference between children and the aged is enormous as

an older person once remarked. Old people have treated children like children so they know exactly when such behavior is being imposed on them. Of course the main question here is ‘Why do adults treat old people like children or talk to them like children?’. The answer lies in the fact that sometimes old people behave like children. They are emotionally weak; they are possessive; they enjoy play; they are reluctant to accept reality; they take life easy; they are mischievous by mature adult standards; they are easily irritated; they do what they like and not what they are supposed to be doing; they want to be alone for sometime; they want to be sheltered; they tend to forget very easily; they argue a lot, and among other things repetitive story telling is a routine. On the other hand, children, relatives, and carers tend to naturally become very protective of their own parents or clients and therefore they feel that they should dictate the behavior of older generations. So they adopt the same language used to protect and safeguard the interests of children. The difference is that old people can observe this kind of language while young children find it natural to be addressed in such a way; they themselves use the same style with their peers, while older persons talk to each other in a different way than when addressed by relatives, children, and carers. The similar characteristics between children and old people and the overwhelming care of children, relatives, and carers do not justify the fact that old people should be treated like children or that they can be ordered around. Younger generations must make an extra effort to treat old people as mature persons or to train themselves to disregard the characteristics mentioned before and to respect the old persons for what they stand for rather than for what they appear to be. This attitude can be aggravated when verbal humiliation is used to confront old persons. This may take the form of: excessive criticism, lying, swearing, insulting, calling names, unreasonably ordering around, telling a senior he/ she is too much trouble, talking unkindly about death, or statements that convey false beliefs about illness. In summing up these points, one has to bear in mind that no one has a right to use unwarranted comments toward another person, let alone toward a generation that we are expected to respect for their valid contribution toward society in general and where applicable to our personal and social upbringing. Any of the above-mentioned items are offensive toward any human being but unfortunately many old persons whether they live within their own family or in an institution claim that they are often exposed to such treatment. Eliminating this abuse through sensitive behavior is one important step toward deterring psychological violence against the elderly. Health problems can also provoke psychological violence. In cases in which it is the carer or the relative who is suffering from ill health, the old person has to put up

Aged Population, Violence and Nonviolence Toward

with a very difficult situation. But in most cases psychological violence puts health at risk in the following circumstances: leaving an incapacitated or bedridden senior • when alone for too long; food or other necessities as a form of • withholding punishment; or traumatic personal medical information; • unnecessary incorrect administration of prescribed medicine due to • misinformation; medications to keep the patient in bed; • overprescribing inadequate medical attention or information; • exposing an old person to undue risk and danger; • talking about alcohol when a senior often gets drunk; or • threats of admission to a ‘mental hospital’. • Health is at risk for the elderly not just because one fails to administer the right treatment or takes too long to do so but also when the wrong information is transmitted to the old person or when there is unnecessary talk about the state of health of the individual. The same holds for threats of admission to a mental hospital, which is seen by many elderly as one of the most frequent forms of psychological violence that is used with patients who suffer from dementia. Coupled with the circumstances mentioned above are those instances in which carers:

• Intimidate; information; • manipulate threaten to withhold specific support; • talk about abandonment; • talk about threats of assault; • frighten the elderly through aggressive talk or behavior; or • send messages of planned assault. • While the first group are examples of psychological violence used on the elderly that put health at risk, the second group is characterized by threats and therefore is a form of structural violence that is meant to make the old person as miserable as possible and hence subservient to the will of the carer. Threatening to assault an elderly person can be as traumatic as actually assaulting them. The same holds for using fear as a tool of communication or sending messages that can confuse the old person and put him/ her in a more vulnerable position vis-a´-vis the carer. Health is a priority for an old person. Putting health at risk through psychological violence is one way of telling an old individual that their life is in your hands and that they either accept your conditions or they are doomed to suffer the consequences. In such situations, the elderly are left with no other option but to resign to the carer’s commands. If health is at risk then any condition is acceptable to the old person. The use of psychological violence will therefore serve to reach the objective of

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creating an environment conducive to constant risks and a relationship based on fear. One of the common examples of psychological violence is verbal exploitation, which can lead to taking advantage of an old person or a situation. Verbal exploitation of old persons at home or in residential homes can take various forms, in particular if one fails to: older persons’ opinion; • respect consider older persons’ requests; • provide adequate care; • treat residents or personal relatives of different financial status • equally; through information access to medical care; • facilitate enable access aids or assisting devices; • take a senior totonecessary appointments; • remain with a senior who needs reasonable company; • provide necessary information about necessities; or • provide safe and comfortable social basic conditions. • Failure to give care in words or in deeds or putting the elderly in unwanted situations too often is a form of psychological violence that is meant to eliminate (psychologically first, then physically) the old person as quickly as possible. The objective is to marginalize elderly individuals and in making them believe that they are a burden upon the carers whether they are paid or unpaid caregivers or nursing aids. All the examples mentioned indicate that often the idea of the old person is that attached to an individual who is more of a number than a human being who needs privacy, attention, fair treatment, medical care, respect, and comfort. Stress and carelessness often lead to the type of psychological violence that hurts older persons, especially if they are aware of the fact that they themselves, because of their health situation, are somehow a burden on the carer. In fact, many older persons consider themselves as an extra responsibility for younger generations, whether relatives or professional carers. Their needs, partly due to their loss of independence because of frailty, are seen as a continuous demand on their carers and therefore they feel obliged toward their caregivers irrespective of how they are being treated or whether they approve of the treatment. Psychological violence is often used as a means to create a gap between the strong and the weak partner in any relationship. In the case of older persons, the gap is already there due to age and experience. With the deterioration in physical health, a new gap opens up that is unfortunately often bridged through psychological violence as a form of control by carers of older persons. In institutional homes, especially in those where human resources are limited to the barest minimum, such control is felt necessary in order to cope with all the requests for services. However, such violence can be deterred if older persons and carers (including family members) are

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brought together on a regular basis and asked to air their complaints in an atmosphere of friendship and solidarity. Keeping the two sectors apart or, even worse, organizing and training one sector while neglecting the other can only aggravate the situation. Psychological violence can be eliminated if clients and carers are given the opportunity to understand each others’ point of view in a structured way so that resources are utilized in a more constructive manner and in agreement with both parties concerned. In interrelationships such as those between older and younger generations, a structural dialog that breeds mutual respect is one of the most important aspects to stress if psychological violence is to be avoided at all costs.

Financial Violence Many studies use financial abuse rather than financial violence. There is a hairline difference in the epistemological significance of the two terms that is important to highlight for the purpose of this study. Financial abuse conveys the idea of an abuser who makes his/her what is of others without taking into account the consequences thereof. On the other hand, financial violence is an act in which the abuser is fully conscious of his/her acts, designs a plan of action, and does it specifically to hurt the person concerned. In a Canadian survey, financial abuse was the commonly reported type of abuse, constituting five times as many cases as physical abuse. The definition covered a wide range of behaviors, and interviewees were asked if, at any time since they turned 65, anyone they knew had taken any one of the following actions:

Financial violence as deemed earlier is somehow a different matter although there are similarities such as: is an abuser and an abused; • there the perpetrator • inclined to steal; might have financial problems or is victim is a vulnerable person who may (a) live on • the his/her own, (b) is considered to be a person who

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possesses wealth, and (c) is unprotected; and the abuser is knowledgeable enough to select the victims.

However, there are also basic differences between perpetrators of abuse and those who perform acts of violence, namely: perpetrator is normally inclined to be violent and is • the prepared to physically hurt the victim if there is

• • • • • •

resistance; the perpetrator normally has a record of acts of violence of different types such as taking part in riots, car thefts, etc.; the perpetrators plan their acts of violence in such a way that it is very unlikely to fail; the perpetrators often have accomplices with them in case something goes wrong and they need help; their victims are all vulnerable groups who possess money or valuables; the elderly are easy prey for perpetrators of financial violence since many of them possess both money and valuables that they can exchange for hard currency or other possessions; and the elderly, especially those living on their own in cities or in above-average houses in small towns, villages, or the countryside, are the prime targets.

In defining the whole conceptual framework for financial

to persuade you to give them money, violence, one also needs to include other types of financial • tried tried or trick you into giving them money, exploitation such as: • tried totocheat • finances, persuade you to relinquish control over • selling property without the permission of the elderly person; to influence you to change your will, • tried money without the permission of the old tried to make you give up something of value, or • tried to persuade you to sign over your house to them. • controlling person; • excessively for goods and services; • charging It was interesting to note from the research findings that failing to borrowed money especially when • asked to dorepay those who were financially abused were more likely to live so; on their own, to be socially isolated and to have health a senior’s home without paying fairly for • sharing problems. The Canadian survey found no difference expenses if asked. between victims of abuse and the rest of the respondents with respect to sex, education, income, or unemployment status, but victims were good deal more unhappy in a number of ways. Another interesting finding was that the perpetrators of financial abuse tend not to be close relatives; that abusers had financial problems or that they have recently experienced financial or employment problems, and that alcohol consumption was a relevant factor.

Of course, it is sometimes very hard to tell whether a perpetrator is doing acts of violence or abuse. But if the victim is physically hurt or socially excluded to the detriment of his/her health, then abuse becomes an act of direct or indirect violence. The victim is eliminated to the advantage of the perpetrator. The perpetrator is normally rewarded financially.

Aged Population, Violence and Nonviolence Toward

There are three main aspects of financial violence: open financial violence, organic financial violence, and cultural financial violence.

Open Financial Violence Most common forms of violence against older persons are those in which the perpetrator uses physical violence to steal or to take valuables. These are the stories that normally hit the headlines, especially when the old person is severely injured or killed. It is ‘open’ because the perpetrator must face the victim whether this happens at the victim’s residence or in the street or at any other place that the perpetrator chooses to perform his violent act. In this way the perpetrator makes sure that all the variables mounting to his/her execution are under control and that it is very likely that he/she or they can get away with it. The perpetrator would have done his/her preparations well. The perpetrator would have first identified the victim; then he makes the necessary preparations to decide when to attack, how and what means to use to ensure that the exercise is brought to fruition. The next step is to seek allies if necessary, namely a person who would provide assistance during the act of violence and an accomplice to provide the necessary information in order to reach the victim – it could be the porter of a block of apartments or friends of the victim or even neighbors. Much of the information that a perpetrator asks for is normally given unintentionally. This act is characterized by direct violence. The victim is normally assaulted, beaten, or thrown on the floor, or tied to furniture or immovable objects. Then the old person is asked where the money or other valuables are and beaten if he/she fails to collaborate. The perpetrator always threatens to hurt the old victim if he/she is not satisfied with the response to the demands. In some cases, old people have reported that they are humiliated by being stripped and raped if the perpetrator does not find what he/she aims for. In extreme cases, the victims are killed, especially if they resist or threaten to report the incident to the police and are capable of describing the aggressor. With the increase in unemployment and drug abuse, physical violence on the elderly is on the increase. So are the preventive measures in the form of frequent patrols by the police, special telephone lines for help such as the telecare system and specialized schemes such as the Neighborhood Watch Schemes, in which someone is keeping an eye on particular households in order to protect others. The elderly themselves could become the main providers of these schemes by setting up neighborhood watch schemes run by the elderly for the elderly in close collaboration with the local government.

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Organic Financial Violence This type of violence is characterized by three main techniques: persuasion, cheating, and undue influence. Mention was made earlier that financial violence is caused by perpetrators who persuade old persons to give them money. This often happens in residential homes in exchange for services but also within families where old people take up residence with their sons or daughters. Many elderly persons complain that in residential homes they are systematically asked for money in order to obtain services to which they are entitled in any case. In most of these cases, the elderly observe that the perpetrators are always the same two or three persons who unscrupulously abuse their official position to obtain extra money. These perpetrators are normally nursing aids, medical doctors who often encourage patients to be seen privately, and medical assistants as well as carers and support staff. Taking advantage of an old person’s situation and exploiting this advantage by making money out of it leads many old people to refuse services that they would normally take if they are not asked for extra money. The incidence in government-run homes is much higher than in private or religious homes. This of course is due to the fact that the bigger the home the larger the incidence of abuse and violence. Organic financial violence is therefore planned violence. It is systematic and the aggressor will do it on a give-and-take basis. It is done discreetly and normally very politely. The elderly are generally given the impression that extra money means a more caring and personalized service. Hence the use of persuasion to obtain favors that under normal circumstances they should not be given. A second technique used as a form of financial violence is cheating. Old people, for example, often complain that the prices they are charged for certain goods others buy for them rise unexpectedly or that they are cheated in being given products that they have not asked for. Cheating is a problem that the elderly can do very little about unless they are protected by law or by specific regulations, especially in residential homes or in social activities. A third technique concerns undue influence that perpetrators exercise on the elderly to obtain money as a result of a change in personal decision making or the acquisition of objects that can be eventually transferred on to a will later on. Specifically, such influence is normally used to: a will, • change donate a valuable object to a relative, • buy an object the house, • sell the house for and in a smaller apartment, • spend less money onliveleisure • avoid private medical care. activities and necessities, or •

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Aged Population, Violence and Nonviolence Toward

In all these cases there is an organic plan of action that puts the elderly in a disadvantaged position vis-a´-vis the perpetrator since they cannot afford to be marginalized or socially excluded.

Cultural Financial Violence In peace research, Johan Galtung defines cultural violence as those aspects of culture, the symbolic sphere of our existence – exemplified by religion and ideology, language and art, empirical science and formal science (logic and mathematics) – that can be used to justify or legitimize direct or structural violence. Cultural financial violence is an attempt by perpetrators to create an environment that financially excludes the elderly on the basis of status, creed, sex, and health. Many private residential homes for the elderly adopt this philosophy on the pretext that not everybody can afford the money needed for such services. Even within the care services in private residential homes, class and status are encouraged. What determines this is the amount of money one is prepared to pay or can afford to pay. Certainly no private home for the elderly can be run unless it can make a profit. Alternatively, the services must be subsidized by local or central government or the church, or other charitable or nongovernmental organizations. What is gradually being maintained is that status and class, which are intimately related to culture, are creating a divide between the haves and the have-nots irrespective of the principles of equality and justice that many democracies around the world advocate. Private entrepreneurs and some governments rightly argue that in a free market economy every person should be given the choice and the opportunity to live and eventually to die wherever the person likes and under the conditions he or she chooses. Although this is a very valid argument, one has to be extremely careful not to encourage a culture of extreme consumerism in which added burdens are placed on workers to invest heavily in private pension schemes in order to sustain the retiring years (which may be 15–20 years on average) or hospitalization in old age if they require such service. Such policy very often places the role of governments in service provision for the elderly at a disadvantage. It is wrong to invest in services for the few at the detriment of those for the many. Several studies show a new poverty coming as a result of a consumerist mentality in which there will be a great divide between those who supply and those who consume. Financial violence of the cultural type is therefore any new mentality that will undermine the dignity of the human being at an age when it is more likely that such prestige is lost because of the deterioration of the physical abilities. This means efforts have to be invested in policies that would uplift those elderly persons in need of services

and provide them with a safety and comfortable physical, medical, and human environment that is conducive to peace of mind. In this same breath and if the resources of a given territory permit, choice should be allowed in the provision of services to all other older persons so that freedom and well-being, two of the basic needs of any human being, will be respected.

Neglect Homer and Gilleard found that neglect, like verbal violence or abuse, was related to a long-standing poor relationship between the old person and the caregiver or a relative. Those who are neglected are often a source of stress and are socially isolated. To neglect an older person must therefore be seen as a form of violence in that the caregiver is leaving the elder in a state of risk and therefore easy prey for physical, psychological, and verbal violence. Neglect carries a number of meanings. It means to disregard, ignore, fail to give proper attention to or take proper care of a person; it also means to fail to do or perform through carelessness or oversight one’s own business. In the care of older persons, neglect is related to the following meanings: carelessness, indifference, negligence, inattention, and failure. Carelessness Neglect through carelessness is an act of violence against an elderly person. An old person is in need of proper service, especially if the individual is entirely dependent on the carer. Many bedridden elderly persons complain about the lack of tact used by caregivers and nursing aids in bathing them, in helping them to move around, or in giving the right attention at the right time. In residential homes where the number of elderly persons in relation to the nursing aids determines the level of care, many old people spend considerable time waiting to be attended. Neglecting an old person who has bedsores for a long time is considered by many as an act of physical violence in that the old person is suffering pain as a result. Of course, no one can blame nursing aids if the demand is greater than what is humanly possible to supply. Many residential homes, especially those run by governments, cannot afford individual attention due to the lack of personnel or specialized nurses ready to provide the care old people need. Carelessness is therefore seen from at least two main perspectives vis-a´-vis violence: as a deliberate act or as an act imposed by circumstances. A deliberate act is when the resources are available but they are misused or abused; an act imposed by circumstances is when neither the resources nor the availability of the resources are possible. In both cases, it is the old person

Aged Population, Violence and Nonviolence Toward

who suffers the consequences. Defining such acts as violent underpins the commitment that the so-called care services should stress in order to avoid further discomfort that, bearing in mind the vulnerable state of many elderly persons in residential homes, may lead to precocious death.

Indifference Sensitivity is one of the major qualities that carers and nursing aids should have in their relationship with older persons. To be sensitive to one’s needs, especially if these are related to pain, is an important part of the care that is normally given to old people. Not every carer is sensitive enough to pain whether this is physical or psychological. Old people are more likely to suffer physical pain than any other group. They are becoming more and more prone to disease and hence they are subject to continuous stress due to the change in their body functioning. Indifference to such pain can be due to various reasons. The first is that many old people fail to open up their hearts with their carers. They are afraid that they bother them too often and therefore they try to hide their pain, especially if they had been ridiculed before. Second, many old people find it hard or do not wish to disclose their state of health with a carer whom they find ‘cool’ in the way he/she considers their particular situations. One finds many old persons saying that disclosing the state of their health does not help them improve it at all. Third, many elderly look upon their physical and mental deterioration as a natural state of their health and therefore find it useless to try to make an issue out of a situation that is natural at this particular stage in one’s lifetime. Fourth, many older persons, especially those living in residential homes, prefer to remain silent than to bother their carers about their particular health. Some have said that even if they do ask for special attention they are hardly given any attention or if attention is forthcoming it is not to their satisfaction. Indifference as a form of neglect can be seen through these different facets and can bring about additional pain that can be avoided in the first place if a person is sensitive enough. It is of course very difficult to train people to be sensitive. Sensitivity is considered by many as a natural rather than a learned attribute in a carer’s character. Therefore, carers are distinguished between those who care and those who are indifferent or, worse, who ‘train’ their own clients (i.e., older persons) to avoid asking for help when this is related to old age deterioration! Such indifference and insensitivity is one of the most common features in the care of dependent elderly persons. With independent elderly and those who can still contribute toward social development, indifference to their requests, needs, and expectations can also be considered as acts of

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what Johan Galtung terms structural violence, in which the old person is marginalized on the basis of age rather than individual capacity.

Negligence Threats in one’s life are very often related to negligence on the part of the carer or the relative of an old person. H. B. Danesh makes a very interesting distinction between three categories of threats that the present author considers to be the result of negligence. The first are those related to self-integrity, such as life-threatening disease, the loss of a partner, physical harm, or loss of purpose and meaning in life. Many neglected older persons suffer from such syndromes. They feel that notwithstanding the fact that they have given a valid contribution in life, in old age they have been neglected and this marginalization that is often due to negligence is interpreted by the old person as a loss of self-integrity. Common examples are those related to invitations for social functions. An old person welcomes these invitations. Forgetting through negligence to invite an old person to a social function can be very distressful. The second category relates to those threats that affect the self-identity of the individual, such as humiliation, domination, manipulation, failure, and frustration. These threats cause the old person to become less self-assured and less capable of relating to others at a mature and equal level. If through negligence in service provision, for example, old people are subject to such treatment then one should consider such behavior as violent vis-a´-vis the old client. Of particular significance is the act of domination between the carer and the old person, whether this happens among relatives or professional caregivers. To dominate in this case is to enslave and render the old person subject to one’s own wishes and moods of the day. Negligence in role-playing can be detrimental to old people. Just because an old person, like a child, is often vulnerable and defenseless does not in any way allow the caregiver to exploit the situation and render the client an object of manipulation. Finally, there are threats of injustice, poverty, tyranny, and prejudice that negligence on the part of the caregiver can induce insanity and suicide in an old person. Fairness in treatment, comfort in the provision of services, gentleness in the way one addresses older persons, and respect for old age are all part and parcel of the care for the elderly. Old age is a period in one’s lifetime when the demands on the carer increase radically, especially with dependent old persons. Yet it is also a time when much can be gained through a proper understanding of the relationship between the old person and the caregiver if both parties accept and respect one another. Eradicating negligence in this relationship is one important step forward.

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Aged Population, Violence and Nonviolence Toward

Inattention In the care and welfare of older persons, threats can also be actual or assumed. They can originate from the external environment and assume the form of physical and social threats, or they can rise like mist from within, in the shape of psychological and spiritual crisis. Having older persons under the constant care of another person may lead to an attitude of taking old persons for granted and therefore elements of inattention to particular needs are neglected. Birthdays, anniversaries, special occasions, annual social gatherings, and other personalized events mean a lot to everyone, especially to an old person. In an overcrowded environment in which old people are considered as numbers on a list, these events are completely neglected. Yet the individual person cannot forget personal events in his/her lifetime. Inattention to such sensitive dates is painful, especially if the old person has no relatives or friends, or if they are not aware of these special dates. Of course, it is quite taxing for caregivers, especially in huge institutions, to note such particular events; yet, with the help of the elderly themselves one can reach this objective very easily. Some residential homes have designated elderly persons to look into these occasions and bring them to the attention of those concerned. Empowering the elderly in little but significant aspects such as these is one step toward creating an environment in which everyone is important because each has a history that is brought to the attention of those concerned.

Failure Neglect can also take the form of failure. Failure is related to unsuccessful results or to the inability to perform one’s duty according to set rules and regulations. Failing to give proper and timely attention to the elderly can be a serious threat to their well-being and in some cases to their lives. When can we detect failure as a form of neglect, and to what extent is failure an act of violence? Failure is seen from results. Surveys show whether persons are happy in a given context. Interviews also reveal the quality of the service being given. Talking directly to the elderly can be a very worthwhile exercise in trying to improve the care for the elderly. By using tact and professional techniques, failure can be easily detected and improved on through retraining or a change of responsibilities. But to neglect the existence of such failures in the home or in institutional care can lead to serious flaws and damaging consequences. In many cases the elderly are fully aware of a situation in which there is something going wrong. If, for example, an old person is given cold baths or cold food then the fault lies in the sensitivity of the caregiver and in the management of the food supply. By ignoring or neglecting complaints, one is only encouraging a situation in which old people suffer – physically, psychologically,

and emotionally. Failure as a result of negligence is a show of indifference and inhuman treatment. It is also a form of violence in that the end result is characterized by pain. An environment that breeds openness in the rapport between the client and the old person avoids situations in which there is: of retaliation or of making the situation worse • fear because failure has been brought to the attention of

• • • •

the carer (especially if the elderly person is dependent on the perpetrator for basic survival needs); assumption of blame for the perpetrator’s behavior; fear of the elderly of being removed from one place and therefore the loss of established peer groups and friendships; guilt and stigma at having reported the failure or at being the failure; and concern about jeopardizing the status quo of the home or the institution.

Failure as a form of neglect and violence toward the elderly is still to be looked into through proper research. One augers that the elderly themselves will be given the opportunity to air, in confidence, their views on the subject so that standards in the care and welfare of older persons will be improved and signs of neglect eliminated as much as possible. Of great importance is not only the fact that the elderly themselves need to be empowered to advocate for the quality of their lives but that they themselves must learn how to defend their interests and earn a respectful place in society whether they are dependent or independent elderly persons.

Nonviolence and Training Training workers in the field of aging against violence and abuse of elderly people is likely to become one of the most important areas in the study of aging in the future. According to various specialists, this is due to the following reasons: (1) the growing body of research highlighting both the different types of violence and its impact on the community of elderly persons; (2) the emergence of guidelines advising workers how to handle problems related to abuse, neglect, and violence on older persons; (3) the publication of training manuals with a direct focus on the issue of mistreatment of elderly people; (4) the setting of working groups among the elderly themselves to design strategies against violence in homes and institutions of care; and (5) the organization in various countries of neighborhood watch schemes, some of which are run by the elderly.

Aged Population, Violence and Nonviolence Toward

The need for training on elderly abuse and violence has already been established by a number of institutions in Britain, the United States, and within the United Nations system. In developing training, E. Podnieks identifies five main recipients, namely: the professionals, caregivers, older adults, the public, and the children. The education and training of professionals about all aspects of violence against the elderly is an important step in the prevention of such violence. Training should take place on an ad hoc basis through seminars or in-service courses, or within the context of higher education, in particular in courses in gerontology or/and social studies or peace studies. Furthermore, the training of counselors, policemen, lawyers, legislators, and the clergy, among others, should be a major component in any educational undertaking to fight abuse and violence. Such training courses must be designed by experts in the field and tailor-made to the specific profession of the recipients. Carers are the closest group of persons to the elderly. They provide care and ensure that the old person lives in comfort and away from physical and psychological hazards. Training carers in detecting and alleviating violence and abuse must be considered as a fundamental component in their training or in-service training courses. These courses should also be offered to a wide range of caregivers such as church groups, medical faculties, telemedicine, senior organizations, family service agencies, community colleges, and social services agencies. All of these support groups help in raising awareness of the significant issues related to violence against the elderly and improve the mechanisms to prevent abuse and violence in the first instance. The importance of educating older persons in preventing violence and abuse cannot be overstated. Every training course should be elderly oriented, and the elderly should play a leading role in the course itself. It would be very helpful if old persons who have been victims of violence are asked to exchange experience and to design strategies that they themselves can implement together with the police, social workers, and others involved in their welfare. Such courses can be held in senior organizations and in particular in ‘Universities of the Third Age’ (where these exist) so that further research and investigations by the elderly are encouraged. Action groups should also be encouraged from these courses so that the elderly, especially those independent old persons who are prepared to provide help and assistance, set up task forces in the local communities in order to reach more cases. The media can play a leading role in public education in preventing violence and abuse against the elderly. Often the media highlights the sensational aspects of violence on the elderly. But carefully planned campaigns through television and radio can make a difference if they are geared toward abused seniors and those who can and

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are in a position to recognize elder violence such as family members, neighbors, friends, public service providers, the clergy, postal workers, bank tellers, meter readers, and so on, thus creating a web of protection within the community that would deter any abuse or signs of violence against the elderly themselves. Ad hoc courses, talks, or seminars in the various communities on elder abuse and violence can also help to create awareness. Furthermore, it would also be very useful if specific training is conducted for journalists so that reporters become better informed on the issues and responsible reporting rather than the customary sensational approaches to violence on the elderly as referred to earlier on. Finally, children need to understand that the elderly, like themselves, are a vulnerable group in society that deserves respect and above all protection from violence. Since attitudes and stereotypes are formed earlier in life and influence behavior throughout one’s lifetime, it is important that within school programs children are exposed to the reality of violence against the elderly and on how they themselves can deter such violence. Education with an intergenerational perspective and with a positive influence on children’s attitudes toward the elderly cannot be overstated. This education helps young people to bridge the cultural gaps between the ages and to find ways and means to offer help to older generations whose life or well-being is at peril because of violent attitudes or deeds in the home, in the community, and in other institutions. Projects within the school that involve the elderly themselves will help a great deal. Also, the presence of older persons in educational institutions can create greater awareness of the problems that violence and abuse entail. In designing such training courses, Biggs and Phillipson set out some guiding principles and themes: aims and objectives of training, anti-agist perspectives, theoretical perspectives, and empowering older people. In this context it is important that a target group is carefully identified and that the training takes place within given socioeconomic and cultural contexts so that learning becomes relevant and applicable in the day-to-day running of institutions or care for the elderly. The need for sensitization to the issue of violence against the elderly is an important leading component in social policy. A great deal is being conducted in a number of countries, especially in the developed world. However, a lot more needs to be done in order to ensure that the elderly live safely in their homes, in the community, and in institutions. What training and other means of communication can do to prevent violence cannot be divorced from the role that elderly themselves can play in this process. It is therefore important that every caregiver and professional person engaged in the care and welfare of older persons seeks proper training in this field of concern. On the other hand, every institution concerned

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Aggression and Altruism

with research on violence and care must make it a point to set up proper courses designed to reach the roots of the problem and to create proper tools and mechanisms to deter, prevent, challenge, and severely punish the perpetrators of violence on the elderly. See also: Family Structure and Family Violence; Violence to Children, Definition and Prevention of

Further Reading Cassell, E. J. (1989). Abuse of the elderly: Misuse of power. New York State Journal of Medicine. 89, 159–162. Eastman, M. (1984). Old age abuse, p 85. Portsmouth: Age Concern. Eastman, M. (ed.) (1994). Old age abuse, age concern, pp 15, 16, 215, 216. London: Chapman and Hall.

Danesh, H. B. (1995). The violence-free family – building block of peaceful civilization, pp. 47, 48. Ottawa: Bahai Studies Publications. Galtung, J. (1996). Peace by peaceful means, p 196. London: PRIO and Sage Publications. Krug, E., Dahlberg, L. L., Mercy, J. A., Zwi, A. B., and Lozano, R. (eds.) (2002). WHO World Report on Violence and Health: Abuse of the Elderly. Geneva: WHO Press. Lachs, M. and Pillemer, K. (2004). Elder Abuse. Lancet 364(9441): 1263–1272. MacLean, J. M. (1995). Abuse and neglect of older Canadians: Strategies for change, p 80. Toronto: Canadian Association on Gerontology and Thompson Educational Publishing, Inc.

Relevant Website http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/world.html – US Census Bureau, World Population Information. Acessed date 29 June 2007.

Aggression and Altruism Douglas P Fry, A˚bo Akademi University, Vasa, Finland ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Definitional Complexities Cultural Variation in Aggression and Altruism Aggression and Altruism in Relation to Social Distance Socialization and Enculturation Influences

Glossary Aggression Acts that inflict physical, psychological, and/ or social harm (pain/injury) on an individual or individuals. Altruism In terms of an evolutionary definition, altruism refers to any act that increases the fitness of others while simultaneously decreasing the fitness of the actor, whereas in terms of a nonevolutionary definition, it refers to an act involving some self-sacrifice from the actor that benefits another or others. Emics Interpretations of behavior and cultural meanings as expressed by the members of a culture themselves (see also etics). Enculturation The processes through which culture is transmitted to new generations. Etics Observer-based interpretations of behavior and meanings, usually offered by a cultural outsider (see also emics). Fitness (or genetic fitness) The average number of offspring contributed to the next generation of a population by individuals with a particular genetic constitution, or

This article is reproduced from the previous edition, volume 1, pp 17–34, Ó 1999, Elsevier Inc., with revisions made by the Editor.

Sex and Gender Conclusions: Human Flexibility and Violence Reduction Further Reading

genotype, relative to the contributions of individuals with other genotypes (see also inclusive fitness). Inclusive Fitness The fitness of an individual when the degree of genetic relationship with other individuals is also taken into consideration (see also fitness and kin selection). Indirect (Covert) Aggression When an individual uses social networks, third parties, elements of the social organization, and/or other covert means to inflict harm on another individual or individuals. Kin Selection Groups of relatives form the evolutionary units of selection that are acted upon by natural selection (see also fitness and inclusive fitness). Reciprocal Altruism ‘‘The trading of altruistic acts in which benefit is larger than cost so that over a period of time both enjoy a net gain’’ (Trivers, 1985, 361). Reciprocity Transactions wherein goods and services (here defined not only in economic terms, but rather in the broadest possible sense) are exchanged. Hence, reciprocity includes phenomena such as dinner invitations, exchange of favors, gifts, and so on.

Aggression and Altruism 15

Aggression and altruism can be seen as resting on the opposite poles of a social-interaction continuum; aggressive acts cause harm to others, whereas altruistic acts benefit others. Neither aggression nor altruism is without definitional complexities. One definitional issue, for example, involves assessing emic (actor-conceptualized) and etic (observer-operationalized) considerations when defining aggression. Clearly, aggression and altruism are greatly affected by cultural processes. Cross-cultural examples and comparisons illustrate the range of possible aggressive and altruistic behaviors engaged in by humans. For instance, some cultures have extremely low levels of physical aggression, while others have very high levels of physical aggression. Levels and manifestations of altruism also vary among cultures as well as among individuals within a culture. The impact of socialization and psychocultural processes on altruism and aggression is illustrated as peaceful Semai culture and violent Waorani culture are compared (in section ‘Cultural variation in aggression and altruism’) and also as a peaceful Zapotec community is compared with a more aggressive Zapotec community. Among the cultural variation, underlying patterns also can be detected. The greatest degrees of altruism, helping, sharing, and caring tend to occur among close relatives, and these behaviors decrease in intensity as social distance between individuals increases. Also, with greater social distance, restraints against aggression seem to decrease. These general tendencies are not without exceptions, of course, but the patterns are detectable across numerous social circumstances. Sex differences in aggression also show cross-cultural regularity. While women do engage in physical aggression in many cultures, the cross-cultural pattern is that men are more frequently and more severely physically aggressive than women. However, it should be held in mind that, in some cultures, both women and men are nonaggressive. Additionally, in some societies, women appear to use more indirect aggression than men, where indirect aggression entails use of social networks, third parties, and/or elements of the social organization to inflict harm covertly on another individual. In the concluding section of this article, the flexibility of human behavior and cultural systems is considered. Culture change wherein aggressive practices are supplanted by more peaceful alternatives does occur. Conflicts may be part and parcel of social life, but physical aggression is not. Cultural alternatives to violence exist.

Definitional Complexities Multiple Meanings of Aggression In general usage, the word aggression is employed in a multitude of ways. The same term is used, for example, to describe a schoolyard fight, serial murder, warfare, or the ‘pushiness’ of over-the-telephone solicitors. Furthermore,

the concept at times is used to refer to behavior (e.g., killings) and at other times to personality or cultural attributes of persons or groups (e.g., ‘an aggressive culture’). Sometimes aggression implies physical contact (which might range in severity from a slap to a stabbing), sometimes verbal behavior (again with great variation of expression), and sometimes social actions (such as ostracism). A distinction also can be made between direct aggression, wherein the identity of the actor typically is known, and indirect or covert aggression, wherein the identity of the perpetrator of the aggressive deed (and sometimes occurrence of the deed itself) may never be known by the recipient (e.g., malicious gossip). Another manifestation of the multifaceted usage of the term aggression involves the range of social levels across which it is applied, from individuals, sports teams, cultures, countries, and so on. Emic and Etic Definitions of Aggression Another definitional issue particularly relevant in anthropological investigations involves whether to favor emic (actor-conceptualized) or etic (observer-operationalized) approaches to defining aggression. Paul Heelas stresses emics and notes the role of culture in determining the meaning of particular actions. Heelas points out that actions that may be considered aggression in one culture may not be considered aggression in others, and he stresses that human aggression always occurs within a cultural context. Heelas sees no value in etic, observer-based definitions of aggression: ‘‘we must resist asserting that Ilongot youths are aggressive simply because they lop off heads; that Samoan fathers are aggressive simply because they beat their children; or, for that matter, that the British were aggressive when they lined up to exterminate the indigenous people of Tasmania.’’ To illustrate his argument, Heelas cites Napoleon Chagnon’s work among the Yanomamo¨ of South America and suggests that Yanomamo¨ wife-beating should not be considered aggression because inflicting physical injuries is how a husband shows that he ‘cares’ for his wife. James Silverberg and Patrick Gray find Heelas’ interpretation unconvincing and see value in both emic and etic perspectives: ‘‘Just because beatings may signify ‘caring’ to some Yanomamo¨ women (‘how many?’ is unclear) does not negate the etic reality of the beatings as violent acts.’’ Chagnon’s ethnographic observations indicate that the wives attempt to avoid beatings by their husbands; in other words, they are not eager recipients of this type of husbandly ‘care’, a point that Silverberg and Gray note in their critique of Heelas’ interpretation. The cultural context of Yanomamo¨ wife-beating also suggests that this socalled ‘caring’ occurs when a husband is angry at his wife, and that much of it results from a husband’s sexual jealousy. Chagnon writes, for instance: ‘‘Some men are given to punishing their wives by holding the glowing end of a piece of firewood against them, producing painful and

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serious burns . . . It is not uncommon for a man to injure his sexually errant wife seriously and some men have even killed wives for infidelity by shooting them with arrows.’’ An assessment of this emic–etic issue suggests there is utility in both perspectives, and that it is futile to argue the ‘correctness’ of one approach to the exclusion of the other. When the research goals are culturally comparative, then an etic perspective on aggression is critical, but when the goals are culturally interpretive, oriented toward understanding the belief system within a particular culture, focusing on emic ‘participant understandings’ obviously is of central importance. It can also be noted that these approaches need not be polarized to the point of mutual exclusivity. Choice of an emic, etic, or combined perspective for defining aggression relates in part to whether the research goals are culturally, comparative or ethnographically focused. A Tentative Consensus for Defining Aggression In the social and biological sciences, various definitions of aggression have been proposed, but in the recent literature some consensus can be noted that aggression generally refers to acts that inflict physical, psychological, and/or social harm (pain/injury) on an individual or individuals. This definition is considerably more narrow than the range of conceptions about aggression in society generally, yet it is still broad enough to include physical and verbal, and direct and indirect, actions. It is also broad enough to encompass diverse forms of ‘harm’ to the recipient, including various social harms. The definition also focuses on behavior and its consequences, rather than on attributes of the actor(s), whether they be long term (e.g., personality, cultural) or short term (e.g., intentions, emotions). Also, this conceptual definition of aggression can branch in both emic and etic directions. On the one hand, this definition can provide a general point of departure for subsequent emic specification. That is, a researcher can pursue an emic understanding of what types of acts cause physical, psychological, and/or social harm within a particular cultural belief system. Or heading in an etic direction, this same conceptual definition of aggression can also be operationalized in specific ways for either culturally internal or culturally comparative purposes. As discussed above, the gathering of emic information on aggression does not preclude the undertaking of culturally comparative etic analyses also, and vice versa. Difficulties in Defining Altruism While the idea of acting for the social good or for the benefit of others is a concept that has been considered for centuries, Charles Batson notes that Auguste Comte (1798–1857) coined the term altruism only about 150 years ago to refer to an unselfish desire to live for others,

a term he juxtaposed to egoism, or, the desire for selfgratification and self-benefit. More recently, Webster ’s Third New International Dictionary defines Comte’s term as ‘‘uncalculated consideration of, regard for, or devotion to others’ interests sometimes in accordance with an ethical principle.’’ In recent decades, the concept of altruism has taken two definitional directions, with the development of a relatively standard evolutionary definition, on the one hand, and a more diverse set of ethical and motivational definitions, on the other. In evolutionary terms, altruism can be defined as any act that increases the fitness of others while simultaneously decreasing the fitness of the actor. For example, a noted biological theorist, Robert Trivers, proposes that ‘‘altruistic behavior can be defined as behavior that benefits another organism, not closely related, while being apparently detrimental to the organism performing the behavior, benefit and detriment being defined in terms of contribution to inclusive fitness.’’ The reason that evolutionists have paid a great deal of attention to altruism in recent decades is because behaviors that are genuinely altruistic in an evolutionary sense pose a problem for the neo-Darwinian theory of natural selection. Namely, if altruistic behaviors are detrimental to the fitness of the individual engaging in them, while simultaneously increasing the fitness of others, then how could such behaviors have evolved? True altruism should be selected against by natural selection, since, by definition, it lowers the fitness of the individual performing the act. Jeffery Kurland, Robert Trivers, and others have independently noted that, upon careful examination, many behaviors that at first seemed to be altruistic in nature, actually may benefit the individuals engaging in the behaviors. For example, the helping behavior of older offspring towards their parents in rearing younger siblings, the giving of warning calls when a predator approaches, or the sharing of food – actions previously suspected or assumed to be examples of evolutionary altruism – have been shown also to accrue certain fitness benefits to the performers of the behaviors. Two primary mechanisms, (1) kin selection/inclusive fitness and (2) reciprocal altruism, have been used to reinterpret many actions once assumed to be strictly altruistic and will be discussed further in section ‘Aggression and altruism in relation to social distance’. Generally, definitions of altruism used in the social sciences and humanities tend to focus on ethics and/or motivations, not evolutionary fitness. For example, Charles Batson proposes that altruism be defined as ‘‘a motivational state with the ultimate goal of increasing another’s welfare.’’ Miller et al. also focus on motivations: ‘‘altruistic behaviors are defined as those prosocial behaviors that are motivated by other-oriented concern (e.g., sympathy) and internalized values. Additionally, altruistic behaviors are defined as not being motivated primarily by

Aggression and Altruism 17

the desires to obtain concrete or social rewards or to reduce aversive internal states (e.g., anxiety, guilt) due to being exposed to another’s distress or knowing that one has not behaved appropriately.’’ Finally, Walter Swap offers a definition of altruism as ‘‘behavior intended to, and resulting in, benefit to a needy recipient unrelated to the actor; that does not intentionally benefit the actor or, especially, that involves some sacrifice by the actor; and which occurs outside a normal helping role, or despite a help-inhibiting role.’’ The variation in the nonevolutionary definitions of altruism is an indication that multiple theoretical and conceptual questions are involved, some of which are discussed by Batson, Kurland, Miller and his co-authors, Swap, and others. A mere sampling of the questions that have been considered include: How can a person’s true motivations be determined? If motivation involves a mixture of altruistic and self-interested considerations, should the behavior be considered altruism? Does true altruism, untainted by some self-interest, really exist? What about cases when actions do not appear to be based on conscious motivations or conscious calculations (such as spur of the moment rescue attempts)? Is it necessary to consider motivations at all in defining altruism or can altruism be assessed based on a consideration of the effects of behaviors? What are the ‘currencies’ of altruism (evolutionary fitness, money, resources, risks, etc.)? Should behavior directed toward relatives be included or excluded from a definition of altruism? Why or why not? Several observations can be offered. First, given the number of unresolved issues pertaining to the definition of altruism, perhaps it is not surprising that the only feature that all of the above-quoted evolutionary and nonevolutionary definitions of altruism have in common is that an actor is benefiting other(s). Evolutionary definitions (e.g., that of Trivers) specify that fitness is the currency relevant for assessing the costs and benefits of behaviors both to the actor and recipients, while other definitions more vaguely and more diversely refer to satisfying ‘needs’ of the recipient (as in Swap’s definition), the ‘welfare’ of another or the group (as in Batson’s definition), and so on. Because evolutionary definitions of altruism share a focus on fitness, it is not surprising that they are fairly uniform, differing more in terms of phrasing and style than regarding the central concept itself. A second feature – which almost all of the definitions include – is the idea that altruism involves self-sacrifice, or ‘costs’ to the actor. For evolutionary definitions, ‘costs’, like ‘benefits’, are assessed in terms of fitness. In other definitions, self-sacrifice implies various ‘currencies’ such as giving up or sharing resources, spending time helping, or taking risks for the recipient. Only one of the definitions, Batson’s, does not include the condition of selfsacrifice. Third, most of the definitions (such as that of Miller et al. or Swap, and Webster ’s) hold that the actor is

‘uncalculating’, or not consciously motivated by potential self-gains or self-interest. Finally, at least when viewed from the point of view of the recipient, altruism and aggression have opposite effects: aggression inflicts harm while altruism bestows benefits on others.

Cultural Variation in Aggression and Altruism Introduction The main purpose of this section is to illustrate the tremendous cultural variation that exists regarding how aggression and altruism are manifested. Cultural examples will be presented, including a comparison of aggression and altruism among the peaceful Semai and the violent Waorani. Additionally, several analytical points emerge from a consideration of cultural variation. First, aggression is merely one of many ways that people deal with conflict. Second, culture provides a set of ‘rules’ regarding appropriate expressions of aggression and altruism. Third, a continuum exists ranging from peaceful cultures to violent ones; not all human cultures are violent. Fourth, aggression and altruism are expressed in a multitude of ways, and therefore, different manifestations of each concept may not intercorrelate exactly. Cultural Variation in Conflict Strategies Since divergent interests among individuals and groups of individuals occur in any society, conflict can be considered a natural aspect of social life. Conflict, however, does not always find expression in aggression, but rather can be dealt with in a variety of ways, for example, by denying its very existence, negotiating a mutually acceptable solution to a problem, appealing to a third party such as a judge, avoiding another person, and so on, In their book, Jeffrey Rubin, Dean Pruitt, and Sung Hee Kim propose that conflict – which they define as perceived divergence of interests – can be viewed in terms of three coping strategies (each with various more specific tactics) and a couple of avoidance strategies. The strategies vary both in terms of outcomes and the perceived feasibility for the parties involved in the conflict. The three coping strategies include contending (high concern for one’s own outcomes and low concern for other’s outcomes), problem solving (high concern for both one’s own and other’s outcomes), and yielding (low concern for one’s own outcomes and high concern for other’s outcomes). The two avoidance strategies – inaction and withdrawal – entail low concern for both one’s own and other’s outcomes. Cross-cultural examples illustrate these conflict strategies (as well as culturally specific tactics). In the Middle East, two Bedouins disputing the ownership of a particular camel have the culturally available option of taking

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their case to an arbitrator within their tribe, and in this system, their own kinfolk guarantee the disputants will follow the ruling of the arbitrator. This is an example of the contending strategy, in this case, without tactics, involving physical aggression. Instead, a set of tactics based on Bedouin cultural values, social institutions, and kinship organization involve relying on an arbitrating third party and the Bedouin kinship system. Other examples of the contending strategy abound among the Yanomamo¨ people of Amazonia, although recent findings suggest that not all Yanomamo¨ are as violent as those described by Napoleon Chagnon. Culturally specific Yanomamo¨ contending tactics that involve aggression include verbal and physical threatening, exchange of insults, shifting alliance formation for defense and offense, ambushing and raiding, abduction of women, chestpounding duels, club fights, ax fights, and spear fights. Among native Hawaiian families and among Semai Senoi bands of Malaysia, conflict-resolving events called ho’oponopono and becharaa’, respectively, provide examples of the problem-solving strategy for dealing with conflict. The Hawaiian ho’oponopono involves discussion, prayer, apology, and forgiveness with the goal of restoring harmonious relations among family members. The Semai becharaa’ is a formal dispute-resolving assembly. Clayton Robarchek describes how the disputants, their kin, and any other interested parties convene at the headman’s house. The headman serves as a mediator-arbitrator in the dispute. The headman and others repeatedly emphasize the interdependence of the band and may recall specific incidences of assistance given and received, in order to remind the disputants of the need to maintain harmony within the band. The becharaa’ may continue for several hours, or more typically, for several days and nights, continuously, until the conflict is resolved. ‘‘All the events leading up to the conflict are examined and reexamined from every conceivable perspective in a kind of marathon encounter group. Every possible explanation is offered, every imaginable motive introduced, every conceivable mitigating circumstance examined,’’ observes Robarchek. The overall emphasis is not to determine which disputant is ‘right’ and which is ‘wrong’, but rather to restore harmonious relations within the band. In the process, an emotional catharsis, or abreaction, seems to take place. Additionally, the value of social harmony and the mutual interdependence of the band are reiterated and reinforced. Examples of avoidance and yielding strategies are also apparent in a variety of ethnographic contexts. For instance, the avoidance strategy is widely employed among Finns, when faced with conflict, and also is described for the Toraja of Indonesia, the Fore of New Guinea, the !Kung of southern Africa, the Zapotec of southern Mexico, the Buid of the Philippines, and the Chewong of Malaysia, among others (readers are referred

to edited volumes by Douglas Fry and Kaj Bjo¨rk-qvist, Ashley Montagu, and Leslie Sponsel and Thomas Gregor for more information). An interesting example of the yielding strategy is provided in Colin Turnbull’s book, The Forest People, when he describes ‘‘the crime of Cephu,’’ an African Mbuti hunter who ignored group obligations, reciprocal exchanges, and attempted to ‘cheat’ others during a cooperative hunt. The band members first responded to these serious social transgressions by employing a series of nonviolent contending tactics: They ridiculed, insulted, criticized, lectured, and laughed at Cephu before finally suggesting that he and his family could leave the band, an outcome that would have been disastrous for Cephu and his kin, since a small group cannot hunt effectively. When faced with group ridicule and the threat of ostracism, Cephu yielded by apologizing profusely and giving up to the rest of the band all of his ill-acquired meat. He was then allowed to remain a member of the band. Cultures with Low Levels of Aggression While there are numerous cross-cultural examples of aggression – the wife-beating of the Yanomamo¨, the scalp-taking and horse-raiding exploits of the North American Plains cultures such as the Blackfoot, the killing and head-shrinking practices of the Jı´varo of South America – anthropologists such as Montagu and Sponsel and Gregor have compiled descriptions of cultures with very low levels of physical aggression, for example, the Buid of the Philippines, the Chewong of Malaysia, the Copper Eskimo of Canada, the Hutterites of Canada and the United States, the Mbuti of central Africa, the Piaroa of Amazonia, the Semai of Malaysia, the Siriono of Bolivia, the Tikopia of the western Pacific, the Toraja of Indonesia, the Veddahs of Sri Lanka, the Yames of Orchid Island near Taiwan, and certain Zapotec communities of Mexico, among others. Physical aggression is just one of a number of ways in which conflict can be dealt with, and every culture has a set of rules regarding to what degree, if any, physical aggression is acceptable, under what circumstances it might be appropriate, and in what manner it can be used. A cross-cultural perspective shows that besides physical aggression, nonphysical contending tactics (e.g., use of arbitrators, judges, or persuasive arguments) as well as numerous yielding, avoiding, and problem-solving tactics are also employed. The selection of particular conflict strategies and tactics is in large part culturally influenced. The following examples, from Zapotec and Toraja cultures, illustrate how physical aggression can be kept at low levels. Various mechanisms reduce aggression in a Mexican Zapotec community that Douglas Fry refers to as La Paz. First, the members of this tranquil community share – and regularly express – an image of themselves and others in their village as peaceful, respectful, cooperative,

Aggression and Altruism 19

and nonjealous. People from La Paz express nonviolent sentiments such as ‘we are all one family’, ‘we are peaceful’, and ‘we don’t fight’. It is noteworthy that values and beliefs which discourage aggression also have been reported in other peaceful cultures such as the Buid, Chewong, Mbuti, Semai, and Toraja. Second, children socialized within the La Paz cultural environment learn that acting aggressively is unacceptable. In section ‘Socialization and enculturation influences’, socialization practices will be contrasted between La Paz and a neighboring Zapotec village that is markedly more aggressive. Third, members of this peaceful community act in accordance with their internalized attitudes that favor conflict avoidance, denial of anger, and the prevention of dispute escalation. La Paz Zapotec are likely to respond to another’s anger or potential aggression by withdrawing. Such community attitudes also are reflected in the opinion of one La Paz citizen that it is better to drop a grievance against another person than to ‘‘prolong a dispute and make someone angry at you for a long time.’’ While the village mayor and other local authorities are available to mediate and adjudicate disputes in the formal setting of the municipal building – a fourth peace-maintaining mechanism – many, if not most, conflicts in fact never make it to the ‘courtroom’ due to the self-restraint and the peace-ensuring beliefs held by the citizens of the community. As can be seen in Table 1, which summarizes some of the psychocultural factors that minimize aggression in La Paz, many mechanisms that inhibit physical aggression are internalized, or intra-individual processes. The Toraja of Indonesia also devalue anger and aggression, and their maintenance of a peaceful lifestyle is

discussed by Douglas Hollan in a book edited by Fry and Bjo¨rkqvist. The Toraja place a high value on cooperation and community interdependence. They manage to avoid and defuse many conflicts, keeping them from ever becoming aggressive. Part of the Toraja’s success at maintaining social tranquility is due to mutually reinforcing psychocultural checks on conflict and aggression. For instance, when someone has a conflict with another person, avoidance of that individual is a typical response. The Toraja also believe that feeling anger can be harmful to one’s health, so for this and other reasons, they avoid discussing distressing events – including conflict situations – that might evoke or prolong feelings of distress, anger, or envy in themselves or others. If a person feels wronged in some way by another, the cultural belief that supernatural forces eventually give each person what he or she deserves can have a calming, peace-maintaining effect by helping to remove any thoughts of pressing a grievance or seeking some form of personal revenge. In conclusion, among the La Paz Zapotec and the Toraja, as well as among various other peaceful cultures, belief systems, attitudes, and norms that discourage aggression while promoting alternative, nonaggressive responses to conflict, coupled with redundant, mutually reinforcing psychocultural mechanisms – including both formal and informal means of dealing with conflict – appear to contribute significantly to the maintenance of a peaceful social life.

Variation in Altruism Interestingly, explicit use of the term altruism is rare within cultural anthropology. This is reflected in the

Table 1 Zapotec psycho-cultural conflict management mechanisms Level 1: Internal (intra-individual)

Level 2: External-informal

Level 3: External-formal

Denial of anger. Denial that a conflict exits. Avoidance of conflict situations and/or disputants.

Gossip. Witchcraft. Intervention by nonauthoritarian other(s), such as a family member.

Internalization of values incompatible with the expression of aggression (e.g., respect, equality). Positive image of others in the community. Fear of witchcraft. Beliefs that anger, hostility, and/or aggression are associated with illness. Fear of gossip.

Ostracism.

Local authority structure for mediation and adjudication of disputes; allows for the airing of grievances, apologies, reconciliation, and punishments, such as fines and overnight jailtime. District and state authorities; hearings, legal fees, fines, prison sentences.

Note: Level 1 is largely self-imposed, although culturally constructed. Levels 2 and 3 are both largely imposed by others. Adapted from Fry, D. P. (1994). Maintaining social tranquility: Internal and external loci of aggression control. In Sponsel, L. E. and Gregor, T. (eds.) The anthropology of peace and nonviolence, pp. 133–154. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.

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observation that probably the most widely used introductory text in anthropology (now in its eighth edition) has no index or glossary entries for altruism; additionally, a library computer search for altruism in the anthropology database produced only 36 sources (most of them related to the evolutionary considerations of altruism), while a comparable search of the psychology database produced 959 entries. Perhaps this difference in part can be accounted for by the greater usage within anthropology of terms such as cooperation, mutual assistance, helping, care giving, sharing, exchange, and the like, to refer to behavior that sometimes would meet the definition of altruism. For instance, although Douglas Oliver does not use the term altruism, he writes pertaining to a Solomon Island culture that, ‘‘although the Siuai have separate terms for ‘generosity’, ‘cooperativeness’, ‘morality’ (i.e., rule abiding), and ‘geniality’, I believe that they consider all these to be closely interrelated aspects of the same attribute of goodness.’’ Paralleling the cross-cultural variation in conflict and aggression, altruistic and helping behaviors also show cultural influence and cross-cultural diversity. At one extreme, the Ik, an African culture under extreme ecological and social stress, illustrates the egotistic, nonaltruistic capacities of human beings. The prime focus of the Ik is on maintaining a selfish personal autonomy. Providing another example of a culture with minimal sharing, Marshall Sahlins explains how the Dobu, who are extremely suspicious of others, share food only with a small circle of relatives and no one else. On the other end of the continuum, behaviors such as sharing, generosity, and helping – that is, approximate anthropological synonyms for altruism – are valued in cultures such as the Yukaghir, who voice the belief that a person ‘‘who possesses provisions must share them with those who do not possess them,’’ and among the Nuer of Africa, ‘‘it is the scarcity and not sufficiency that makes people generous, since everybody is thereby ensured against hunger. He who is in need today receives help from him who may be in like need tomorrow’’ Jochelson and Evans-Pritchard, quoted by Sahlins. A clear example of self-sacrifice can be drawn from the cultural ideology and behavior of Sikh separatists in India who were fighting for the establishment of their own independent state. Mahmood discusses the beliefs and actions that sometimes lead to the loss of one’s life: ‘‘A Sikh on the path of Guru has what is called charhdi kala, the ever-rising spirits associated with total liberation from the restrictions of ego. . . . The Sikh denial of fear in the face of danger, which some take as a kind of military bravado, has its roots in the theology of selflessness in which ego’s attachment to its own life has been extinguished in favor of identification with a greater spirit.’’ Another example of supreme self-sacrifice engaged in for the benefit of the larger social group,

occurred in 1981 when Bobby Sands and nine other IRA prisoners in Northern Ireland engaged in a hunger strike to the death. The striking men volunteered from a group of 60 IRA prisoners, and they thought that their sacrifice would benefit the other prisoners and their cause in general. The majority of the strikers died as a result of their actions. Thus a range of behavior extending from the ultimate altruistic sacrifice of one’s own life for the good of one’s companions, at one end, to the selfish disregard for others, at the other, can be found among humans. Additional examples of these contrasting sides of humanity are apparent as the Semai and Waorani cultures are now compared. Case Study: The Peaceful Semai and the Aggressive Waorani Anthropologists Clayton and Carole Robarchek have conducted comparative fieldwork among the Semai of Malaysia, who they describe as one of ‘‘the world’s most peaceful people,’’ and the Waorani of Ecuador, a culture that until recently was ‘‘the most violent society known.’’ Among the peaceful Semai, ‘‘husbands and wives do not assault one another, parents do not physically punish their children, neighbors do not fight with one another, and homicide is so rare as to be virtually nonexistent.’’ Among the Waorani, at the other extreme, 60% of the deaths over the last five or six generations have been homicides, largely resulting from raiding and feuding. And the Waorani traditionally killed all foreigners on sight. The Semai and the Waorani are remarkably similar in many ways, including their ecological adaptions and many facets of social organization. Both groups, for example, live at similar altitudes in equatorial rainforests and are swidden gardeners, hunters, and foragers. Their technologies are almost identical. Both the Semai and Waorani are band-level societies. The bands are generally fewer than 100 persons and are autonomous and acephalous. The basic economic unit is the household. Robarchek and Robarchek account for the extreme differences in aggressiveness between the Semai and the Waorani in terms of differing cultural–social– psychological complexes. Important differences exist between the otherwise similar Semai and Waorani cultures regarding ‘‘their assumptions about human beings and the worlds they inhabit, in the cultural values that come to constitute central components of their constructions of self, and in their differing conceptions of the relationships of the individual to a wider community.’’ During socialization and enculturation, each Semai acquires a group-dependent self-conception and an image of a dangerous and hostile world external to the band, with security and nurturance only stemming from kin and other band members. In marked contrast, Waorani socialization results in both women and men

Aggression and Altruism 21

who see themselves as independent from others and selfreliant. Waorani culture values and emphasizes individualism and autonomy; Semai culture stresses the interdependence of the band members and promotes sharing, generosity, and helping behavior. Robarchek and Robarchek quote the commonly reiterated Semai ideal pertaining to all the relationships within the band: ‘‘We are all siblings here and we take care of one another.’’ Among the Waorani, values of autonomy, independence, and self-reliance are reflected in the examples of women giving birth alone, men regularly hunting alone for days at a time, the elderly being neglected by their families when they become a burden or at times being speared to death by their relatives, snakebite victims being left in the rainforest to recover or perish on their own and, in the event of a raid, individuals generally running for their lives without assisting others, even their close family members, to escape. In short, among the Waorani, ‘‘some assistance can be expected from close kin, but a person’s survival and well-being are primarily his or her own responsibility,’’ while among the Semai, by contrast, ‘‘any person in need has a legitimate claim on the resources of anyone else in the community.’’ Occasional altruism and helping behavior can be found among close relatives in Waorani society, while by contrast sharing and generosity are common occurrences within the entire Semai band: ‘‘They inform a self-image that has generosity and nonviolence as its central components. Since most people do, in fact, approximate this ideal, the image is actualized in day-to-day behavior.’’ In essence, the central cultural values, worldviews, and conceptions of self differ dramatically between these two cultures. Regarding both aggression and altruism, it is hard to image two cultures that are more different. The Semai stress generosity, sharing, cooperation, unity, and dependence, while the Waorani emphasize individual independence, autonomy, and self-reliance. The Semai see the peace and harmony of the band as paramount and conceptualize themselves as critically dependent on others in the band; the Waorani lack a sense of community and disputes are primarily the concern of the actual participants. The Semai value nonviolence, while this obviously is not true of the Waorani. As discussed earlier in this section, the Semai have a special conflict resolution mechanism, the be-charaa’, which serves primarily to restore harmony and reinforce Semai values following a dispute. In terms of daily life, dominant cultural values, self-conceptualizations, the virtual absence of homicides, and other indicators, the Semai are one of the most peaceful cultures known. Until recent cultural changes (which will be discussed in section ‘Conclusions: human flexibility and violence reduction’), the Waorani were the polar opposite of the Semai in this regard, for example, with probably the highest homicide rates of any human culture. Robarchek and Robarchek say, ‘‘Among the

Waorani, neither a commitment to peacefulness in the abstract nor a concern with the group well-being prevailed. Absent a sense of community, conflict is primarily the concern of the individuals involved and their immediate kin. No formal mechanisms exist for dispute settlement, and when serious conflicts arise, the only options are to surrender, retreat, threaten, or attack.’’ The cross-cultural variation in aggression and altruism, of which the Semai and Waorani represent contrasting extremes (see Table 2), shows that humans are not always or inevitably aggressive. Human beings have capacities that range between the extremes of Semai peacefulness and cooperativeness to Waorani violence and autonomy. Thus the human species exhibits a great deal of flexibility regarding selfishness and helping behaviors, aggression and peacefulness, and the manifestation of these behaviors depends on interacting psychocultural processes. Consequently violence is not an inevitable human characteristic seen in all cultures.

Aggression and Altruism in Relation to Social Distance Evolutionary and Cultural Considerations of Kin Selection and Reciprocal Altruism In 1964, theoretical biologist William Hamilton suggested that the degree of biological relatedness between socially interacting individuals affects the manner in which they interact with each other. The more closely individuals are related, the more examples of helping, sharing, and caring should be expected, while harmful behaviors such as aggression, should be minimized in accordance with the closeness of the genetic relationship. Hamilton reasoned that since relatives share a certain percentage of genes in common, helping relatives is an indirect way to enhance one’s own genetic fitness. Hamilton called this idea inclusive fitness, reasoning that ‘‘the social behaviour of a species evolves in such a way that in each behaviourevoking situation the individual will seem to value his neighbours’ fitness against his own according to the coefficients of relationship appropriate to that situation.’’ Hamilton was not suggesting that individuals consciously calculate the degree to which they are related to others before behaving either altruistically or selfishly, but rather that natural selection performs this fitness ‘cost–benefit’ analysis on individuals over many generations. The concept of inclusive fitness, also sometimes called kin selection, provides one answer to the evolutionary problem, mentioned in section ‘Definitional complexities’, regarding how altruism could have evolved if it is detrimental to the fitness of the actor. That is, Hamilton’s concept of inclusive fitness extends the evaluation of an individual’s fitness beyond the individual to include also the individual’s relatives, those who carry some of the

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Table 2 Comparison of Semai and Waorani cultures Semai (peaceful)

Waorani (aggressive)

Location: Malaysia. Live in equatorial rainforests. Swidden gardeners; also hunt and gather. Main crops: Manioc, bananas, plantains. Technologies: axes, machetes, blowpipes, spears, etc. Social organization: Band level. Highly egalitarian. Bilateral decent. Socialization: Indulgent and nonpunitive. Resolve disputes through the Becharaa’. Homicide is virtually nonexistent. View the world as a dangerous, hostile place with numerous malevolent supernatural beings and forces. Believe that human beings are helpless and dependent.

Location: Ecuador. Live in equatorial rainforests. Swidden gardeners; also hunt and gather. Main crops: Manioc, bananas, plantains. Technologies: axes, machetes, blowpipes, spears, etc. Social organization: Band level. Highly egalitarian. Bilateral decent. Socialization: Indulgent and nonpunitive. No formal mechanism for resolving disputes. Over the last 5 or 6 generations, 60% of deaths due to homicide. View the world as nonthreatening and nondangerous except for dangers posed by human violence. Believe that human beings are capable, autonomous, and selfreliant. The world exists for human purposes and humans can control it. Humans are emotional and act impulsively; anger is a common explanation for aggression. Social obligations are limited to the closest kin; all other Waorani are potential enemies; non-Waorani traditionally were killed on sight. There are few taboos, no protective spirits, and little use of magic.

The world is beyond human control. Impulsive action, emotions, and affect are dangerous and must be controlled. Kin and other band members provide security and nurturance; outsiders are dangerous. Religious rituals are focused toward gaining assistance of protective spirits to cure and prevent the illness caused by malevolent spirits. Living in a dangerous world, humans are dependent on their kin and other band members for security, nurturance, and support. Sharing, helping, cooperating are common, on a bandwide basis.

Human skills and knowledge are seen as adequate for satisfying human needs; each individual is largely self-reliant. Sharing, helping, cooperating are uncommon and limited to close kin.

Note: Information in this table is compiled from Robarchek, C. A. and Robarchek, C. J. (1996). Waging peace: The psychological and sociocultural dynamics of positive peace. In Wolfe, A. W. and Yang, H. (eds.) Anthropological contributions to conflict resolution, pp. 64–80. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.

same genes. For example, when an individual protects and cares for close relatives, thereby increasing the relatives’ chance of survival and their fitness, the actor is simultaneously enhancing his or her own inclusive fitness. When this is the case, such sacrifices cannot truly be called altruism in an evolutionary meaning. Over the last decades, as discussed separately by Jeffery Kurland and Robert Trivers, biologists investigating animal behavior in relation to the inclusive-fitness, kin-selection concept have found a great deal of evidence to support the model. For example, alarm calls previously assumed to be altruistic have been determined to be given by mothers and directed at their own offspring and other relatives, and helping behavior of an older sibling in avian species has been found to be beneficial to the helper’s own fitness, and hence not an example of altruism at all. Turning to humans, helping relatives is thought to be such normal and natural human behavior that it is at least partially taken for granted. In 1965, social–cultural anthropologist Marshall Sahlins reviewed the cross-cultural patterns of exchange relationships in what has become a classic paper. Sahlins reminds the reader of nineteenth-

century anthropologist Edward Tyler’s dictum that one of the primary principles of social life is that kindness goes with kindred, a point reflected in the common derivation of these two English words. Sahlins employs three terms to classify reciprocity in social relationships: generalized, balanced, and negative. Sahlins sees these types of reciprocity as forming a continuum from ‘‘assistance freely given’’ in generalized reciprocity to ‘‘self-interested seizure, appropriation by chicanery or force’’ in negative reciprocity. Sahlins uses copious cross-cultural examples to illustrate how these forms of reciprocity correlate with kinship distance: ‘‘Reciprocity is inclined toward the generalized pole by close kinship, toward the negative extreme in proportion to kinship distance.’’ Generalized reciprocity ‘‘refers to transactions that are putatively altruistic, transactions on the line of assistance given and, if possible and necessary, assistance returned. . . . ‘sharing’, ‘hospitality’, ‘free gift’, ‘help’, and ‘generosity’.’’ Sahlins notes that generalized reciprocity – for example, the suckling of an infant by its mother or the sharing of food among close relatives – lacks any expectation of direct repayment. Lorna Marshall’s observation pertaining to the !Kung also

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corresponds with this assessment: ‘‘Altruism, kindness, sympathy, or genuine generosity were not qualities which I observed often in their behaviour. However, these qualities were not entirely lacking, especially between parents and offspring, between siblings and between spouses.’’ Balanced reciprocity involves a direct and equal exchange, as seen in trade or gift exchange, while negative reciprocity is an attempt to get something for nothing through haggling, theft, seizure, and so on. Negative reciprocity can involve aggression, and again, the cross-cultural data indicate that negative reciprocity tends to occur at the greatest social distances. Sahlins’ comment that ‘‘it is a long way from suckling a child to a Plains Indians’ horse-raid,’’ reflects the arrangement of altruistic-to-aggressive behaviors along the social distance continuum. The cross-cultural pattern of reciprocity type and social distance is directly in accordance with Hamilton’s inclusive-fitness concept. This cross-cultural pattern suggests that relatives generally are less likely to behave so as to harm one another, while to the contrary, relatives are most likely to engage in altruistic acts for one another. Pertaining to both aggression and prosocial behavior, R. Dunbar, Amanda Clark, and Nicola Hurst provide additional evidence that behavioral decisions do in fact relate to inclusive-fitness, kin-selection considerations. These researchers analyze historical data on Viking populations and find that kinship is involved in decisions regarding both alliance formation and revenge murder. Viking alliances were more likely to be made among relatives than among unrelated families, and the kin-based alliances also proved to be longer in duration and involved less preconditions than alliances among nonrelatives. Dunbar, Clark, and Hurst also conclude that decisions related to homicides reflect both inclusive-fitness theory and cost– benefit ratios. Nonrelatives were murdered at times for no economic gain – such as during drunken brawls – whereas relatives were infrequently killed to begin with, but when a relative was killed, there always existed some substantial benefit for the killer. Much evidence presented by Martin Daly and Margo Wilson on homicides in different settings also is in accordance with inclusive-fitness theory. For instance, they demonstrate that when murders occur within a household, biological relatives are much less likely to be the victims than are nonbiological relatives. The concept of reciprocal altruism, like inclusive fitness, is relevant for reinterpreting behaviors that sometimes were assumed to be examples of genuine altruism. Reciprocal altruism can be seen as an example of what Sahlins calls balanced reciprocity, or equal exchange. The originator of the reciprocal altruism concept, Robert Trivers, explains the concept as ‘‘the trading of altruistic acts in which benefit is larger than cost so that over a period of time both enjoy a net gain.’’ The balanced exchange of goods and obligations is nearly ubiquitous across cultures. Lorna Marshall, for

example, notes that a meat sharing rule among the !Kung is that ‘‘the person who receives a gift of meat must give a reciprocal gift some time in the future.’’ This rule closely reflects the reciprocal altruism concept. Divergent theoretical perspectives within anthropology have proposed different interpretations of reciprocal exchange. On the one hand, exchange has been interpreted by functionalists and economic substantivists as representing altruistic and integrative behaviors serving the social group overall. This perspective speaks of the integrative value of reciprocity and the community intent of protecting social group solidarity. On the other hand, formal economic anthropologists and others view reciprocal exchanges as permitting the participants to be better off than they would have been had they not conducted the exchange transaction. For example, John Bennett analyzes exchange among Saskatchewan farmers and ranchers from this perspective. Bennett reports that nearly all ranchers and farmers lend and borrow agricultural machinery on a regular basis, cooperatively assist each other in rounding-up and branding their livestock, and engage in dyadic partnerships and/or labor exchange networks. Bennett notes that while the participants in exchanges represent their activities as spontaneous and altruistic, in actuality, the exchanges are very important economically and each party benefits. While inclusive fitness can account for some types of human altruism, humans often aid nonrelatives. As Trivers suggests, the concept of reciprocal altruism accounts for such actions, because he explains, reciprocal altruism is a kind of symbiosis, ‘‘each partner helping the other while he helps himself. The symbiosis has a time lag; one partner helps the other and must wait a period of time before he is helped in turn.’’ This type of arrangement is exactly what Bennett documents for Saskatchewan farmers and ranchers, and also matches Lorna Marshall’s description of meat sharing among the !Kung, wherein ‘‘the person one shares with will share in turn when he gets meat and people are sustained by a web of mutual obligation.’’ Trivers also notes that inclusive fitness and reciprocal altruism are compatible concepts. Both mechanisms can operate simultaneously within an exchange relationship, and each can also operate simultaneously in different exchange relationships. Data from a recent study on information exchange among lobster fishermen not only support both these evolutionary concepts, but also suggest that information sharing may result in the participating individuals maintaining advantageous membership within a web of community social relationships. Beyond Nature versus Nurture The study of aggression and altruism is multidisciplinary, and even within anthropology, there are various perspectives on altruism and aggression. For example, psychological

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anthropologists in approaching altruism and selfishness, aggression or peacefulness, may highlight socialization, enculturation, and/or other social–psychological–cultural processes such as conceptions of self or internalization of values, while evolutionary anthropologists are apt to focus on altruism and aggression using inclusive fitness, sexual selection, reciprocal altruism, and other evolutionary concepts. As mentioned above, the diverse interpretations of reciprocal exchange offered by functionalists, formal economists, and other anthropologists also illustrate the diversity of theoretical interpretations within anthropology. An anthropological rendition of the nature–nurture fallacy entails juxtaposing evolutionary and more proximate cultural analysis as mutually exclusive perspectives. However, such polarization of explanations is unfortunate, because aggression, altruism, and other multifaceted behaviors are too complex to be accounted for exclusively through any single perspective. Both biological and cultural perspectives can contribute to an understanding of aggression and altruism, and to acknowledge a contribution from biology does not automatically imply ‘determinism’ or ‘reductionism’, nor does it diminish the obviously important influences of culture and learning. Furthermore, evolutionary and proximate interpretations are at times quite complementary. A model developed by psychologist Kevin MacDonald illustrates an integrated biocultural model of human altruism. MacDonald emphasizes the behavioral flexibility of human beings, and suggests that cognitive, affective, and perceptual processes are based on fundamental biologically based predispositions to respond during individual development to certain social inputs, especially from parents, related to the social learning of altruistic behavior. MacDonald clearly attempts to integrate evolutionary and a variety of more proximate psychocultural mechanisms in his discussion of altruism: ‘‘The proposal here is that by understanding altruism as a behavioral system involving a variety of cognitive and affective subsystems and genetic predispositions we will be better able to account for these cross-cultural data.’’ Furthermore, MacDonald’s perspective is in accordance with the wide cultural variation from altruistic to egoistic cultural systems, represented in extreme form, for example, through the comparison of the interdependent Semai and the selfreliant Waorani.

Socialization and Enculturation Influences Introductory Considerations Socialization and social learning processes are crucial in shaping behaviors, including aggression and altruism. Through socialization within a particular culture,

individuals acquire views as to what the world is like and the nature of ‘human nature’, adopt particular attitudes and values, and gain an understanding of the cultural meaning of events and behaviors. In any culture, socialization involves modeling and imitation, reinforcement and punishment, cognition and reflection, and such processes have direct influences on the development of aggressive, peaceful, altruistic, and egocentric attitudes and behaviors. Psychologists note that conditions which have been shown to be particularly relevant to the learning and continuance of aggressive behavior patterns, for example, are those in which aggression is reinforced, there are many opportunities to witness aggression in others, there are few opportunities for developing affective social ties with others, and the individual personally is a recipient of aggression. Longitudinal psychological studies show that both aggressive and prosocial behaviors tend to persist into adulthood once they are learned in childhood; in one study, individuals who behaved aggressively when they were 8 years old also tended to behave aggressively when they were 30 years old. The same intra-individual consistency also was found for prosocial behaviors such as sharing.

An Example: The Learning of Peacefulness or Aggressiveness among Zapotec Children A comparison of two Zapotec communities illustrates the impact of socialization and enculturation influences on the development of conflict styles. San Andre´s and La Paz are pseudonyms for two endogamous Zapotec communities, studied by Douglas Fry, that are similar in many respects and lie about 6 km apart in the Valley of Oaxaca in southern Mexico. La Paz is considerably more peaceful than San Andre´s. The murder and physical assault rates are higher in San Andre´s, fistfights and wife-beatings are more common in San Andre´s, and children are struck more often. Additionally, the community images and ideologies related to conflict differ in the two communities. The people of La Paz hold a consistent image of themselves as peaceful and respectful people, while the citizens of San Andre´s perceive that at least some persons from their community are aggressive and disrespectful. In other words, these communities present the growing child with different social and ideological learning environments, conducive to learning and adopting differing modes of interaction with other persons. Youngsters in La Paz see adults avoiding physical aggression and overt expressions of conflict, while simultaneously cooperating and treating others with respect. These children from La Paz hardly ever witness physical aggression, nor are they likely to be the objects of aggression themselves, because adults in this community consider words to be

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appropriate for effective child rearing. Parents emphasize the importance of teaching, explaining, and showing their children appropriate behaviors; one La Paz father expressed a typical sentiment, that ‘‘One must explain to the child with love, with patience, so that little by little the child understands you.’’ By contrast, in San Andre´s, a homicide occurs every 3–5 years, and the growing children of the community hear the details of such murders repeatedly recounted by the adults. The youngsters of San Andre´s also have many opportunities to observe fistfights, wife-beatings, and child-beatings with their own eyes, and they learn in this cultural environment that the use of physical aggression is sometimes acceptable. Systematic behavior observations which Fry conducted on samples of 3- to 8-year-old children in La Paz and San Andre´s revealed that La Paz children participated in significantly less aggression and play aggression than San Andre´s children. The nature and content of the children’s aggression also differed between the two communities. The less frequent aggressive episodes in La Paz were also less severe, consisting of proportionately more noncontact threatening and less actual physical aggression compared with the aggressive episodes engaged in by the San Andre´s children. Additionally, while over the 3–8 year age range play aggression significantly increased in San Andre´s, the same was not the case in La Paz. There also is some indication that nonplay, or serious, aggression increased over this age range in San Andre´s and decreased with age in La Paz, this latter trend being extremely close to statistical significance. Considered together, the behavioral findings suggest that a reluctance to engage in aggression and play aggression already has developed in the 3–8 year age range among La Paz children relative to the San Andre´s children. These differences in children’s behavior correspond with the interpretation that different beliefs and values regarding the expression of aggression and prosocial behaviors such as respect are internalized beginning at an early age in these two communities. Prevalent attitudes regarding what constitutes acceptable behavior, shared expectations about the nature of the citizenry, and overall images of the community’s aggressiveness and peacefulness are all elements of a child’s learning environment. Through socialization, even by the 3–8 year age range, La Paz children have begun to develop internal controls against engaging in both aggression and play aggression. While the total picture as to why La Paz and San Andre´s differ regarding conflict and aggression involves various interacting factors, the findings on differences in children’s behavior clearly indicate that the differing socialization environments are contributing to the perpetuation of community differences in peacefulness and aggressiveness.

Sex and Gender Sex Differences Cross-culturally, men are more physically aggressive than women. For example, cross-culturally, with very few exceptions, it is men who fight in wars. Men also tend to commit more homicides than women, as demonstrated, for instance, by Martin Daly and Margo Wilson in their book Homicide. After reviewing the psychological literature, Eleanor Maccoby and Carol Jacklin conclude that ‘‘the greater aggressiveness of the male is one of the best established, and most pervasive, of all psychological sex differences.’’ However, Kaj Bjo¨rkqvist and Pirkko Niemela¨ have suggested that much of the Western psychological literature on gender differences in aggression focuses primarily on physical aggression and also reflect other methodological limitations. Nonetheless, psychological, anthropological, and criminological sources suggest that physical aggression is both more frequent and more severe among males than females, and this species-typical pattern (which also is typical of mammals generally) is understandable through evolutionary models advanced by Martin Daly and Margo Wilson, and Robert Trivers in his 1985 book, among others, that consider differential male–female parental investment and sexual selection. Based on the findings of a cross-cultural survey of societies, Victoria Burbank emphasizes that simply because males are physically more aggressive than females does not mean that women are always nonaggressive, Burbank reports that women do engage in physical aggression in 61% of 137 cultures she examined. To consider a specific ethnographic example, Kimberley Cook reports that out of 18 instances of physical aggression she observed on Margarita Island off the coast of Venezuela, eight (44%) involved women being physically aggressive. Cook writes, ‘‘In San Fernando, the use of verbal and physical aggression by women is a frequent and expected occurrence . . . Upon several occasions I observed women engaged in ferocious verbal fight among themselves which were accompanied by fist-waving, insults, and the hurling of pebbles at the feet of their opponents.’’ Victoria Burbank, Kimberley Cook, and Nicole Hines and Douglas Fry, among other researchers, have described physical and verbal aggression among women in cultures ranging from the Argentines and Australian Aborigines to the Zambians and Zapotecs. ‘‘Women in Argentina do engage in physical aggression. They may push and shove each other in lines or hit their husbands or boyfriends. But women’s physical aggression is perceived as less frequent, less severe, and relatively harmless compared to men’s aggression.’’ Hence, women in some cultural settings do engage in physical aggression, although they are generally less physically aggressive than men.

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Women may well express aggression differently than men. As discussed in section ‘Definitional complexities’, aggression can be verbal as well as physical, and indirect as well as direct. In Argentina, both sexes are verbally aggressive, and this finding corresponds with several reviews, such as Burbank’s, that suggest that both men and women use verbal aggression. However, the subtleties of how men and women employ verbal aggression within various cultural settings have yet to be studied. Indirect Aggression Indirect or covert aggression involves use of social networks, third parties, elements of the social organization, and/or other covert means to inflict harm on another individual. By using indirect aggression, the attacker can inflict physical, psychological, and/or social harm on a victim, perhaps without ever being detected. Indirect aggression, as expressed within the social context of a given cultural meaning system, might entail, for example, the spreading of malicious gossip about someone, arranging for the social exclusion of a rival from group activities, blocking social benefits that an individual would otherwise accrue, arranging for a third party to attack the victim, either verbally or physically, practicing witchcraft or sorcery directed at harming the victim, and so on. Research on conflict behavior in Finland conducted by Douglas Fry provides examples of indirect aggression wherein persons maliciously provide government agencies with ‘tips’ about supposed wrongdoings committed by other persons that range, for instance, from alleged zoning infractions to tax avoidance. The reported persons then suffer various degrees of embarrassment, aggravation, and lost time and resources, necessitated by having to respond to investigations launched by authorities. Research indicates that, at least in several cultural contexts, females may make greater use of indirect aggression than males, although members of both sexes have been found to employ indirect tactics. Examples of women employing indirect aggression, perhaps in greater frequency than men, have been noted for Finland, Argentina, and Mexican Zapotec. For instance, among Argentines of Buenos Aires ‘‘women, more than men, favor indirect aggression . . . respondents tend to agree that women, more than men, judge others, gossip, lie about others, exclude persons from social events, and interrupt conversations.’’ In conclusion, cross-culturally men tend to engage in more physical aggression, and more severe physical aggression, such as homicides, than women. However, women also are reported to engage in physical aggression in many cultures, although incidences may be rare. And, as discussed in previous sections, some cultures have very low levels of physical aggression overall,

among both sexes. Cultural patterns are clearly very influential regarding the expression of both male and female aggression, as shown, for instance, by Cook’s work in Margaritan˜o society. And, as shown by Burbank, there are numerous cases of both men and women acting verbally aggressive cross-culturally. Finally, there is tentative evidence from several cultural settings that women may make greater use of indirect aggression than men.

Conclusions: Human Flexibility and Violence Reduction Human Flexibility and Social Change History and anthropology provide numerous instances of major social change, including examples of cultures supplanting violent practices or institutions with less violent ones, sometimes on their own and at other times when influenced by outside forces. James Greenberg recounts how a Chatino community in the southern highlands of Mexico, which was once fraught with violent murders and maimings, instituted an agrarian reform and, in a movement initiated by the women and later supported by the majority of villagers, banned alcohol consumption – a major social change – which drastically reduced the bloodshed. Greenberg recounts that ‘‘sick of seeing their men killed in blood feuds, the women of the village had organized and had managed to pass an ordinance prohibiting the sale and consumption of alcohol and the carrying of knives or guns. These measures were effective and put an end to the blood feuding and factionalism in the village.’’ This ban on alcohol was strictly enforced, for the good of the community, and even when someone from the village was seen drinking in a neighboring town, they were jailed and fined upon their return to the village, even if sober at that time. Another example of social change leading away from violence is the abolition of the army in Costa Rica in 1948, an action that created the world’s first totally disarmed country. Oscar Arias expresses that the spirit of peace lives on ‘‘in a country that has proven the seemingly Utopian hypothesis that a small, poor, demilitarized country can survive amidst mighty and wealthy neighbors. Costa Rica serves as an example of peace and democracy in a region of war and dictatorship.’’ In section ‘Cultural variation in aggression and altruism’ of this article, the Waorani of Ecuador are described as an example of an extremely violent society. Besides demonstrating a cultural extreme regarding aggressiveness and self-reliance, the Waorani also dramatically illustrate the human capacity to enact cultural change, to bring about peace. While not becoming an inherently nonviolent society, the Waorani have managed to reduce

Aggression and Altruism 27

their homicide rate by more than 90% in a matter of a few years. Clayton and Robarchek explain: ‘‘The killers are still there – many were our friends and neighbors – but with relatively rare exceptions, they have stopped killing. They were not conquered or incarcerated, nor were they incorporated as equals into the socioeconomic system of Ecuadorian society. Rather, new leaders emerged who possessed new information and offered a new set of alternatives.’’ The catalyst for the astounding reduction in violence among the Waorani, as among the Chatino studied by James Greenberg, involved women. Two Waorani women, who had fled the territory to escape being killed in vendettas, returned in the accompaniment of two Protestant missionary women. The two returnees presented the other members of their culture with a new vision of the world, one where all outsiders did not have to be killed upon contact and one where feuding could cease. The two women missionaries provided the means through airplane gift-drops and radio technology to make initial contacts with a widening circle of hostile Waorani groups. Robarchek and Robarchek describe how newly contacted hostile groups also were presented with the possibility of a new reality, a reality based on peace, ‘‘without constant fear of violent death. As bands became convinced that the feuding could stop, peace became a goal in its own right, even superseding the desire for revenge.’’ The cultural change was not brought about simply through a Christianization process. The decision, though, to end the vendettas and pursue a new, more peaceful reality according to Robarchek and Robarchek was ‘‘reinforced among some, but by no means all, individuals and groups by the acceptance of some of the other Christian values and beliefs stressed by the missionaries. The result was that new cultural knowledge – new information and new perceptions of reality – allowed people to visualize new options and new goals.’’ In essence, the Waorani themselves decided that they wanted to stop the violence and adopt a new manner of existence. Conclusions Aggression and altruism can be seen as opposites: aggressive acts cause harm to others, while altruistic acts benefit others. Clearly, both aggression and altruism are greatly affected by cultural processes. Cross-cultural comparisons show the range of possible aggressive and altruistic behaviors engaged in by humans. Some cultures have extremely low levels of physical aggression, while others have very high levels of physical aggression. Levels and manifestations of altruism also vary across cultures. However, among the cultural variation, underlying patterns can also be detected. The greatest degrees of altruism, helping, sharing, and caring tend to occur among close relatives, and these behaviors decrease in intensity as social distance

between individuals increases. Furthermore, with greater social distance, restraints against aggression seem to decrease. These general tendencies are not without exceptions, of course, but the patterns are detectable across numerous social circumstances. Sex differences in aggression also show a cross-cultural pattern. While women engage in physical aggression in many cultures, the crosscultural pattern is that men are more frequently and more severely physically aggressive than women. However, it should be held in mind that in some cultures, both women and men are nonaggressive. The bold political decision of Costa Rican leaders to abolish their armed forces and the violence-reduction successes of the Chatino and Waorani peoples clearly show the tremendous potential for human cultural change. These examples considered in conjunction with the other evidence reviewed in this article – such as the comparisons between the peaceful Semai and violent Waorani and between the peaceful Zapotec community of La Paz and more aggressive San Andre´s – demonstrate the extent of human flexibility regarding aggression and altruism. The great cultural variation in human aggression and altruism is possible because of human behavioral flexibility. Behavioral flexibility also makes possible cultural transitions away from violence, cultural transformations that the Chatino, Costa Rican, and Waorani examples demonstrate can be as dramatic in their magnitude as they are rapid in their realization. The evidence considered in this article shows that while conflicts may be part and parcel of social life, physical aggression need not be. Many alternatives to violence exist, and it is possible for societies to become less violent. See also: Aggression, Psychology of; Clan and Tribal Conflict; Cultural Anthropology Studies of Conflict; Evolutionary Theory; Gender Studies; Neuropsychology of Motivation for Group Aggression and Mythology; Peaceful Societies; Victimology

Further Reading Arias, O. (1997). Esquipulas II: The management of a regional crisis. In Fry, D. P. and Bjo¨rkqvist, K. (eds.) Cultural variation in conflict resolution: Alternatives to violence, pp. 147–158. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Baron, R. A. and Richardson, D. R. (2003). Human aggression, 2nd ed. New York: Springer. Batson, C. D. (1991). The altruism question: Toward a socialpsychological answer. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Bennett, J. W. (1968). Reciprocal economic exchanges among North American agricultural operators. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 24, 276–309. Bowles, S. and Gintis, H. (2004). The evolution of strong reciprocity: Cooperation in heterogeneous populations. Theoretical Population Biology 65, 17–28. Bjo¨rkqvist, K. and Niemela¨, P. (1992). New trends in the study of female aggression. In Bjo¨rkqvist, K. and Niemela¨, P. (eds.) Of mice and

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women: Aspects of female aggression, pp. 3–16. San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Burbank, V. K. (1987). Female aggression in cross-cultural perspective. Behavior Science Research 21, 70–100. Chagnon, N. A. (1992). Yanomamo¨, 4th ed. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich. Cook, H. B. K. (1993). Small town, big hell: An ethnographic study of aggression in a Margariten˜o community. Caracas, Venezuela: Instituto Caribe de Antropologı´a y Sociologia, Fundacio´n La Salle de Ciencias Naturales. Daly, M. and Wilson, M. (1988). Homicide. New York: Aldine de Gruyter. De Waal, F. (2006). Primates and philosophers: How morality evolved. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Dinstein, Y. (2005). War, aggression and self-defence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dugatkin, L. A. (1999). Cheating monkeys and citizen bees: The nature of cooperation in animals and humans. New York: Free Press. Dugatkin, L. A. (2006). The altruism equation: Seven scientists search for the origins of goodness. Princeton: Princeton University. Dunbar, R. I. M., Clark,A., and Hurst,N. L. (1995). Conflict and cooperation among the Vikings: Contingent behavioral decisions. Ethology and Sociobiology 16, 233–246. Fry, D. P. (1994). Maintaining social tranquility: Internal and external loci of aggression control. In Sponsel, L. E. and Gregor, T. (eds.) The anthropology of peace and nonviolence, pp. 133–154. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Fry, D. P. and Bjo¨rkqvist, K. (eds.) (1997). Cultural variation in conflict resolution. Alternatives to violence. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Greenberg, J. B. (1989). Blood ties: Life and violence in rural Mexico. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press. Hamilton, W. D. (1964). The genetical evolution of social behaviour. II. Journal of Theoretical Biology 7, 17–52. Heelas, P. (1989). Identifying peaceful societies. In Howell, S. and Willis, R. (eds.) Societies at peace: Anthropological perspectives, pp. 225–243. New York: Routledge. Hines, N. J. and Fry, D. P. (1994). Indirect modes of aggression among women of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Sex Roles 30, 213–236. Kemp, G. and Douglas, P. F. (eds.) (2004). Keeping the peace: Conflict resolution and peaceful societies around the world. New York: Routledge. Kolm, S.-C. (2005). Handbook of the economics of giving, altruism and reciprocity: Foundations. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Kurland, J. A. (1996). Altruism. In Levinson, D. and Ember, M. (eds.) Encyclopedia of cultural anthropology, vol. 1, pp. 50–52. New York: Henry Holt & Co. Lansford, J. E., Dodge, K. A., Pettit, G. S., Bates, J. E., Crozier, J., and Kaplow, J. (2002). A 12-year prospective study of the long-term effects of early child physical maltreatment on psychological, behavioral, and academic problems in adolescence. Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine 156, 824–830. Maccoby, E. and Jacklin, C. (1974). The psychology of sex differences. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. MacDonald, K. (1984). An ethological-social learning theory of the development of altruism: Implications for human sociobiology. Ethology and Sociobiology 5, 97–109.

Mahmood, C. K. (1996). Why Sikhs fight. In Wolfe, A. W. and Yang, H. (eds.) Anthropological contributions to conflict resolution, pp. 11–30. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press. Marshall, L. (1961). Sharing, talking, and giving: Relief of social tensions among !Kung bushmen. Africa 31, 231–249. Miller, P. A., Bernzweig, J., Eisenberg, N., and Fabes, R. A. (1991). The development and socialization of prosocial behavior. In Hinde, R. A. and Groebel, J. (eds.) Cooperation and prosocial behaviour, pp. 54–77. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Montagu, A. (ed.) (1978). Learning non-aggression: The experience of non-literate societies. New York: Oxford University Press. Neusner, J. (2005). Altruism in world religions. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Post, S. G. (2003). Research on altruism & love: An annotated bibliography of major studies in psychology, sociology, evolutionary biology, and theology. Chicago: Templeton Foundation Press. Rizzuto, A.-M., William, W. M., and Dan, H. B. (2004). The dynamics of human aggression: Theoretical foundations, clinical applications. Oxford: Routledge. Robarchek, C. A. (1997). A community of interests: Semai conflict resolution. In Fry, D. P. and Bjo¨rkqvist, K. (eds.) Cultural variation in conflict resolution: Alternatives to violence, pp. 51–58. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Robarcheck, C. A. and Robarchek, C. J. (1992). Cultures of war and peace: A comparative study of Waorani and Semai. In Silverberg, J. and Gray, J. P. (eds.) Aggression and peacefulness in humans and other primates, pp. 189–213. New York: Oxford University Press. Robarchek, C. A. and Robarchek, C. J. (1996). Waging peace: The psychological and sociocultural dynamics of positive peace. In Wolfe, A. W. and Yang, H. (eds.) Anthropological contributions to conflict resolution, pp. 64–80. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press. Rubin, J. Z., Pruitt,D. G., and Kim,S. H. (1994). Social conflict: Escalation, stalemate, and settlement, 2nd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill. Sahlins, M. D. (1965). On the sociology of primitive exchange. In Banton, M. (ed.) The relevance of models for social anthropology, pp. 139–236. New York: Tavistock. Silverberg, J. and Gray, J. P. (1992). Violence and peacefulness as behavioral potentialities of primates. In Silverberg, J. and Gray, J. P. (eds.) Aggression and peacefulness in humans and other primates, pp. 1–36. New York: Oxford University Press. Sponsel, L. E. and Gregor, T. (eds.) (1994). The anthropology of peace and nonviolence. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Swap, W. C. (1991). Perceiving the causes of altruism. In Hinde, R. A. and Groebel, J. (eds.) Cooperation and prosocial behaviour, pp. 147–158. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Trivers, R. L. (1971). The evolution of reciprocal altruism. Quarterly Review of Biology 46, 35–57. Trivers, R. L. (1985). Social evolution. Menlo Park, CA: Benjamin/ Cummings. United Nations (2004). Historical review of developments relating to aggression. New York: United Nations Publications.

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Aggression, Psychology of Leonard Berkowitz, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI, USA ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction Conceptions of Aggression Situational Determinants of Aggression

Glossary Affective Aggression The violence or aggression that results from a decidedly unpleasant (aversive) situation, and is carried out with very little thought; contrasted with instrumental aggression. Association In general, a psychological connection that a person believes exists between one object (or other situational detail) and another object (or detail). In the present context, the principle that aggression in response to a negative event will be directed toward a target that is psychologically associated with the believed origin of that occurrence or that, because of its other associations, is otherwise regarded very negatively, even though this target may not be the actual cause of the event. Aversion A state of affairs in which there is a strong unpleasant feeling about a situation or object; the present article proposes that such a condition tends to generate anger and aggression, even in the absence of a perceived wrongdoing.

Introduction This article will focus on the theorizing and research of many of the leading social-psychological investigators of human aggression. Little attention will be given to psychodynamic and psychoanalytic conceptions since these ideas have only a very minor part in guiding the empirically oriented, largely laboratory-based research covered here. Moreover, because of the necessary space limitations, this article will concentrate on the sources of aggressive conduct, and will not deal with such important matters as the consequences of an aggressor’s assault and how aggressive tendencies can be controlled. The first section, reviewing the leading conceptions of aggression in contemporary psychology, will argue that there are different kinds of aggression, each originating in different ways, and governed by different psychological processes. The article will then turn to a survey of the major

Persistent Dispositions to Aggression Conclusion Further Reading

Hostile Aggression Aggression whose primary aim is the injury or destruction of the target rather than the attainment of some other goal such as money or approval. Impulsive or Expressive Aggression The aggression that is an automatic, nonthoughtful response to the instigating circumstances; also see affective aggression. Instrumental Being useful for the attainment of some goal; in the present article the aggression whose main goal is some objective other than simply the injury of the target, for example, to acquire money or social approval. Priming The process in which a situational stimulus (such as the words just heard or read or the sight of others fighting) increases the likelihood that other ideas having the same meaning will come to mind. This article holds that priming may also raise the chances that semantically related actions will be carried out, as when the playing of a violent video game (the priming stimulus) heightens the probability of aggression toward others.

determinants of this behavior, beginning with situational influences, especially those promoting relatively impulsive reactions, and then will look at the personality characteristics involved in the disposition to be assaultive.

Conceptions of Aggression Although most theoretical analyses of aggression define this behavior as a deliberate attempt to hurt (or even destroy) some target, they disagree in a number of important respects. One difference has to do with whether the attacker’s major goal is to injure the victim. Quite a few conceptions, basically viewing the aggression as instrumental behavior, hold that the action’s chief aim is to satisfy some noninjurious purpose, such as to preserve or enhance one’s status in a group or protect or restore a threatened self-concept or obtain money. Several

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interpretations along this line go even further and do not posit any desire to hurt the victim. Other theorists, taking a different stance, propose that there are different kinds of aggression, with the assault being, sometimes, mainly intended to injure and, on other occasions, being largely an attempt to attain some nonaggressive objective. Considerably overlapping this issue of the attack’s primary goal, other variations have to do with the extent to which any given assault is said to be controlled primarily by cognitive processes. Most discussions of this behavior, it is probably fair to say, regard the aggressive action as arising from the persons’ understanding of, and previously acquired knowledge about, the surrounding situation. These cognitions presumably shape the decisions that are made as to what to do. Yet another approach maintains that aggression is frequently impulsive, relatively automatic reactions to situational features. Here too, where many discussions take a one-sided stance, contending that cognitive processes virtually always control aggression, other interpretations prefer to speak of different types of aggressive acts varying in the degree to which they are cognitively controlled. Aggression as Instrumental Behavior Most discussions of aggression in the social sciences, and especially in psychodynamic circles, basically assume that when people assault others, they want to do more than only hurt their targets. For the aggressors, this view contends, the action is instrumental to the attainment of some noninjurious goal, such as money, physical protection, increased status in one’s social group, or perhaps the repair of a damaged self-concept. Gerald Patterson’s well-known studies of the interactions between aggressive children and their parents provide one example of this kind of instrumental analysis. On the basis of his research, he and his colleagues concluded that when hyperaggressive children are nasty to others, they, typically, are seeking to coerce these persons to fulfill the youngsters’ wishes. They, presumably, frequently believe they can best get their parents, siblings, or anyone else, to do what they want by direct or indirect acts of aggression. In keeping with this formulation, Patterson pointed out that if the children were successful in their attempts to steer the others’ behavior, their action would be reinforced, and their conduct would be repeated. Many discussions of domestic violence follow this instrumentalist line of thought. It is often held that the person who is clearly dominant in the domestic relationship (because of such matters as that individual’s control over the couple’s economic resources, and/or the societal definition of who in the couple should make the most important decisions) is likely to attack his (or her) partner when he (or she) thinks his (her) commanding position is being challenged. The assault asserts the aggressor’s

dominance. A variation of this theme proposes that many people regard a perceived social threat as ‘devaluing’ their self-worth, so that they then attack to show the threatening agent, and any other onlookers, that they must be treated with respect. Felson, as an example, maintains that the aggressors in these instances frequently seek to nullify the negative identity imputed to them by the threat, and attack the offender to demonstrate their ‘‘strength, competence, and courage.’’ Analyses of the role of ‘cultures of violence’ in criminal assaults also take this instrumentalist position. According to Wolfgang, some ethnic groups have a high rate of violent offenses because their culture has taught them that they must strike at those who insult or otherwise threaten them to maintain their ‘‘honor’’ – their value in the eyes of their fellows. Nisbett and Cohen have employed this ‘culture of honor’ conception in their explanation of why people in the US south have a higher rate of violent crimes than their northern counterparts. Presumably as a vestige of the economic importance of herding in the early southern society, Nisbett and his colleagues maintain, southern culture still believes its members must react violently to those who threaten them if they are to protect their interests. There can be little doubt, then, that aggression is often employed dispassionately as a way of obtaining what the perpetrators want. This is not to say, of course, that emotions never enter into instrumental aggression. As a dramatic example of how feelings can help propel an instrumentally aimed assault, in Dreiser’s novel An American tragedy, the protagonist murders his pregnant girlfriend because of his anxiety that she will keep him from fulfilling his social ambitions. For another illustration that is perhaps of greater worldwide import, attitude surveys testify as to how emotions influence what people in the Middle East think of terrorist actions by Islamic militants. A study of Lebanese college students, conducted by Levin, H. and co-workers soon after the events of 11 September 2001, indicates that the students who identified most strongly with Arabs, in general, were most likely to support terrorist organizations and think that the 9/11 attacks were justified. Judging from other findings, it appears that in these students’ eyes Arabs were being unfairly dominated by the West. Greatly disturbed by this perceived domination, they evidently believed alQaeda’s attacks on the leading Western country, the US, would benefit Arabs in a variety of ways. Whatever the specific instrumental purpose, it’s important to note, the aggressors believe they are reacting ‘rationally’. For them, the instrumental behavior is consciously controlled – reasoned and calculated. Perceiving a threat, which may or may not actually exist, and aware of how the threat might impede the attainment of valued goals, these aggressors presumably decide, consciously or unconsciously, to attack the threatening agent so that they can satisfy their desires.

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Seeking the Others’ Injury Yet another view, frequently held by research-oriented social psychologists, maintains that an aggressor’s ‘primary’ aim sometimes is to hurt (or perhaps even kill) the target, whatever else he or she might also want to accomplish. Along with Feshbach, in 1964, these investigators recognize that many attacks are chiefly instrumental in nature. But they also contend that when people are angered or otherwise emotionally aroused by a decidedly unpleasant event, the main objective is very apt to be the target’s injury. Robert Baron’s experiments on ‘pain cues’ are illustrative. The participants in this research were told they were to administer electric shocks to a peer whenever that person made a mistake on his assigned task. If these people had previously been angered by this individual, they administered stronger punishment when they were led to think their shocks were painful to the target rather than just a mild signal to him. It is as if the information about the target’s pain had implicitly told the angry people they were close to satisfying their desire to hurt the one who had provoked them, thereby whetting their ‘aggressive appetite’ even more. Where Feshbach’s influential 1964 paper had called this latter type of behavior ‘‘hostile’’ aggression, it is also frequently labeled ‘‘affective’’ or ‘‘expressive’’ or even ‘‘emotional’’ aggression since it typically arises when the person has strong unpleasant feelings and/or is emotionally aroused. Other writers have favored a different set of terms. Zillmann, for example, spoke of incentive-motivated and annoyance-motivated aggression, with the first, clearly instrumental in nature, and the second dealing with the aggression evoked by aversive stimulation. Dodge and his colleagues have referred to proactive and reactive aggression, notions apparently similar to Zillmann’s concepts. Whatever the labels used, all of these theorists are here proposing two basically different types of aggression, one that is reasoned and controlled and that is primarily aimed at the attainment of a nonaggressive goal, and the other, that may or may not be planned out, that is mainly intended to hurt the target (the latter here called hostile aggression for simplicity).

Different Types of Aggression Acts of aggression sometimes have both hostile and instrumental objectives. A good many of the US marines in World War II apparently had both motives as they attacked the Japanese on the latter’s Pacific islands. Journalists accompanying the marines have reported how the Americans often sought to kill their enemy out of hatred for them as well as because of the marines’ desire to capture the island and use it as a steppingstone to

ultimate victory. And somewhat similarly, the Palestinian suicide bombers who blew themselves up in Israeli restaurants usually had a number of motives; they hated their victims, thinking of them as their oppressors, and also believed the terror they inflicted would eventually drive the Jews out of the country. Several independent experts also see the bombings as having another purpose as well: In the experts’ judgment, the leaders of the anti-Israeli groups also regard these attacks as ‘theater’, a way of drawing the world’s attention to the Palestinians’ cause. But even though any given assault can have both instrumental and injury-inflicting aims, it is still worth distinguishing between these two kinds of aggression; the relatively pure instances of these two types of aggression can still be very different in nature and can originate in very different ways. Studies pertinent to the Dodge concepts of proactive and reactive aggression testify to the desirability of not regarding all aggression as basically similar. In this research, it is often found that reactive aggression is linked to emotional dyscontrol, whereas this lack of control is rarely seen in proactive aggression. It should be noted, though, that even if these two kinds of aggression are basically different, rewards received for displaying one kind of aggression can still heighten the likelihood that either one will occur again sometime later. The reinforcement generalizes to affect aggression in general, as Walters and Brown demonstrated experimentally. They showed that when schoolchildren had been rewarded for engaging in make-believe aggression (punching a very large rubber doll), those who were frustrated soon afterwards because they could not see a promised movie, later exhibited a relatively high level of more realistic aggression in their game-playing with a peer.

Is all aggression the result of a decision to attack the target?

As was indicated earlier, many analyses of aggression, especially in the social sciences outside of psychology, hold that the attacks exhibited are chiefly controlled by the person’s cognitions at that time and result from a decision to assault the target. The proponents of this position essentially believe that the perpetrators consciously or unconsciously act in terms of what they know and understand about the situation before them. They, presumably, then use these ‘knowledge structures’ (or to use another term, appraisals) in deciding how to respond. In arguing for such a conception, Bushman and Anderson contend that the decision reached can be made consciously or even unconsciously, in the latter case through mental processes of which the aggressors are not aware.

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The question of automatic-impulsive aggression

Whether the attack is instrumentally oriented or aimed mainly at hurting the target, it often is premeditated in the sense that it is a calculated attempt at achieving the aggressor’s desired objective. At other times, however, especially (but not only) under strong emotional arousal, injury-directed aggressive actions are not thought out beforehand, but are relatively impulsive, even automatic, reactions to an aggression-compelling stimulus. On these occasions, as Bargh, the present writer, and others have emphasized, little attention is given to other, notimmediately-obvious features of the surrounding situation that may warn against attacking the target, and the assault proceeds virtually unthinkingly once initiated unless the process is strongly blocked by a strong intervening inhibition. The new psychiatric term ‘intermittent explosive disorder’ apparently refers to an inclination to display this kind of behavior. A developing movement within social psychology, emphasizing the automaticity of a great deal of social behavior, argues that people believe that they have far more control over their actions than they actually do, and that much of their behavior is produced by situational cues to which they are not consciously attending. Bargh, one of the major contributors to this increasingly influential analysis, has provided supporting evidence. In two of his experiments he and some of his colleagues first showed that African-American faces are so often associated with hostility that the mere subliminal presentation of pictures of African-Americans tends to prime hostile ideas in white people. Then, building on this demonstration, in the second study, the white participants in one condition again saw pictures of AfricanAmericans subliminally after which they had to interact with a peer in a mildly frustrating game. We are told that even though these people had not been consciously aware of the hostility-priming pictures, they afterwards displayed more hostility toward their peer than did their counterparts who had not been so primed, perhaps, partly because their inhibitions were weak at the time. It is unparsimonious to argue that the primed persons had ‘decided’ to be nasty to their partner, whether unconsciously or consciously. They could have acted as they did because the aggression-related situational stimuli had automatically activated associated hostile reactions. A somewhat similar process could play a role in quite a few instances of impulsive aggression. Here too, aggression-related situational cues might well setoff impulsive aggressive reactions from those who were aggressively disposed for some reason and whose restraints were relatively low at the time, even if they were not fully aware of these cues. As this article soon argues, internally generated reactions to a distressing occurrence can also automatically elicit impulses to aggression. This article also proposes

here that strong negative feelings frequently activate not only hostile ideas and a tendency to appraise other people’s ambiguous behaviors in a hostile manner, but also, at least at times, even an aggression-related motor program.

Situational Determinants of Aggression Priming: Automatic Cognitive and Behavioral Reactions to Situational Stimuli Cognitive psychologists have repeatedly shown that thoughts activated by some aspect of the surrounding situation (such as a hostility-associated photo, as in Bargh’s research, or the words that one reads) tend to prime other, semantically related ideas. These ideas then become more accessible mentally so that they easily come to mind. Although this kind of influence is quite reliable under particular circumstances, later research indicates it is most likely to arise when people are not especially motivated to be accurate in their judgments and do not realize their thinking might be affected by the priming experience. Furthermore, both theory and research suggest that the people most likely to be primed by a certain feature of the surrounding situation are those whose minds possess a highly developed network of associations to that particular situational stimulus. There is some debate among psychologists as to whether the priming has only cognitive effects or can also activate motor tendencies. It seems apparent that several of the experiments by Bargh and his colleagues support the latter possibility. Weapon effects

Another notable example of the priming produced by external stimuli is the so-called weapons effect first identified by Berkowitz and LePage in 1967. As they showed, the mere sight of weapons can induce people to be more aggressive than they otherwise would have been. The weapons’ presence apparently brings hostile ideas to mind and may even activate aggression-related motor impulses. Berkowitz held, though, that the guns and/or knives will promote hostile ideas and aggressive inclinations only to the extent that they are regarded as ‘aggressive’ objects, instruments used to hurt or kill people. They, presumably, will not have an aggressionfacilitating effect if they are associated only with sport and recreation or if they strongly activate ideas and feelings of danger and anxiety. Bartholow, Anderson, and their colleagues have provided supporting evidence. In one of their experiments, men who were either recreational hunters or nonhunters were exposed to pictures of either a hunting rifle or an assault weapon and then, under a suitable pretext, had an opportunity to deliver punishing noise blasts to a peer. As expected, the hunters were less aggressive than the nonhunters after both groups had

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seen the hunting rifle. And interestingly, again demonstrating the importance of the gun’s meaning, the hunters were more aggressive after being shown the assault weapon than after seeing the hunting rifle. Movie and television violence

Even though this is not widely recognized by the general public, there is a great deal of evidence that the violence portrayed on movie and TV screens has deleterious effects; generally speaking, the depiction of aggression in the mass media heightens the likelihood that susceptible members of the audience will act aggressively themselves. Research by Anderson, Bushman, and Huesmann, among others, has identified different reasons for this influence: There can be a relatively transient priming of aggressionrelated cognitions and motor impulses, and also, if a great deal of violence is seen over a substantial period of time, there may also be a long lasting learning of what is desirable behavior in particular situations as well as a lessening of concerns about the bad effects of aggression (the latter sometimes termed desensitization). This heightened likelihood of media-induced aggression is not always immediately apparent, however. The depicted violence might give the viewers hostile ideas, but they are unlikely to display an openly aggressive action afterwards if their inhibitions against aggression are strong at that time, perhaps because there are some indications that the display of open aggression on that occasion would be disapproved, or maybe because some cues in the situation bring their aggression-opposing moral standards to mind. Interestingly, the portrayed violence itself could influence what moral standards operate. Findings from a series of studies by Berkowitz and his collaborators, and replicated by other investigators, indicate how this can happen. When people see what they regard as morally justified aggression (as when a ‘good guy’ beats up a ‘bad’ person), for a short time afterwards they are apt to become more willing to attack the ‘bad’ people in their own lives. It is as if the supposedly proper action on the screen had temporarily shaped their idea of the propriety of their own aggressive behavior. Research conducted by Huesmann, Eron and colleagues indicates that this last-mentioned kind of influence, in which witnessed aggression affects the viewers’ judgments about the desirability of assaulting others, can be long lasting if they see enough violent programming over a long enough time. In this study, a sample initially comprised of 6- to 10-year-old youngsters, from a range of social backgrounds in the Chicago area, was reinvestigated approximately 15 years later. On assessing these people’s behavior, through their self-reports as well as the observations of others who knew them well, the psychologists found that those who continued to watch a great deal of violent TV as they grew older tended to be the most aggressive of all the participants as young adults.

Their ideas of how they should deal with other persons apparently had been influenced to some extent by the actions they had seen frequently on the television screen. Of course, this media-induced influence will be stronger under some conditions than others. For one thing, some people are especially susceptible to what they see. Bushman, among others, has shown that violent scenes are particularly apt to activate aggressive inclinations in viewers with strong aggressive dispositions. Then too, according to several experiments, the priming experience (the sight of violence) is most likely to lead to aggressive behavior in a later situation if, on this later occasion, (1) they encounter a cue associated with the observed violence, and/or (2) the available target is somehow associated with the victim in the previously witnessed violent scene. Aversive Conditions Frustration

It is widely recognized that many people become aggressive when they are kept from reaching a desired goal. With this phenomenon occurring so often, quite a few analysts of human social behavior have sought to incorporate frustration effects into their theoretical formulations. One such account, the strain theory of crime causation in sociology, initially advanced by Merton and then adapted by others such as Cloward and Ohlin, essentially traces antisocial deviancy to socially produced frustrations. However, the best-known conception of a relationship between frustration and aggression was offered by Dollard and co-workers, at Yale University in 1939. Defining a frustration as an external impediment to expected goal attainment and not as an emotional reaction, Dollard and his colleagues would not have regarded poverty-stricken persons as frustrated unless these individuals had anticipated getting some of the good things money can buy and then, unexpectedly, failed to have their wishes fulfilled. Such a state of affairs was, presumably, related to aggression in two ways. First, according to the Yale group, all aggressive behavior could be traced back to some prior thwarting. And second, they said that every frustration creates an instigation to aggression. Berkowitz has questioned the first of these propositions, pointing out that a good many aggressive actions are instrumental in nature; people are at times assaultive because they have learned that aggression can pay off. However, the second proposition is worth examining more closely. Critics of the ‘frustration–aggression hypothesis’ have generally argued that frustrations give rise to aggression only when (1) they regard the thwarting as improper, and perhaps also, (2) they had previously learned to react aggressively to barriers to their goal attainment.

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Although there can be no doubt that these two conditions heighten the likelihood of aggressive reactions to the impediment to goal attainment, research has shown that unexpected failures to obtain desired rewards can indeed produce aggressive responses even when the goal blockages are legitimate. And moreover, there is now suggestive evidence from experiments with human infants that the frustration–aggression relationship holds even when there was little opportunity for prior learning. In the most recent of these investigations, babies displayed angry reactions (in their facial expressions) when they were frustrated by the nonfulfillment of a learned expectation. All this is not to say that every failure to obtain a desired and expected goal will lead to open aggression. Prior learning can heighten (or reduce) the chances of a nonaggressive reaction to a thwarting – although the probability of an aggressive response increases if the nonaggressive actions prove to be unsuccessful and the frustration persists. And of course, inhibitions activated by the threat of punishment and/or prior learning can suppress the aggressive reaction. Perhaps most important of all, the thwarting might not be sufficiently unpleasant. In a major revision of the original frustration–aggression hypothesis, Berkowitz has proposed that an interference with goal attainment will produce aggressive inclinations only to the degree that this interference is aversive. This reformulation basically holds that it is the experienced decidedly negative feeling generated by the frustration rather than the frustration itself that creates the instigation to aggression. Aversive conditions as instigators to aggression

This interpretation of the frustration–aggression relationship rests on a rapidly growing body of evidence. As Berkowitz has noted, a good number of studies have now demonstrated that a truly impressive variety of decidedly unpleasant conditions – physically painful events as well as cigarette smoke, foul odors, high room temperatures, and repugnant scenes – can generate anger and aggression. In regard to the first of these factors, animal research, especially the experiments by Azrin, Ulrich, and their associates, and also investigations with humans, have shown that painful occurrences frequently produce anger displays and aggressive inclinations, especially when it is difficult to get away from the pain source. Anderson’s systematic investigations of the aggressionstimulating consequences of uncomfortable heat also provide good examples of this effect. Going beyond his earlier experimental and naturalistic studies (e.g., demonstrating that many of the urban riots of the 1960s burst out in unusually hot weather), one of his papers on this latter topic showed that there was a significant association between how hot US cities were and their rate of violent crime even when many alternative explanations of this

relationship were ruled out statistically. Indices of the ‘southern culture of violence’ also forecast the violent crime rate in Anderson’s study but were generally not as good predictors as the temperature measure. Berkowitz’s cognitive-neoassociationist model attempts to account for these aggressive effects by positing a multistage process. According to this formulation, in the initial stage decidedly unpleasant feelings automatically activate at least two different emotional networks (or syndromes), one associated with aggressive inclinations and the other linked to escape/avoidance tendencies. Genetic, learning, and situational influences determine the relative strengths of the two opposing syndromes. Then, later, as the person thinks about the aversive occurrence, appraisals and attributions presumably come into play so that the initial, fairly primitive emotional reactions can be differentiated, intensified, or suppressed. Anderson’s analysis of the effects of aversive conditions, his general aggression model, is somewhat similar except that he believes the afflicted person decides whether or not to attack an available target, whereas in Berkowitz’s model the intense negative affect theoretically activates an aggressionrelated motor program automatically, producing impulses to aggression which then may or may not be inhibited. Whatever the specifics of the theoretical analysis, we can extend the findings just mentioned and also propose that a broad spectrum of social stresses can spur aggressive inclinations and antisocial tendencies. One such stress has to do with the humiliation people experience when they believe that others have belittled them. It is often observed, for example, that a good deal of youth violence is precipitated by the youngsters’ sense that the others with whom they were dealing had in one way or another indicated they were of little worth (so that they felt ‘disrespected’ or ‘dissed’). This same sense of being humiliated operates in the international realm as well. As a notable case in point, Palestinian militants frequently maintain that much of their antagonism towards Israel stems from the way Israeli authorities have consistently devalued the Palestinian people. Quantitative research also testifies to the variety of stresses that can evoke aggressive reactions. Sampling from the many relevant studies, the women in a laboratory experiment who were afflicted by a relatively high level of task stress tended to be most punitive in their judgments of young children who were working nearby, and similarly, in the 1975 survey of a representative sample of US families, conducted by Straus and his associates, those respondents reporting the greatest number of life stresses (from a list of 18) were especially likely to have assaulted their spouses that year. Adding to these observations, Landau has noted that the level of stress in Israel, as indexed by objective measures of unemployment and hyperinflation as well as by more subjective reports of worry about political, economic, and national

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security conditions, was significantly related to violent crime indicators. It is possible to continue with the evidence, but we will here suggest only that sociological strain theories of criminality basically rest on these stress effects. Associations with the perceived source of the experienced displeasure

If decidedly negative events can produce angry thoughts and aggressive inclinations, it is not too much of an extension to propose that those people who are somehow associated with very distressing occurrences will also tend to prime aggression-facilitating reactions automatically, and thus, become targets for those who were aggressively disposed. The persons victimized by hate crimes are often attacked consciously and deliberately because they are clearly seen as threats to strongly held values. But in some cases, the hated targets might also draw hostile reactions impulsively and with little thought primarily because they are linked in their assaulters’ minds with something extremely unpleasant. Perceived associations can also be responsible for those instances in which aggression is displaced onto others not at all responsible for the negative occurrence. Discussions of aggression for the general public frequently refer to this kind of happening. But although this phenomenon is widely recognized, present day social psychologists, with the exception of Norman Miller and William Pedersen and their collaborators, give it relatively little attention. Perhaps, partly because of the paucity of research on this topic, the best-known psychological account of this hostility displacement (as it is often termed) is still Neal Miller’s 1948 stimulus–response generalization formulation. Applying the then dominant associationistic perspective, Miller showed how displaced aggression could be explained in terms of a possible target’s association with the perceived source of an aversive experience. In general, Miller’s argument went, even though some person or group had actually not caused the unpleasant occurrence, the more closely this person or group was perceived to be psychologically linked to the supposed origin of the negative event, the stronger would be the aggressive inclinations that would be elicited by the person/group. The aversively generated urge to attack a possible target generalizes to others in proportion to their degree of association with the perceived cause of the displeasure. However, if it is believed to be dangerous to assault the aversive source for some reason, inhibitions against aggression would also generalize from the perceived cause to the other possible targets. The provoked person would then refrain from attacking the perceived perpetrator and the other possible targets close to him/her on the psychological association dimension. Still, Miller postulated, since the strength of the inhibitory tendency

often declines more rapidly than the strength of the aggressive urge as one moves away from the perceived aversive source on the degree-of-association dimension, at some intermediate position on this dimension, the aggressive urge would be stronger than the inhibitory tendencies. People having a moderate degree of connection with the cause of the aversive experience are then apt to be the victims of displaced aggression. The Norman Miller–William Pedersen group took a different tack. Dealing with what they termed ‘triggered displaced aggression’, they demonstrated that the aggressive inclinations generated by different unpleasant sources can cumulate. Suppose that Person A does something mildly annoying to us, so mild in fact that we have very little if any hostile reaction to him at that time. Then let’s say Person B comes along and provokes us to a much more substantial extent. Soon afterwards, when we are given an opportunity to evaluate the first person A, there is a good chance we will be surprisingly nasty to him. The fairly intense negative arousal produced by Person B evidently generalizes to the upsetting individual we had encountered earlier and strengthens our urge to attack him. Appraisals and Attributions So far, in emphasizing the role of priming (and more generally, associations) in many aggressive reactions, we have said little about the part played by cognitions – more specifically, people’s interpretations of the situation they are in – in the generation of emotion. The leading approach to the study of emotions in contemporary psychology, typically called appraisal theory, stresses the overriding importance of these understandings. According to this line of thought, it is a given event’s meaning for us (i.e., the appraisals we make of its personal significance and also what we believe is the particular cause of the occurrence) that determines what emotions we will feel in that situation and what actions we will undertake. The objections raised against the frustration– aggression hypothesis when Dollard and co-workers first published their monograph essentially faulted the authors for having neglected people’s appraisals of the frustrating incident. Averill and others voiced these objections succinctly by maintaining that anger was basically an accusation of blame at having been wronged. In the past several generations, appraisal theory has guided a great deal of research into the genesis of emotions, with many of the investigations simply asking college students about the incidents that had aroused emotions in them. These studies have obtained many similar findings (but also, as Berkowitz and HarmonJones noted, some puzzling differences). In the case of anger, the research results have been generally in accord with the critics’ objections to the thesis offered by Dollard

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and his colleagues: as was mentioned before, almost all of these appraisal studies agreed that this emotion arises when an external agent improperly prevents the person from reaching her or his valued goal. Still, to repeat what was stated earlier in connection with the frustration– aggression hypothesis, a good number of other studies have demonstrated that many persons do become aggressively inclined when they are thwarted even when they do not interpret the event in the manner stipulated by appraisal theorists. It is quite possible that the situational interpretations identified by the appraisal theory investigations may be especially apt to produce aggressive reactions primarily because they are very unpleasant. Take the case of frustration being attributed to an external agent’s deliberate action. When we make such an appraisal we believe the frustrating agent had intended to harm us personally, and it is unpleasant to think this. At the other extreme, we are less likely to assault someone who we think had thwarted us only accidentally because we do not take his behavior personally and also because we may well realize that it is socially wrong to retaliate against a person who had not wanted to hurt us.

Persistent Dispositions to Aggression Consistency in Aggressive and Antisocial Behavior People’s susceptibility to aggression-eliciting influences in the surrounding environment does not mean that their inclination to violence necessarily changes drastically as they move from one setting to another. Indeed, as a great many studies have now demonstrated, those persons who exhibit a relatively high level of aggression on one occasion – whether in a personality test or a laboratory experiment or in a ‘real-world’ interpersonal encounter – have a better than chance likelihood of being highly aggressive in other situations as well (especially if the antecedent measure and/or the outcome to be predicted is/are based on an aggregation of a number of situations).

Other psychologists have also seen this consistency over time in their own investigations. The best known of these longitudinal studies probably are those conducted by Farrington and his associates at Cambridge University, based on a sample of working-class boys in London, by Eron, Huesmann, and their colleagues, employing male and female schoolchildren from a rural county in upstate New York, and by Moffitt and Caspi, using a large cohort of both boys and girls in Dunedin, New Zealand. All of these investigations found that a good number of the youngsters changed their conduct with the passage of the years, but that a sizable fraction of participants tended to maintain their general level of aggressiveness. Early aggressiveness is a risk factor predicting the chances of aggression-proneness in adulthood. Going beyond these demonstrations of consistency in the disposition to violence, all of the investigations cited here also found that a persistent high level of aggressiveness is part of a general pattern of social deviation. Thus, seeing that many of his youthful English troublemakers had engaged in many different kinds of socially disapproved behavior, Farrington concluded that they had a general tendency to antisocial conduct. In the New York State sample, as another illustration, those persons, males and females, who had been regarded by their peers as the most aggressive members of their school classes at age 8 tended to have the greatest number of criminal convictions by the time they were 30 years old. And similarly, Caspi has reported that in New Zealand aggressively disposed, undercontrolled 3-year-olds grew up to be impulsive, unreliable, and antisocial young adults. All in all, it appears that quite a few of the extremely aggressive people uncovered in these investigations fit the psychiatric category of aggressive conduct disorder: ‘‘. . . a repetitive and persistent pattern of aggressive conduct in which the rights of others are violated, by either physical violence against persons, or thefts outside the home involving confrontation with a victim. The physical violence may take the form of rape, mugging, assault, or, in rare cases, homicide. . .’’ Some people change

Longitudinal studies of aggression and antisocial proneness

Olweus was one of the first psychologists to document the impressive stability in aggressive patterns of conduct over time. In his survey of US, English, and Swedish studies of male subjects ranging from 2 to 18 years of age, published in 1979, he reported that initial measures of aggressiveness successfully predicted later aggressiveness in each of the 16 different samples he examined. This relationship was moderately high (average correlation ¼ 0.7) when the follow-up was a year or less after the first assessment, and then declined regularly to about 0.4 when there was a 21-year gap between the first and later measurements.

Even though there is this impressive degree of consistency over the years in the disposition to violence and antisocial behavior, quite a few people do change with time, as Moffitt, Caspi, and their associates have shown. Based on this group’s research findings, Moffitt has noted that there are substantial individual differences in the extent to which people maintain the pattern of behavior they displayed in childhood. She believes a good fraction of those who engage in antisocial conduct in adolescence do so, in large part, because of situational pressures (such as peer influence) and then become more law-abiding as they get older. Moffitt calls them ‘‘adolescence-limited antisocials.’’ On the other hand, there are a relatively

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small number of people who continue their extreme antisocial pattern over time, and Moffitt terms them ‘‘lifecourse-persistent antisocials.’’ A later study of school boys between 7 and 17 years of age suggests that the ‘‘lifecourse-persistent’’ troublemakers tend to have lower verbal IQs and experience more abuse and neglect than the adolescents who outgrow their antisocial pattern as they get older.

Aggressive Personalities: Hostile Expectations and Weak Restraints against Aggression People’s likelihood of becoming aggressive on any given occasion is a function of their personalities as well as the specific nature of the situation they are in. And so, as Bushman has demonstrated, those who become most aggressive to a peer soon after they see a violent movie are the persons having the strongest aggressiveness traits (according to their scores on a standard hostility inventory). Their personal qualities had made them especially susceptible to aggression-stimulating features of the surrounding environment. This section will be a highly restricted review of some individual characteristics that, in interaction with aspects of the immediate situation, can affect the probability that a person will attack a particular available and suitable target: First, we will look at how the individual is apt to interpret his or her ambiguous encounters with others. Then after this, we will consider the role of an inclination to impulsive aggression, and especially the impulsiveness stemming from a relative absence of restraints against aggression. Reactive and proactive aggressors: Perceiving hostility by others

A number of psychologists have shown that highly aggressive personalities typically carry around with them a general ‘social theory’ maintaining that the people with whom they are involved in a problematic encounter are likely to be hostile to them. There is a good chance, then, as Dill, Anderson, and their colleagues reported, that a characteristically aggressive individual, in having this broad-ranging hostile expectation, will interpret other people’s ambiguous actions as being hostile in nature. Dodge is one of the best-known investigators of this characteristic tendency to expect hostility from others. On the basis of his early work with children, Dodge and Coie believed it was advisable to distinguish between two kinds of aggressive boys (as was mentioned before) in terms of how they process information about social interactions. Some of these youngsters, labeled proactive aggressors, were essentially oriented instrumentally in that they, often, used their aggression to dominate and bully others. Their aggression was basically calculated and controlled. Other boys, called reactive aggressors,

were much more prone to react quickly, even somewhat automatically, to perceived threats. Of particular interest to us here, these quick-to-anger aggressive youngsters are generally also quick to attribute hostile intent to other persons. When the participants in Dodge’s early research watched a videotaped series of interactions between two school-age boys, the two types of youths were equally accurate in recognizing clearly intentional hostility. In ambiguous situations, however, the emotionally reactive aggressors were especially apt to attribute hostility to the actors. And when the participants were asked what they would do in a similar situation, these boys were more likely than their instrumentally oriented, proactive peers to say they would respond with some form of aggression. Although Dodge and many other psychologists employing his typology emphasize the way reactive aggressors process information and make decisions, he and his colleagues have at times acknowledged that these persons’ emotional reactions could be, at least in part, an automatic and classically conditioned response to the threatening situation. They also believed that once the reactive aggressors make a hostile interpretation of the situation before them, this appraisal and accompanying emotion prevent any further information processing so that they do not evaluate the different possible actions they might undertake. The difference between the reactive and proactive aggressors could be largely due to the way their brains function. In his review of the relevant neuroscience literature, Blair proposed that the brain circuits involved in reactive aggression are different from those operating to produce instrumental (proactive) aggression. The frontal cortex apparently is less operative in those prone to reactive emotional outbursts, whereas persons displaying predominantly instrumental aggression do not exhibit this reduced frontal functioning. Raine and his colleagues have made a similar observation. Comparing murderers who killed in a violent rage (probably reactive aggressors) and those who were predatory (instrumental) murderers, they found that the highly emotional killers in their sample had lower levels of prefrontal-cortical activity. Impulsive aggression

Turning from neurological to psychological considerations, the thesis offered here is that the impulsivity characteristic of reactive aggressors stems from two particular personality characteristics: incomplete and inadequate information processing, and especially, relatively weak restraints against aggression. Some suggestive evidence for this contention can be found in the research published by Barratt, one of the leading investigators of impulsivity as a personality trait. His chief self-report measure of impulsiveness embraces, among other things, a failure to plan ahead as well as a motoric impulsiveness. Then too, we can also see evidence of these two

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components in a study by White, Moffitt, and their colleagues. On factor analyzing a set of impulsivity indices, they identified two correlated but distinct types of impulsivity. One of these, termed ‘‘behavioral impulsivity,’’ appeared to reflect a lack of behavioral control. The second factor, called ‘‘cognitive impulsivity,’’ had more to do with inadequately thought-out effortful and planned cognitive performance. The proposal here is that the disposition to carry out impulsive attacks is more a matter of behavioral impulsivity or weak restraints, than of cognitive impulsivity or inadequate decision making. Here again, we find some support in the investigations by Caspi, Moffitt, and coworkers in New Zealand and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They tell us that a personality configuration comprised of ‘‘high negative emotionality’’ and ‘‘weak constraints’’ was significantly linked to juvenile delinquency. The researchers suggest that since these youngsters did not adequately control their impulses, their negative emotional experiences were all too likely to produce antisocial reactions. Since aggressive outbursts are part of these antisocial reactions, it could well be that weak inhibitions contributed greatly to their impulsive attacks on others.

Conclusion There is more than one kind of aggression even though in all instances the action is aimed at the injury or elimination of some target. For most analyses of aggression in the social sciences, however, the intended pain/destruction is only a secondary goal. These conceptions view the behavior as primarily instrumentally oriented actions, attempts to gain a nonhurtful objective such as the restoration of a wounded self-concept, the winning of a desired social approval, or the attainment of a position of power and dominance over others. Without denying the frequent occurrence of these instrumental attacks, other formulations maintain that many assaults are mainly directed at the injury or elimination of the intended target. Aggressive actions can also differ in the degree to which they are premeditated  calculated and more or less rational (from the actors’ viewpoint)  or are largely automatic, involuntary responses to aspects of the surrounding situation. Besides highlighting the different kinds of aggression, this article has summarized research pointing to some of the major situational influences on aggressive behavior and the role of persistent dispositions to aggressive con-

duct. But it has also focused to a considerable extent on impulsive assaults  quick, automatic, and relatively unreasoned reactions. If there are few restraints in operation at the time, these responses can be produced by an external stimulus having a clearly aggressive meaning or by the intense negative feelings created by a decidedly unpleasant occurrence such as the emergence of a perceived threat or highly stressful event, even when no one is blamed for wrongdoing.

Further Reading Anderson, C. and Bushman, B. (2002). Human aggression. Annual Review of Psychology 53, 27–51. Anderson, C., Deuser, W., and DeNeve, K. (1995). Hot temperatures, hostile affect, hostile cognition, and arousal: Tests of a general model of affective aggression. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 21, 434–448. Anderson, C., Berkowitz, L., Donnerstein, E., et al. (2003). The influence of media violence on youth. Psychological Science in the Public Interest 4, 81–110. Bargh, J. and Chartrand, T. (1999). The unbearable automaticity of being. American Psychologist 54, 462–479. Baron, R. A. and Richardson, D. R. (1994). Human aggression, 2nd edn. New York: Plenum. Berkowitz, L. (1989). The frustration-aggression hypothesis: An examination and reformulation. Psychological Bulletin 106, 59–73. Berkowitz, L. (1993). Aggression: Its causes, consequences, and control. New York: McGraw-Hill. Berkowitz, L. (2008). On the consideration of automatic as well as controlled processing in aggression. Aggressive Behavior. Berkowitz, L. and Harmon-Jones, E. (2004). Toward an understanding of the determinants of anger. Emotion 4, 107–130. Blair, R. (2004). The roles of orbital frontal cortex in the modulation of antisocial behavior. Brain and Cognition 55, 192–208. Dodge, K. and Coie, J. (1987). Social-information-processing factors in reactive and proactive aggression in children’s peer groups. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 53, 1146–1158. Dollard, J., Doob, L., Miller, N., Mowrer, O., and Sears, R. (1939). Frustration and aggression. New Haven: Yale University Press. Miller, N. (1948). Theory and experiment relating psychoanalytic displacement to stimulus-response generalization. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 43, 155–178. Nisbett, R. and Cohen, D. (1996). Culture of honor: The psychology of violence in the South. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. White, J., Moffitt, T., Caspi, A., et al. (1994). Measuring impulsivity and exploring the relationship to delinquency. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 103, 192–205.

Relevant Websites http://www.psychology.iastate.edu/~caa/ – Craig Anderson. http://www.personal.umich.edu/~bushman – Brad Bushman. http://www.rcgd.isr.umich.edu/people/huesmann.html – L. Rowell Huesmann.

Ahimsa See Nonharmfulness (Ahimsa) in Classical Indian Thought

Alliance Systems 39

Alliance Systems Douglas M Gibler, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, USA ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Alliances Defined Alliances in Theory Alliances in Practice

Glossary Balance of Power A theory, derived from realism, which asserts that states in the international system tend to balance power against their enemies. Polarization The separation of the international state system, usually through the formation of alliances, into competing and hostile blocs.

Alliances Defined In its barest form an alliance is a formal commitment by two or more states to some future action. The action involved could entail almost anything – detailed military planning, consultation during a crisis, or a promise by one state to abstain from an upcoming war. Once reached, the agreement is usually in written form and is made public to other states in the system at the discretion of the states making the alliance. Though less important today, secret alliances and commitments have affected the outcomes of many crises, battles, and wars. For example, the Hitler– Stalin Pact (1939), with its many secret accords, immediately sealed the fate of the much weaker Poland. Alliances have been widely discussed by students of international relations because, even though hundreds or perhaps thousands of interactions take place between states in any given year, few interactions leave the sort of ‘trace’ that alliance formation does. This trace makes alliance behavior, unlike most other forms of international actions, quite open to systematic investigation. However, despite the ease of tracing these actions, researchers have often disagreed as to what constitutes an alliance commitment. Issues of trade and legal reciprocity are often ignored even though these may constitute a large portion of an alliance relationship, and alliances never formalized by treaty are omitted from most alliance data sets. Although conceptual problems persist, empirical studies have developed a consensus that operationalization of the alliance variable depends upon two factors. First, alliance members have to be independent nation-members of

Paths for Future Research Further Reading

Realism A paradigm that sees international relations as a struggle for power between states. Within this paradigm, alliances are a means to aggregate power for states. Typology A theoretical tool that organizes observations into discrete (mutually exclusive and logically exhaustive) categories based upon theoretically important variables.

the international system (e.g., ‘alliances’ between international terrorist organizations do not qualify), and second, a treaty text has to exist that identifies a military commitment that is either defensive, a neutrality arrangement, or an entente or ‘understanding’. Lists of the alliances that meet these criteria have been printed in various forms, and a current listing is available from the Correlates of War project or from the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Alliances in Theory Alliances and alliance theory originally developed as an extension of ‘balance of power’ theory. Stated simply, balance of power theory predicts that, when the relative capabilities are more or less equally distributed, peace will ensue. As large disparities become apparent in these distributions of power, the probability of war among the major powers increases dramatically. The mechanism that maintains the balance of power is the quickly formed, or ad hoc, alliance. When confronted with the prospect of a possible threat, each nation has the choice to either arm itself or to pursue a policy of alliances. If a nation chooses to arm, it risks an endless spiral of increasing armaments that could result in an arms race. According to ‘balance of power’ theory, choosing alliances allows states to respond more quickly and with more precision to increased threats from other states. Diplomats and statesmen are able to use alliance networks to properly balance the capabilities of

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opposing nations which would maintain peace in the international system. Alliances in this framework function only to serve the balance of power. Alliances have traditionally been conceptualized as a method of avoiding war or of winning a war once it starts. A state involved in a crisis may seek alliance partners in order to warn potentially hostile states that winning a war against it would be difficult. The alliance commitments reduce the level of uncertainty in the system and minimize the likelihood of war that may result due to misperception and miscalculation, according to Singer, Bremer, and Stuckey. These commitments can also reduce the chances of catastrophic shifts in the systemic balance of power as shown by Osgood. Some ‘balance of power’ theorists claim that alliances are also necessary to avoid the most dangerous wars. A belligerent world power, seeking domination of the system, would likely restrain itself when confronted with an alliance system poised against it. Alliances, then, are an indispensable means of maintaining equilibrium in the system, as opined by Gulick. Morgenthau argues that the ‘‘balancer’’ in the system has the charge of maintaining stability between two counterweights. As the system evolves into coalitions matched against each other, the balancer’s interest becomes that of opposing ‘‘the strongest, most aggressive, most dominating Power’’ (Winston Churchill quoted in Morgenthau). The balancer, as part of the ‘balance of power’ system, uses its weight to counter the aggressive policies of each coalition. ‘‘The holder of the balance has no permanent friends, it has no permanent enemies either; it has only the permanent interest of maintaining the balance of power itself’’ (1967: 209). Alliances are also thought to preserve peace in other ways. Major states may use alliances to constrain revisionist alliance partners, or an alliance can preserve peace by enhancing the prestige of a failing power whose collapse could be destabilizing to the international system. Many neorealists argue that these alliances become meaningless in periods of bipolarity since the major state has enough capabilities to ignore the belligerent policies of its weaker allies. Waltz’s observation that the major state must have enough power to ignore the policies of its allies was a response to anecdotal evidence that weaker allies tended to bring major state allies into expanded wars. Siverson and King confirmed this anecdotal evidence; Yamamoto and Bremer also tested this logic in their writings. That minor states bring major states into war is only one hypothesis linking alliances to war in the traditional literature, however. A state seeking alliances to show resolve could be interpreted by another state as attempting a strategy of encirclement. The targeted state would naturally respond by seeking counteralliances. Although such alliance partners may have been hard to find prior to the signing of the initial alliance, the developing cleavages could make other states more likely to become involved.

The polarized system or region could also simply clarify the situation and make it easier for the aggressor to determine its odds of winning. As Bueno de Mesquita notes, ‘‘The reduction of uncertainty brought about by such information may be all that is needed to facilitate an aggressor’s desire to attack another state.’’ ‘Balance of power’ theory can also support the existence of large, system-wide wars against potential dominance caused by alliance formation. In the example given earlier, the revisionist state is seeking dominance of the system but is confronted with an alliance against it. Instead of being rebuffed by this alliance, the revisionist state continues its policies and fights the war. The revisionist state fights for a number of reasons (even if its capabilities do not match those of the coalition against it): the adversaries show a lack of resolve, the revisionist state is risk-acceptant, and/or perhaps the revisionist believes a surprise attack could swing the balance of power in its favor. As Levy notes, a number of general wars over the past five centuries appear to fit this proposition. These include the ‘‘wars against Philip of Spain in the late sixteenth century, against Louis XIV in the late seventeenth century, against revolutionary and Napoleonic France a century later, and against Germany twice in this century.’’ As is obvious from these debates, no clear understanding of the relationship between alliance formation and war has ever been developed. Based mostly upon logic and historical anecdote and often mired in post hoc ‘balance of power’ explanations, the traditional literature is divided as to whether alliances promote peace or war, and each ‘camp’ has plausible arguments to support its deductive positions. Not until the investigatory process turned systematically empirical did researchers begin to start a process of cumulation that provided some answers to the alliance/ war puzzle. However, before turning to the empirical literature on alliances, it should be noted that the traditional literature on alliances never really died. Still conceiving of alliance formation as a method of balancing power, the (mostly) neorealist literature has attempted to profitably amend the early realist predictions on the alliance/war relationship. For example, in one of the few direct tests of balancing theory by a neorealist, Walt was unable to confirm the traditional expectations that states move to balance power. Instead, Walt argued that realists had missed the fact that states were actually trying to balance threat. Of course, this emendation did not go unaltered for very long either. Noting further problems with Waltz’s original theory as well as Walt’s new conceptualization, Christensen and Snyder attempted to differentiate between different alliance ‘‘pathologies’’ of ‘‘chain-ganging’’ and ‘‘buck-passing’’ in Waltz’s theory. ‘Chain-ganging’ and ‘buck-passing’ refers to the distribution of alliances and allies under conditions of

Alliance Systems 41

multipolarity. Chain-ganging occurs when alliances form to greatly increase the capability of one coalition rather than to balance two or more coalitions. Buck-passing occurs when states neglect to form alliance to balance two or more coalitions. Unfortunately, however, even with the changes that have been made to the original realist theories, little progress has been made in explaining the effects of alliance formation. Instead, all of the changes to the original theory have led some to argue that realism is, in effect, a degenerating paradigm since post hoc explanations are being used to account for the empirical anomalies of the original theory.

Alliances in Practice Alliance Data The Correlates of War data set was recently expanded to include all alliances formed between 1816 and 2000. Table 1 presents comparative summary statistics for this newest version (3.0) of the alliance data and previous versions of the Correlates of War alliance data. The statistics are separated according to both status and Singer and Small alliance type. The new version of the data adds 135 new alliances – an increase in number of almost 70%. Some of this increase is due to the extended temporal domain, since 39 alliances are added to the dataset between the years 1980 and 2000, but increases in the number can be found in both centuries, for both the status and Singer and Small alliance type categories. Thirty-one alliances in total are added in the nineteenth century, and 65 alliances are added to the pre-1980 twentieth-century data. Since

alliances involving minor states account for all but eight of the additional alliances – 64 involving only minor states – it is reasonable to assume that increases in the number of alliances may be due to an increase in the quality and quantity of the historical sources that have become available since the late 1960s. The overall distribution of alliances by status is not significantly altered by the new dataset. Major state alliances comprise a somewhat smaller portion of the overall data (17% vs. almost 25%), minor state alliances increase from 33% to 39%, and mixed status alliances remain roughly unchanged (44% in the new data vs. 42% in the old). These changes seem to be consistent across both centuries. The changes in the number of alliances by type are more dramatic. Defense pacts numbered 97 in the previous Correlates of War dataset but almost double to a total of 188 in version 3.0; defense pacts now comprise almost 57% of the alliances. Type II alliances increase by 28 in the new data, but these changes only occur in the twentieth century. Similarly, twentieth century type III alliances increase by 16, but the total number of nineteenth century ententes remains unchanged from the previous data. The Correlates of War formal alliance data set has also been augmented to include alliance data from 1648 to 1815. This alliance data set uses the original coding rules developed by Singer and Small to produce 160 more years of cases. Additional data is almost always useful, but these data may be particularly useful in light of the fact that researchers have discovered that the nineteenth century may differ dramatically from the twentieth with regard to alliance formation and war. A major question puzzling alliance researchers has been the relative peacefulness of

Table 1 Summary comparison between original and version 3.0 Correlates of War (CoW) formal interstate alliance datasets 19th century

20th century

Alliance typea

Alliance typea

Type I

Type II

Type III

Total

% of total

Type I

Previous CoW datasets Status of signatories Majors with majors Majors with minors Minors with minors Totals

10 12 4 26

5 4 0 9

8 1 0 9

23 17 4 44

52 39 9 100

Version 3.0 CoW dataset Status of signatories Majors with majors Majors with minors Minors with minors Totals

18 29 10 57

6 2 1 9

8 1 0 9

32 32 11 75

43 43 15 100

a

Totals

Type II

Type III

Total

% of total

By status

% of total

7 25 39 71

6 28 14 48

13 12 9 34

26 65 62 153

17 42 41 100

49 82 66 197

25 42 33

8 54 69 131

7 34 35 76

10 25 15 50

25 113 119 257

10 44 46 100

57 145 130 332

17 44 39

Alliance types are classified as type I (defense pact): type II (neutrality or nonaggression pact): and type III (entente).

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the nineteenth century alliances. This intercentury difference is a major anomaly in the empirical research that has generally found alliances to be associated with war in four of the last five centuries.

Onset of War One of the first empirical tests of the alliance–war relationship was Singer and Small’s examination of the behavior of major states. They found that states ranking high on alliance activity also rank high on war engagement, initiation, and battle deaths. This study provided the first systematic evidence that alliances were associated with war, which contradicted the traditional, realist ‘balance of power’ literature. Following this work, Wallace and Bueno de Mesquita examined the effects polarization has had upon onset of war. Wallace found that very high or very low levels of polarity in the system produced war. Refining the indicators of polarity, Bueno de Mesquita showed that the ‘‘tightness’’ of an alliance system is not necessarily related to war onset. However, he found that increases in the tightness of alliances are correlated with war. Discrete alliances, on the other hand, are not associated with war. Bueno de Mesquita has discounted these findings as a potential level of analysis fallacy, that is, one or two states could be driving the systemic polarization results even though the remaining states in the system are moving away from it. Nevertheless, the polarization studies seem to provide evidence that intense polarization is a necessary systemic condition for large magnitude wars. Although polarization is not necessarily associated with the war-proneness of single alliances, alliances formed during periods of intense polarization do have an increased chance of being followed by large magnitude wars. This interpretation is consistent with the findings of Siverson and King and Sabrosky on war expansion as well as Organski and Kugler’s analysis of world wars. Levy reformulated the questions about alliance formation and war and, with a limited extension of the Correlates of War data, found that with the exception of the nineteenth century, most alliances are followed by war. More significantly, a relationship between power and alliance formation was found, since all ‘‘Great Power’’ alliances in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and twentieth centuries were followed by war within five years. Alliances between major states may also be linked to increased probabilities of war in a second and less obvious way, according to Vasquez. Schroeder has discussed how major, ‘‘predatory’’ states may sign nonaggression pacts in order to remove potential adversaries before attacking smaller states. Moul shows that there is an increased likelihood for unequals to go to war in the presence of a nonaggression pact with another state. These ‘pacts of

restraint’, or pacta de contrahendo, limit the expansion of war but promote hostilities between unequals. The finding that alliances are often associated with war have been tempered, however, by the inability to explain a large number of ‘anomalous’, peaceful alliances. Levy has clearly shown that a large minority of alliances are not followed by war, and the variegated effects of the alliances he examined led Levy to speculate that ‘‘further conceptualization of the alliance variable is necessary’’ and to argue that ignored differences among the alliances may be obscuring some important alliance–war relationships. The problem with the early empirical investigations, as Levy seems to point out, was that researchers concentrated their early ‘‘brush clearing’’ exercises upon alliances in the aggregate rather than differentiating between the types of alliances being formed. Without a clear understanding of alliances as a multifaceted behavior, early research often found weak or inconsistent intercentury results. Trusting ‘balance of power’ theory to explain alliance-formation often lead researchers to miss large groups of alliances that were not responses to either power or threat. In order to produce consistent findings linking alliances with either war or peace (or both), alliance research would have to re-examine the concept of alliance and what states were actually doing when they agreed to form one.

Friends as Foes Although alliances may be more likely to be followed by war than peace, it is also interesting to note that alliances may have some unanticipated effects on the sides states choose to fight on in a coming war. A small literature exists on the probability of ‘friends’ becoming ‘foes’. Expected utility theory notes that it is sometimes rational for allied states to end up in war with each other rather than against a common foe. Most arguments start between friends or acquaintances, and it follows that alliances may increase the probability of war between states. Ray, however, has noted that this probability is quite small and is dependent on both the definition of war and the definition of alliance (in both cases, dyadic or multilateral). Bremer has seemingly ended this controversy by controlling for the proximity of the allies. Noting that allies are likely to fight each other than unallied states, Bremer also finds that the addition of contiguity into a multivariate analysis eliminates the relationship between alliance ties and war. Although the logic of opportunity is consistent with Bueno de Mesquita’s argument, Bremer’s findings suggest that allies are becoming ‘‘foes’’ not because of their alliances but because they are neighbors. Allies that are not neighbors are not likely to go to war with each other. Bremer did find, however, that allies that were highly militarized had an increased chance of fighting each other compared to nonallied or allied, nonmilitarized states. This suggests that

Alliance Systems 43

Bremer may have statistically isolated the cases in which alliances promoted war between signatories. Despite these results, the dangers of alliance formation should be noted. Research has shown that alliances increase rather than decrease the chances of war against nonallied states, and even Bremer’s research has shown that alliances can increase the chances of war against allies in certain situations. Both of these findings run counter to realist prescriptions advocating the quickly formed alliance, and both underscore the dangerous potential that alliances may have for naive policymakers. Typology of alliances

As was mentioned earlier, Levy called for a reexamination of the alliance concept, but this plea for more theoretical research only echoed earlier reviews of the alliance literature. For example, a monograph by Ward argued that confusion among definitions, causal processes, and alliance dynamics had hampered a necessary cumulation of knowledge. Although never directly arguing for a typology of alliances, Ward did find that previous scientific studies had led to inconclusive, often contradictory results because not enough attention had been paid to the theoretical linkages between alliance dynamics and war. Ward also completed a survey of the scholarly community to question what is ‘‘known and unknown’’ about the alliance–war relationship. He emphasizes the answer of ‘‘one scholar who has written a great deal about alliance formation and war behavior:’’ ‘‘I assume that the first part of this question is not to be taken seriously. The second part is most easily answered by the gross lack of theoretical development in this area.’’ In a similar effort Singer and Bueno de Mesquita also elaborated the need for further conceptualization: ‘‘The labels and definitions are not merely elusive and slippery; they are, all too often, logically inconsistent and semantically misleading.’’ As they argued it, the only way for the alliance literature to develop consistent findings was to embark upon a wholesale restructuring of alliances as a concept. Much has been written and learned about alliances in the 35 years since these early reviews were written. However, very little effort has been made to examine how different types of alliances affect the dependent variable of war. There are exceptions: Sabrosky found that nonaggression pacts and neutrality agreements (Singer and Small type II alliances) were likely to promote wars among the signatories; Moul and Schroeder, as described earlier, showed that certain alliance types ‘‘permitted’’ the instigation of smaller wars; and Kegley and Raymond described how certain commitment norms affected the systemic incidences of violence throughout the years. Nevertheless, though much has been learned there still exists no clear understanding of the complex relationship between alliances and war.

The lack of consensus on the theoretical linkages between alliances and war (or peace) has even led some to argue for a re-examination of the methods used to investigate the alliance–war process, substituting choicetheoretic models for correlation-based hypothesis testing. ‘‘The inductive method of analysis has not brought us closer to understanding the underlying relationship between alliances and war. Despite numerous studies of the empirical relationship between alliance formation and the occurrence of war, there are few robust findings. The evidence is often contradictory and generally inconclusive. From the sum of these studies it is unclear whether alliances make war more or less likely. Even the inclusion of intervening variables, such as system polarization, has failed to generate conclusive evidence to relate alliance formation with the occurrence of war.’’ However, despite these assertions, it is not at all clear that the methods currently used are to blame for the theoretical confusion. Nor is it clear if the choice theoretic literature has added much to our understanding of the relationship between alliances and war. Most of these studies have been concerned with alliance reliability, the nonwar relationships between alliance members, the composition of alliances, or the likelihood of alliance termination. The few that have examined the war relationship have added critiques to existing studies but have provided little, if any, new empirical evidence. As Vasquez describes in a recent review of the Correlates of War findings, alliances have been found to generally be associated with war and do indeed comprise a large part in the ‘‘steps to war’’ between rival states. Vasquez argues that, as an extension of power politics behavior, states respond to security issues and follow the realist prescriptions of security by forming alliances, thinking that the increase in capabilities will make potentially hostile states more cautious. The problem with this action, though, is that the formation of an alliance constitutes a part of a process, or path, that will increase the likelihood of war rather than peace. The state responds to insecurity and threat by forming the alliance, but then this response breeds increased insecurity and uncertainty among other actors and forces these states to turn toward the other means of augmenting their capabilities – counteralliances and/or military buildups. It is important that Vasquez distinguishes between alliances that attempt to form winning coalitions and those that attempt to avoid war, since this simple but central distinction outlines a large gap in the extant literature on alliances. Vasquez’s ‘steps to war’ model assumes that a certain type of alliance will increase the hostilities between rivals, but he also argues elsewhere that other types of alliances may have pacifying effects both on the signatories and the system as a whole either through the resolution of territorial disputes or through the creation of norms of behavior within the system. Vasquez argues that, ‘‘For research to progress, there is a

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Alliance Systems

need to create more theoretical typologies of alliances. Despite the variety of purposes served by alliances in different historical contexts, the critical distinction in terms of a comparative analysis of the causes of war seems to be whether an alliance is perceived as preparing for war through the creation of a winning coalition.’’ The distinctions made by Vasquez form the basis of a typology of alliances developed by Gibler. This typology separates alliances into two basic types: the territorial settlement treaty and the capability-aggregation alliance. First, a significant minority of alliances attempt to avoid war by removing contentious issues from the system. Instead of trying to establish peace through realist prescriptions of balancing, these ‘territorial settlement treaties’ resolve disputes by removing the contentious issue of territory from the agendas of states. The territorial settlement treaty is an alliance which also contains provisions for the maintenance of the status quo by states in a given region, or an agreement to exchange territories between the alliance partners. The alliance signed after the territorial settlement formalizes the states’ commitments to the agreement. Alliances that resolve territorial issues between states are intrinsically different from other commitment types and least likely to be followed by war. These tools of conflict management are seen as such and not viewed as provocative acts by other states. In the case of the territorial settlement treaties, the type of commitment is much more important than the types of states forming it. For a more detailed discussion of these treaties see ‘Further references’, or Territorial Disputes. However, for all other alliances the war-proneness of the alliance is most likely best determined by the characteristics of the states involved in that alliance. It is widely assumed that when states form an alliance, a signal is sent to other states in the system. Gibler argues that, for most alliances, the type of signal sent depends upon the states involved in the alliance rather than the type of commitment made. Gibler shows that major states, successful in their previous war, and dissatisfied with the status quo, are most likely to form the dangerous alliances. Their alliances are dangerous both because they increase the hostilities and insecurities of other states and because they are most likely to be used as tools to win an upcoming war. Major states have been inculcated into a value system that sees alliance diplomacy as a tool of war. Similarly, successful states are more likely to appeal to ‘war to win’ policy objectives since these policies have worked in the past. Lastly, dissatisfied states approach alliance-making as a necessary step to change the status quo to their liking; a coalition is necessary to force change on the states protecting the status quo. The perception of an alliance as threatening, and the likelihood that an alliance was formed as an attempt to win a war, decrease as the number of major, successful, and dissatisfied states in an alliance decrease.

Some empirical comparisons should help demonstrate how different the alliance types are. The territorial settlement treaty is expected to be associated with peace, and indeed, it is. Gibler finds that only one alliance out of 27 was followed by war involving an ally within five years after the formation of the alliance. The percentage rate of 3.7% is dramatically less than the percentage rate for all alliances (26.8%), a difference that is statistically significant ( 2.99, p < 0.01). The relationship is much more variegated for the other alliance types. Alliances made by major states, successful in their previous war, and dissatisfied with the status quo are the alliances most likely to trigger increased military expenditures and counteralliances in target states. These attempts to build war-winning coalitions are also the alliances that are most likely to be followed by war. On the other hand, as the states in alliance decrease in the three important variables of status, success, and satisfaction, the likelihood of war following these alliances decreases. The alliances made by satisfied minor states, unsuccessful in their previous war, are the alliances least likely to provoke bellicose responses from other states. In order to measure the impact of the different capability aggregation alliances, Gibler devised a ‘‘bellicosity rating’’ from the product of the status, satisfaction, and success in war measures. Each of the three measures has three categories – absent, mixed, or present – so the bellicosity rating was also made to be a three-part measure: low, mixed, or high. Each of the states in an alliance was coded as either ‘present’ or ‘absent’ for each variable. Therefore, each alliance could be coded as either ‘all present’, ‘all absent’, or ‘mixed’. Low-bellicosity alliances ranked lowest (absent) on at least two of three measures. High-bellicosity alliances ranked highest (present) on at least two of three measures. Mixed-bellicosity alliances had rankings that ranged between these two extremes. For example, if an alliance contained satisfied (dissatisfaction absent), unsuccessful (success absent), minor states (major status absent), then it was given a low-bellicosity rating. An alliance made by dissatisfied, successful, major states produces a high-bellicosity rating. The low bellicosity are expected to have little impact upon the perceptions of other states because the states forming these alliances have neither the capability nor the willingness to change the status quo. Although peace is predicted to follow these alliance types, it is a different form of peace than the one that follows the territorial settlement treaties. The territorial settlement treaties are attempts at conflict resolution and, if successful, are likely to result in decreased hostility levels between states. The peaceful capability aggregation alliances are not attempts at conflict resolution, but they are not provocative attempts to change the status quo either. Therefore, the predicted result of these alliances is better described as ‘no effect’. In Gibler’s 1997 study, out of 40 low bellicosity alliances, only

Alliance Systems 45

six were followed by war within five years after formation of alliances. In other words, 15% of these alliances are followed by war compared to a likelihood of close to 30% for all alliances (p < 0.01). The mixed-bellicosity alliances were formed by different types of states and for different reasons. A satisfied state may seek an alliance with a dissatisfied state in order to pacify it, or a major state may seek control over a minor state. The predicted reaction to these alliances by other states is uncertain and is dependent upon contextual situations, such as the presence of rivalry, repeated crises, or continuing arms races. If the alliances are formed during times of hostility, then the chances of war obviously increase. Conversely, during times of low hostility levels, the alliances are likely to produce an increased sensitivity in other states, but are unlikely to generate the processes that would lead to war. Out of 92 alliances, over one-third (31) are followed by war within five years. The 4% increase in the likelihood of war for these alliances compared to alliances in aggregate is significant (p < 0.05). The high-bellicosity alliances are highly provocative attempts to influence and eventually change the status quo. They are likely to promote increased armament levels, crises, and an increase in counteralliances. Their predicted result is war. Out of 35 high-bellicosity alliances, over half were followed by war within five years. These alliances are almost twice as likely to generate war as a result than alliances in general (p < 0.01) and are probably attempts to build war-winning coalitions. These findings demonstrate well why not all alliances are equal. After the disaggregation of alliances into various smaller groups, theories can be constructed that assess the impacts of the various alliance types. Peaceful alliances can be separated from other alliances in order to examine their ability to manage conflict. War-prone alliances can be isolated from the larger set of general alliances so as to assess the processes that led their alliance members to war. Finally, the remaining group of mixedbellicosity alliances can be studied in further detail to delineate the types of situations in which these alliances are likely to generate war. Alliances and the Expansion of War The onset of war and its expansion beyond the original participants are often regarded as distinct events, and while the relationship between alliances and the onset of war is variegated, the relationship between alliances and war expansion is much simpler. Alliances cause wars to spread. Some of the best evidence linking alliances with the expansion of war was provided by Siverson and King. They found that between 1815 and 1965, there were 112 instances in which actors fought wars in coalitions. In the remaining 76 instances, the actors fought alone. Of the 112 instances of coalition, 76 had prewar alliances and 36 did

not; of the 76 instances of participants fighting alone, 52 had no prewar alliances and 24 did. It could be inferred from these findings that alliances may be a necessary condition for wars to spread, and indeed, Siverson and King show that this may be the case. Over the same time period, 1815 to 1965, 19 wars were fought without war participants having prewar alliance bonds. Of these, only three expanded beyond the original two war participants. Although alliances are perhaps a necessary condition for the spread of war, they are not a sufficient condition. In a follow-up study, Siverson and King showed that only about one-quarter of alliance bonds serve to bring nonbelligerents into a war once it has begun. The characteristics of alliances that make them more likely to spread war include major– minor state partnerships, defense pacts, and new alliances. Alliances may also act as a contagion mechanism for states involved in many alliances but with few actual alliance partners or for wars in which other alliance members have already intervened. The findings of Siverson and King are generally consistent with a large literature which shows that alliances may contribute to the expansion of war. However, it should be emphasized that, although alliance formation contributes greatly to the expansion of conflict once it begins, it is not the only source of contagion. As Siverson and King point out, World War I, World War II, and the Korean War – each had war participants that were not involved in prewar alliance bonds.

Paths for Future Research Research has shown that alliances are associated with war and that they may cause wars to spread once they begin. These findings suggest a reconsideration of traditional alliance theory which asserts that alliances, especially when used to balance power or threat, are associated with peace. For future research to continue this progress linking alliances with war, several relationships will have to be uncovered. First, the peaceful alliances, especially the territorial settlement treaties, will have to be studied in greater depth to understand the processes that lead them to peace. It is possible that a useful new tool of conflict resolution has been discovered, but because this is a relatively new insight, it will take much more research to substantiate this conclusion. As for the other peaceful alliances, the nonthreatening capability-aggregation alliances, future researchers may want to concentrate their efforts on collecting primary data on the events immediately prior to and after the formation of these alliances. There is often a tendency in historical accounts to shed light on the events that promote war and to neglect the rest, and this is definitely the case for these alliances.

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Alliance Systems

Of all the alliances in the Correlates of War data set on alliances, the historical record is most sketchy on these ones. The second avenue of possible research would travel down a well-trodden path. Investigating the alliances that promote war has been a long-standing project for both historians and political scientists alike. However, despite these efforts, no general theories exist that link the processes that lead these alliances to be perceived as threatening and the processes that produce behaviors like counteralliances and increased military expenditures. The final possible area for research on the linkages between alliances and war will probably provide the best area for important original research. As was noted earlier, the likelihood that a mixed-bellicosity alliance will be followed by war is dependent upon the situation during which it was formed. Further investigation of the types of situations that lead these alliances to war is greatly needed. Are rivalries or repeated conflicts necessary for these alliances to be followed by war? Under what circumstances will these alliances cause counteralliances and increased arms expenditures in their targets? These myriad other questions will have to be answered by future research. See also: Territorial Disputes

Further Reading Altfeld, M. and Bueno de Mesquita, B. (1979). Choosing sides in wars. International Studies Quarterly 27, 225–231. Bremer, S. (1992). Dangerous dyads: Conditions affecting the likelihood of interstate war, 1816–1965. Journal of Conflict Resolution 36(June), 309–341. Bueno de Mesquita, B. (1975). Measuring systemic polarity. Journal of Conflict Resolution 19, 77–96. Bueno de Mesquita, B. (1978). Systemic polarization and the occurrence and duration of war. Journal of Conflict Resolution 22(June), 241–267. Bueno de Mesquita, B. (1981). The war trap. New Haven: Yale University Press. Bueno de Mesquita, B. and Singer, J. D. (1973). Alliances, capabilities, and war: A review and synthesis. Political Science Annual 4, 237–281. Christensen, T. and Snyder, J. (1990). Chain gangs and passed bucks: Predicting alliance patterns in multipolarity. International Organization 44(Spring), 137–168. Gibler, D. M. (1996). Alliances that never balance: The territorial settlement treaty. Conflict Management and Peace Science 15(1), 75–98. Gibler, D. M. (1997). Reconceptualizing the alliance variable: An empirical Typology of Alliances. Vanderbilt University, Doctoral Thesis. Gibler, D. M. (1999). An extension of the correlates of war formal alliance data set, 1648–1815. International Interactions 25, 1–28. Gibler, D. M. and Sarkees, M. (2004). Measuring alliances: The correlates of war formal interstate alliance dataset, 1816–2000. Journal of Peace Research 41(2), 211–222. Gulick, E. V. (1955). Europe’s classical balance of power. New York: Norton. Kaplan, M. (1957). System and process in international politics. New York: Wiley. Kegley, C. W. and Raymond, G. (1982). Alliance norms and war: A new piece in an old puzzle. International Studies Quarterly 26(December), 572–595.

Levy, J. (1981). Alliance formation and war behavior: An analysis of the great powers, 1495–1975. Journal of Conflict Resolution 25(December), 581–613. Levy, J. (1989). The causes of war: A review of theories and evidence. In Tetlock, P. E., Husbands, J. L., Jervis, R., Stern, P. C., and Tilly, C. (eds.) Behavior, society, and nuclear war, vol. I, pp. 209–333. New York: Oxford University Press. Liska, G. (1962). Nations in alliance. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. McGowan, P. J. and Rood, R. (1975). Alliance behavior in balance of power systems: Applying a Poisson model to nineteenth century Europe. American Political Science Review 69(September), 859–870. Midlarsky, M. (1986). A hierarchical equilibrium theory of systemic war. International Studies Quarterly 30(March), 77–105. Morgan, T. C. and Palmer, G. (1996). Alliance formation and foreignpolicy portfolioss: To protect and serve. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, San Francisco. Morgenthau, H. (1967). Politics among nations: The struggle for power and peace, 3rd edn. New York: Knopf. Morrow, J. (1991). Alliances and asymmetry: An alternative to the capability aggregation model of alliances. American Journal of Political Science 35, 904–933. Most, B. and Siverson, R. (1987). Substituting arms and alliances, 1870–1914: An exploration in comparative foreign policy. In Herman, K. and Rosenau, J. N. (eds.) New directions in the study of foreign policy, pp. 131–157. Boston: Allen and Unwin. Moul, W. (1988). Great power nondefense alliances and the escalation to war of conflicts between unequals, 1815–1939. International Interactions 15(1), 25–43. Organski, A. F. K. and Kugler, J. (1980). The war ledger. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Osgood, R. E. (1967). The expansion of force. In Osgood, R. E. and Tucker, R. W. (eds.) Force, order, and justice, pp. 41–120. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Ray, J. L. (1990). Friends as foes: International conflict and wars between formal allies. In Gochman, C. and Sabrosky, A. (eds.) Prisoners of war, pp. 73–91. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books. Ray, J. L. (1995). Democracy and international conflict: An evaluation of the democratic peace proposition. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press. Sabrosky, A. N. (1980). Interstate alliances: Their reliability and the expansion of war. In Singer, J. D. (ed.) The correlates of war II: Testing some realpolitik models? pp. 161–198. New York: Free Press. Sabrosky, A. N. (1985). Alliance aggregation, capability distribution, and the expansion of interstate war. In Sabrosky, A. (ed.) Polarity and war? pp. 145–189. Boulder: Westview. Schroeder, P. (1976). Alliances, 1815–1945: Weapons of power and tools of management. In Knorr, K. (ed.) Historical dimensions of national security problems? pp. 227–262. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. Singer, J. D., Bremer, S., and Stuckey, J. (1972). Capability distribution, uncertainty, and major power war, 1820–1965. In Russett, B. (ed.) Peace? war, and numbers, pp. 19–48. Beverly Hills: Sage. Singer, J. D. and Small, M. (1966). Formal alliances, 1815–1939: A quantitative description. Journal of Peace Research 3, 1–32. Singer, J. D. and Small, M. (1968). Alliance aggregation and the onset of war, 1815–1945. In Singer, J. D. (ed.) Quantitative international politics: Insights and evidence, pp. 247–286. New York: Free Press. Singer, J. D. and Small, M. (1972). The wages of war, 1816–1965: A statistical handbook. New York: Wiley. Siverson, R. and King, J. (1979). Alliances and the expansion of war. In Singer, J. D. and Wallace, M. (eds.) To augur well? pp. 37–49. Beverly Hills: Sage. Siverson, R. and King, J. (1980). Attributes of national alliance membership and war participation, 1815–1965. American Journal of Political Science 24(February), 1–15. Small, M. and Singer, J. D. (1982). Resort to arms: International and civil wars, 1816–1980. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Smith, A. (1995). Alliance formation and war. International Studies Quarterly 39(4), 405–426.

Animal Behavioral Studies, Non-Primates Smith, A. (1996). To intervene or not to intervene: A biased decision. Journal of Conflict Resolution 40(1), 16–40. Vasquez, J. (1997). The realist paradigm as a degenerating research program: An appraisal of neotraditional research on Waltz’s balancing proposition. American Political Science Review 91(4), 899–912. Vasquez, J. (1993). The war puzzle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wallace, M. D. (1973). Alliance polarization, cross-cutting, and international war, 1815–1964. Journal of Conflict Resolution 17(December), 575–604. Walt, S. (1987). The origins of alliances. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Waltz, K. (1979). Theory of international politics. Reading, MA: AddisonWesley. Ward, M. D. (1973). Monograph series in world affairs, Vol. XIX: Research gaps in alliance dynamics, Book 1. Denver: University of Denver.

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Wayman, F. W. (1984). Bipolarity and war: The role of capability concentration and alliance patterns among major powers, 1816–1965. Journal of Peace Research 21(1), 61–78. Wright, Q. (1965). A study of war, 2nd edn. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Yamamoto, Y. and Bremer, S. A. (1980). Wider wars and restless nights: Major power intervention in ongoing war. In Singer, J. D. (ed.) The correlates of war, vol. II, pp. 85–119. New York: Free Press.

Relevant Websites http://www.correlatesofwar.org http://bama.ua.edu/~dmgibler

Al-Qaeda and 9-11 See Terrorism

Animal Behavioral Studies, Non-Primates Hanna Kokko, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Why Natural Selection Can Produce Aggressive Behavior Understanding Aggression in Animals: Game Theory in Evolutionary Studies Territoriality

Glossary Allele An alternative form of a gene. For example, in humans, eye color is genetically determined. Brown-eyed individuals have at least one copy of an allele that leads to the production of brown pigment, whereas the alleles of blue-eyed individuals do not lead to pigment production. Bruce Effect Apparently spontaneous abortion of fetuses when the female encounters an unfamiliar male (or is exposed to the scent of such a male). Dear Enemy Effect Reduced aggression toward familiar neighbors in a territorial context. Evolution A change in the frequency of different alleles in a population over time. Much of evolution is due to natural selection that favors different genotypes, but alternative mechanisms are possible too. For example, alleles can sometimes disappear by chance and ‘bad luck’, particularly in small populations.

This article is a revision of the previous edition article by John Paul Scott, volume 1, pp 57–66, Ó 1999, Elsevier Inc.

Social Behavior, Reproductive Skew, and Dominance Hierarchies Aggression in Sexual Contexts Summary Further Reading

Evolutionarily Stable Strategy A strategy that, once established in a population, cannot be replaced by any other strategy. Replacement occurs if an alternative strategy leads to a higher rate of offspring production. Genotype The alleles of a particular individual. The definition of a genotype is context dependent. For example, two blue-eyed individuals can be said to have the same genotype when studying eye color, even if these two individuals are otherwise genetically different. Intrasexual Competition Competition for access to mates, which occurs between members of the same sex. Intrasexual competition is often more intense among males than among females, because there are usually more males available and ready to mate than females at any point in time. This, in turn, reflects the greater effort spent by females in parenting duties. There are also numerous examples in which the roles are reversed (e.g., in fishes that care for offspring, the carer is usually the male).

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Animal Behavioral Studies, Non-Primates

Natural Selection A major mechanism of evolution that is based on the fact that fitness (a measure of offspring production) often depends on the genotype of an individual. Genotypes that lead to low survival or low reproductive success, for example, due to low competitive ability in intrasexual competition decrease in frequency from one generation to the next. Prior Residence Effect The tendency of individuals to win fights over ownership of a particular area if they resided there first. Recognition Allele An allele that can be sensed by conspecifics, for example, alleles that lead to the production of a characteristic smell.

Why Natural Selection Can Produce Aggressive Behavior

Resource Holding Potential The ability of an individual to acquire resources or defend them when in competition with conspecifics. Sexual Conflict A difference in the optimal trait expression between males and females. One distinguishes between intralocus conflict, which means that the genotype that produces a highly fit male is not the best genotype when it is expressed in a female, and interlocus conflict, where the genotype expressed by males has direct effect on females (or vice versa) when the male and the female interact, for example, during mating.

Generation 1 Generation 2

Generation 1 Generation 2

A

It is easy to understand why a lion has evolved weapons such as sharp canine teeth and claws that allow it to kill prey efficiently. Likewise, it is easy to comprehend why a female lion tolerates playful bites from her cubs without using her powerful weapons against her own offspring: it is important to practice all skills required for survival later in life, and it is not in the interest of the mother to kill her own offspring. There are, however, numerous instances in which animals do behave aggressively against members of their own species. Male lions, for example, fight for dominance status and ownership of a female harem, and injuries can be fatal. Worse still, if ownership changes, the new male often kills all the young and defenseless cubs present in the harem. It may appear counterintuitive that natural selection can favor such behaviors. A common misconception among laymen is that natural selection favors the survival of a species, and killing young conspecifics appears decidedly counterproductive in this context. However, since the 1960s it has been clear to evolutionary biologists that species- or group-level explanations of selective pressures are often wrong. The reasons were elegantly popularized by Richard Dawkins in his first major work The Selfish Gene (1976). The core of the argument is depicted in Figure 1. Even if a selfish behavior reduces population size, genes dictating such behaviors can spread at the expense of other, more benign alternatives, if this allows the aggressive individuals a greater share of resources (e.g., food, or prospects of paternity for a male) compared to conspecifics. In other words, evolution can be characterized as a very short-sighted process that does not necessarily promote the long-term survival of a species. For instance, infanticide by newly dominant males can be selected for because females who no longer lactate come into estrus more quickly than

A

A

A

A B B

A B

B

B

B

B

B

B

Figure 1 How selfish genes work, i.e., why selfish behavior can be selected for at the expense of species performance. Consider a species in which each individual, when foraging alone, can gather enough resources to raise three offspring. In the scenario on the left, two individuals (A and B) do just this; the total population size increases from two to six in one generation. In the scenario on the right, genotype B is a mutant who behaves differently: it spends some of its effort stealing food from A. Stealing is assumed wasteful: having some of resources stolen drops A’s offspring production more (by two offspring) compared to B’s increase (one offspring). Wastefulness can arise, e.g., because the resource has to be looked for twice, first by A and then by B who spends some effort in her stealing trips. The assumed 50% level of wastefulness of a selfish act is probably exaggerated for some natural situations, but even with this extreme level of waste that might be assumed to be weeded out by natural selection, the selfish behavior in fact spreads in the population. The proportion of individuals who have the genotype B increases in one generation from 1/2 to 4/5. Note that the whole population grows less efficiently (to five instead of six individuals) as a result.

females who care for their previous young. The new estrus allows the newly dominant male to mate with his new females and produce more offspring of his own during his lifetime. Thus, genes that make males kill offspring are more efficient at replicating and this behavior can become the norm in a population, even if the population’s overall reproductive output is compromised. The threat of

Animal Behavioral Studies, Non-Primates

infanticide can even lead to the so-called Bruce effect, where female pregnancies are disrupted in the presence of a novel male (well documented in mice and voles). It may be energetically cheaper and hence advantageous for a female to abort fetuses than to invest more resources in them, if they are going to be killed anyway. If one is tempted to argue that females could ‘win’ by ‘refusing’ to become receptive to a male who has killed their offspring, the counterargument of short-sighted evolution once again applies. While it is certainly conceivable that genes could cause such refusal (without implying conscious thought or even emotions, as only physiological processes need to be involved), a female will only damage her own reproductive success by refusing to reproduce. Females who agree to produce offspring with the new male have higher reproductive success than females who do not. This short-term cost to the spread of ‘refusing’ genes prevents the potential longer-term benefit, that refusal could make the damaging male behavior futile, from operating in time. This example highlights two important principles. First, one has to take great care when developing evolutionary arguments, to avoid arguing at the level of group or species benefits, when genes in individuals can in fact benefit from acting against conspecifics. This is the principal reason why aggressive behavior can evolve. Second, evolution is fundamentally amoral. It does not necessarily produce behaviors that are considered morally correct when applied to humans. Naturally selected behavior can be very cruel. The question of whether a behavior is adaptive is a separate one from whether its occurrence is desirable, and likewise it is a different one than asking whether and to what extent the behavior can be prevented or encouraged in the present-day world. Therefore, one should not fall into the trap of arguing that behavior X has to be considered acceptable because there is a reason to believe that it has improved reproductive success of individuals in the past of a species. This is an example of Hume’s Guillotine, according to which it is not logically possible to derive statements about ‘what ought to be’ based on ‘what is’.

Understanding Aggression in Animals: Game Theory in Evolutionary Studies There are examples of species in which lethal fights are common: for example, fig wasps routinely fight for the ownership of a fig (where eggs are laid) until only one wasp is alive. While the above section gave the basic reasons why such behaviors can evolve, lethal fighting is nevertheless not the norm in the animal kingdom. For example, territory owners of many birds, fishes, or mammals appear to have an established right to roam within their (often invisible) territorial boundaries, and neighbors only attack each other if the boundary is crossed. Whether

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in a territorial context or not, observed aggression also often appears to show signs of restraint. Instead of a straightforward attack typical of a predator–prey encounter, in conspecific aggression one often first observes signaling that involves ‘ritualized’ behaviors such as intense bird song, display of weapons, or behaviors that allow body size assessment to take place, such as side-by-side walking by male deer. Only if several stages of intensifying displays do not lead to one individual giving up, the fight escalates. A breakthrough in the understanding of animal conflict arose in the 1970s, when game-theoretic thinking entered evolutionary biology. Game theory has its roots in the economics, but evolutionary biology deals with many similar problems: in both fields the central question is to find out what behaviors best serve the interest of an individual in a competitive world. The problem has a game-theoretic nature whenever the payoffs (in an evolutionary context, offspring production, or the resources required for this) depend on the behavior of other individuals of a population. In economic theory, one has to make the assumption that individuals play rationally to maximize their payoffs. In studies of animal behavior, however, game theory requires no assumption of advanced cognitive capabilities of individuals. Instead, natural selection makes genes spread in a population if they cause behavior that yields high payoffs, which is the reason why existing behaviors are expected to perform well in payoff-maximizing tasks as long as the task has been encountered frequently enough in the evolutionary past of an organism. In the question of conflict over resources, the behavior in question is aggressiveness, and the first illustrative example is the so-called Hawk-Dove game, developed in the 1970s by pioneers such as John Maynard Smith, George Price, and Geoffrey Parker. Perhaps misleadingly, ‘Hawk’ and ‘Dove’ do not imply a predator–prey relationship here, but they are labels for strategies (that can be thought to reflect different alleles of a gene) used by individuals of one species. Consider that two conspecific individuals meet and they are interested in a resource that cannot be shared, for example, a cavity required to build a nest. If one of the individuals is more aggressive than the other – that is, one plays Hawk while the other one plays Dove – the Hawk strategy gains access to the resource, and Dove gains nothing but suffers no injuries either. Denoting the value of the resource by V (in units of fitness, e.g., the expected offspring production from this cavity), the Hawk gains V and the Dove gains 0. If both are equally aggressive (both play Hawk), they are assumed to fight until one gets injured and has to accept its loss. The injury costs C fitness units. Initially, the individuals are assumed to be equally strong; thus, pure luck is assumed to determine who wins, and both players can expect to gain, on average (V–C)/2 fitness units. If two Doves meet, on the other hand, there is no aggression but once again chance determines who wins the resource: the expected gain is V/2.

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Animal Behavioral Studies, Non-Primates

Table 1 The payoff matrix of the Hawk–Dove game. The first value of each cell in the matrix gives the payoff to individual A, the second value gives the payoff to individual B Individual A

Individual B

Hawk

Dove

Hawk

V –C V –C ; 2 2

0, V

Dove

V, 0

V V , 2 2

data on, for example, cichlids and lizards. It is also of interest to note that there is current evidence that costs of aggression-related traits can exist even if no injuries happen during the lifetime of an individual. Testosterone, for example, regulates aggressive behavior in a number of organisms, and heightened testosterone levels have been shown to compromise the functioning of the immune system of birds and mammals.

Territoriality Table 1 summarizes the game. In a population in which everyone plays Dove, it is clearly better to be a Hawk, as others will not challenge and ownership is secured (Hawk scores V > 0, Dove scores 0). The higher reproductive success of Hawks enables the Hawk strategy to spread in the population; this also means that Hawks increasingly meet other Hawks and thus have to risk injury in real fights. In a population consisting of a proportion p of Hawks and 1 – p of Doves, the expected payoff to a Hawk is p(V – C)/2 þ (1 – p)V, while the expected payoff to Doves is (1 – p)V/2 since Doves only gain fitness if they meet another Dove. Being a Hawk is favored by natural selection only if p(V – C)/2 þ (1 – p)V > (1 – p)V/2, which is true as long as p < V/C. Therefore, if the risk of injuries C is larger than the value of the resource V, we expect the Hawk strategy to spread only up to a fraction p ¼ V/C in the population. This model is oversimplified, but it illustrates an important conceptual point: it may be adaptive to fight against conspecifics, but it may also be adaptive to avoid too risky behaviors. The proportion p of aggressive individuals is evolutionarily stable: if a population deviates upwards from this equilibrium, nonaggressive individuals reproduce better than aggressive ones who suffer many injuries, while if a population deviates downwards, aggressive Hawks reproduce better as they often gain access to resources by scaring off nonaggressive Doves without risking injury. The early Hawk–Dove games have been followed by a large literature of game-theory models of animal contests and their empirical tests. For example, models quickly established that stepwise fight escalation can be an evolutionarily stable behavior, based on the idea that each stage gives information about the relative strength of an opponent. It is not in the interest of an individual to fight in a situation that will lead to a guaranteed loss, and similarly it is not in the interest of the stronger opponent to fight if a display of superiority, that avoids any risk of injury, is sufficient to settle the contest. These models predict that the more closely matched the opponents are, the longer the displays are the higher the risk of escalation. These predictions are amply matched with empirical

Respect for Ownership In the context of territoriality, the central question is to explain why rules that indicate ‘respect for ownership’ can evolve. A male finch singing from a perch may signal two quite distinct messages: one is that females are welcome to join him, the other is that conspecific males better stay away. Intruders are, indeed, quickly chased away, and true takeovers occur only rarely. But there is not necessarily anything physically superior about this male finch: take him to a foreign territory, and he behaves like any intruder, being clearly subordinate to the owner of the other area. Such a ‘psychological’ home ground advantage begs for an explanation: if aggression is favored when it brings about selfish benefits in terms of resource use, how can we explain the orderly arrangement of individuals, each residing peacefully in their own territories? In the same era (1970s) that witnessed the introduction of game theory to the study of animal behavior, Nick Davies conducted a series of now classic experiments with a butterfly species called the speckled wood (Parage aegeria). This butterfly inhabits brightly sunlit patches in otherwise shady woodlands, sunlight being important for an ectotherm (cold-blooded) animal. Males defend patches to which females are welcome. If two males meet, their contests consist of rapidly circling flights, that continue until one individual gives up and flies away (note that injury does not appear to play a role in such a contest, but energetic costs, wear and tear, and time costs may be relevant to short-lived animals). Davies observed that the butterfly that had entered the patch first was always the winner of such contests. This socalled prior residence effect has since been found in a large number of animals from polychaete worms to mammals. Davies was able to experimentally trick both butterflies such that both perceived themselves to be the rightful owner, and the consequence was that contest flights lasted much longer, supporting the role of prior residence as a determinant of ownership. Explaining the prior residence effect has been an example of gradual progress in the evolutionary understanding of animal behavior. The basic Hawk–Dove game, described in the previous section, was quickly developed further to study the evolution of ownership. The so-called

Animal Behavioral Studies, Non-Primates

Hawk–Dove–Bourgeois game allows individuals to use the strategy termed Bourgeois, that dictates conditional behavior: in the role of an intruder (latecomer), the individual plays Dove, while if in the role of an owner (prior resident), the individual plays Hawk. If injuries are risky enough (high costs C), it can be shown that evolutionarily stable behavior is that all individuals use the Bourgeois strategy. Thus, evolution can favor population-wide respect for ownership, based on the argument that it is cheaper for both individuals to use an arbitrary role asymmetry (‘who was here first’) as a cue that settles the contest, if fights are risky enough. If the role asymmetry is arbitrary and not related to, for example, body size differences that could reflect true fighting ability, it is called a convention, based on an uncorrelated asymmetry. However, subsequent work has pointed out that the explanation is incomplete. The first problem is that the success of a model in producing an observed pattern is not yet proof that the model captures the essence of the evolutionary problem. There are alternative explanations that could apply: for example, animals may differ in their body size or strength (termed resource holding potential, or RHP), and perhaps strong individuals accumulate as owners while weaker ones remain non-territorial. In such cases there is a correlated asymmetry between the roles of owner versus intruder, and an intruder that gives up may do so because it respects strong owners rather than ownership per se. Also, owners may defend more vigorously than intruders challenge them, because they have accumulated knowledge of their territory that makes this particular location more valuable to them than to a random individual: for example, a bird residing in an area has learned where the best food sources are, and where to seek refuge from sparrowhawks. An intruder who lacks this information should not value the resource equally highly. Additional explanations may apply in special cases: butterflies that have been basking in a sunlit patch for longer may be warmer and therefore more agile in a contest flight, and cichlids that have been residing in an area for longer may be closer to spawning and should hence value their breeding site more than a randomly chosen member of the population. An additional problem of the uncorrelated asymmetry hypothesis is that if the cue used to settle contests is truly arbitrary, there is no reason why owners should play Hawk and intruders Dove: the opposite behavior (anti-Bourgeois) is an equally logical outcome of the model if the role asymmetry reflects a truly arbitrary convention. In fact, Alan Grafen has argued in the 1980s that if individuals cannot breed at all unless they gain access to a territory, they have very little to lose and should be desperados who fight especially hard. Anti-Bourgeois is a paradoxical strategy, as it predicts that owners should give their homes to intruders whenever the latter request it – which is not the case in nature. New theoretical work has provided a

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theoretical solution to this problem, based on the fact that as fighting behaviors evolve, they will change the population-wide patterns of space use and availability of vacant breeding sites. Once this is considered, the prediction is that multiple factors may produce respect for ownership: conventions may underlie ownership respect without producing paradoxical anti-Bourgeois behavior, but the respect for ownership is further strengthened if individuals differ in their fighting abilities. The new models also predict that respect is rarely complete, which is in keeping with reality where forceful takeovers occasionally occur despite the home advantage of the owner. On the empirical front, experimental work has accumulated, allowing more sophisticated tests of the reasons why owners tend to win. In a new experiment on the speckled wood butterfly, for example, Darrell Kemp and Christer Wiklund have used controlled conditions (including a forest made of artificial Christmas trees!) to be able to control precisely for the previous experience and the temperature of individuals. They showed that all individuals appear equally motivated to fight, but intrinsically aggressive males accumulate as residents and tend to win in later fights too. Neighbors and Dear Enemies An often observed aspect of territorial animals is that they become habituated to familiar neighbors, but react much more aggressively to, for example, the song of a bird that belongs to an unfamiliar individual, or is heard from a different direction from the usual one. This phenomenon, called the dear enemy effect, makes good evolutionary sense whenever new intruders pose more of a threat than neighbors who have already established a territory and can be assumed to no longer be a threat to the resources held by the focal individual. Animals often not only recognize conspecifics individually, but may perform surprising cognitive feats. The hooded warbler Wilsonia citrina is a small songbird that weighs only 10–12 grams, and it not only discriminates between songs of different neighbors, but males also retain the memory of each of their neighbors’ songs after an 8-month period during which no singing occurs, and all individuals depart their territories to overwinter in Central America before they return to the same breeding territories. The complexity of potential responses to familiar neighbors versus strangers is also highlighted by the fact that sometimes neighbors are not dear enemies but instead present a bigger threat than strangers. Such a situation can arise, for example, in species that are not sexually faithful: for example, DNA fingerprinting has revealed that socially monogamous bird species often have multiple paternity in their nests. If territorial males, being dominant and strong, are also sexually preferred by females, the intrusion of a neighboring

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territorial male poses a larger risk of cuckoldry to a focal male than the intrusion of a young and inexperienced non-territorial bird. There is evidence, for example, that male red-winged blackbirds Agelaius phoeniceus particularly distrust their neighbors if these are sexually attractive. Sexual competition also plays a role when new members are accepted to groups in species where several individuals defend the same territory. In Siberian jays Perisoreus infaustus, females behave aggressively toward new females, while males welcome these to the group – and vice versa. Where the dear enemy effect holds, it may be advantageous for an owner of a territory to maintain the ‘status quo’ as long as possible. Australian fiddler crabs Uca mjoebergi show highly intriguing behavior in this context. These crabs live in tidal mudflats, and each one has to survive the high tide by entering a burrow dug in the mud. Burrows are also regularly used during the low tide as a refuge from predators. Digging a burrow is very slow and tedious, and if a crab does not have one, it typically tries to fight for established burrows instead. Crabs vary in size as they grow from molt to molt, and Patricia Backwell and Michael Jennions have recently showed that large crabs often help their smaller neighbors when an intruder needs to be chased off. It appears that having a familiar neighbor is preferable to new boundary negotiations as these take time and energy that could be put to better use (foraging and breeding).

Social Behavior, Reproductive Skew, and Dominance Hierarchies Conflicts in Social Groups Nature abounds with different social organizations of animals. In the simplest cases, individuals exist solitarily, busy gathering enough resources for reproduction which sometimes does not even require a mate (asexual reproduction is not limited to ‘primitive organisms’: many vertebrate taxa such as lizards and fishes have asexual species). At the other extreme are social species that live in groups, for a variety of reasons that range from avoidance of predation to scarcity of potential nest sites. In animal societies, reproduction is often unequally divided, and the extreme example is an ant colony with only one or a few queens and a large number of female offspring that form the worker caste. Even among the queens (if there are several), reproduction is often unequal, a phenomenon described by the term reproductive skew. In low-skew societies most individuals reproduce, in high-skew ones such as wolf packs only dominants breed and others are assigned a subordinate role. In many but not all species, subordinates provide active help, feeding offspring, helping in territory defense, and performing other necessary tasks in the society.

Given that natural selection should favor individuals who promote their own genetic interests, it is not trivial to explain why subordinates accept their role and do not always try to fight their way to the top of the hierarchy. Indeed, the question of the stability of dominance hierarchies (pecking orders) is similar to the question of respect for ownership. In both cases, the answer is that peaceful strategies may outperform aggressive ones during a sufficiently short time span (the lifetime of an individual) so that the evolutionary process favors peaceful behavior despite its short-sightedness. One example of a peaceful solution is that young individuals, who are not yet strong, do not benefit much from trying to replace the dominant member of the group, because the probability of winning is much too low; it is better to wait and grow. Another possibility is that even if individuals do not differ in fighting ability or expected future lifespan, it may be on average better to rely on luck that perhaps makes the focal individual outlive the current dominant and inherit its status, than to initiate a potentially dangerous fight that could involve injuries even if it was won. An additional reason for relatively stable dominance hierarchies is that social groups often consist of related individuals. Increasing the number of copies of one’s genes in the world can happen in a variety of ways, and direct reproduction is only one of them. If a subordinate female helps her mother to rear new offspring, she increases the production of siblings. Full sibs (that share the same mother and father) are equally related to each other as mothers are to their offspring, which implies that genes in the focal subordinate female would gain little if they promoted aggressive behavior when in the subordinate role, that is, making the subordinate try to take over her mother’s dominant status. However, since individuals in social groups are rarely clones of each other, their interests almost always differ to some extent at least. Animal societies therefore exist in a continuous state of tension, with benefits of cooperation interlocked with strong signs of conflict. The popular image of an ant or a bee colony is a superorganism in which every unit works for the good of the whole colony, but these species in particular show an amazing range of different conflicts. Ants and bees are examples of haplodiploid insects, which means that females are diploid (they have a double set of chromosomes, and develop from fertilized eggs), while males are haploid (they have a single set of chromosomes, and develop from unfertilized eggs). This creates a complicated web of relatedness values: for example, males do not have a father at all, and sisters are more related to each other than to their mothers. One consequence of fatherless males is that female workers, who could be supposed to work for the good of the colony, can instead spend their time laying unfertilized eggs and thus reproducing without ever having had

Animal Behavioral Studies, Non-Primates

a nuptial flight (the time during which queens mate and store sperm for the subsequent colony founding). It is not in the interest of the queen, however, to allow others to reproduce in the colony: she is more related to her own offspring than to the offspring of workers. Worker-laid eggs are indeed often detected and destroyed (eaten) by the queen. Fellow workers eat worker-laid eggs too, which is beneficial to them if workers do not always share the same mother and father, which diminishes the relatedness between a worker and another workers’ son. This phenomenon of removing unwanted eggs is called policing, and it provides another example in which destroying conspecific young can be beneficial. (It is of course not beneficial to the young victim itself, nor to the whole colony where productivity is partially wasted.) Insect societies offer many other examples of conflict too. For example, by varying the ratio of fertilized to unfertilized eggs, the queen may control the sex ratio of her offspring. She does not have the final say, however. Since workers are more related to their sisters than to their brothers (they share a father with the former but not with the latter), workers’ reproductive interests are best served with a female-biased sex ratio. Workers being numerically dominant in a nest, they sometimes use male offspring as nothing more than food storage units: rather than rearing them to adulthood, half-developed brothers of Formica excecta are killed and fed to their sisters whenever more food is needed. Thus, workers have many ways to increase the number of copies of their own genes in future generations, even in cases where they do not manage to reproduce themselves. The examples above reflect nepotism, favoring one’s own relatives over others. Since the benefits of aggression in ant societies depend crucially on relatedness, natural selection should favor accurate detection of cues of relatedness. Efficient nepotism is sometimes based on rules of thumb: for example, in many bird societies individuals that grew up in the same nest are likely to be relatives. However, in ant colonies individuals have to be able to discriminate between individuals of different relatedness within the same nest. Much of kin recognition uses olfactory cues, which has particularly interesting consequences if these cues are broken down. Argentine ants that originate in the Americas have recently colonized large areas in Europe. In their native range, these ants are friendly toward near neighbors that reside within the same supercolony, but conspecifics from further away are vigorously attacked. Upon arrival in Europe, the ants formed the same population structure with supercolonies, but on this continent the supercolonies are truly gigantic. The whole European population exists as two supercolonies, of which the larger one is over 6000 km long, ranging from Italy to the Atlantic coast of Spain. When bringing together ants from anywhere within this vast supercolony, they show no aggression toward each other. Ants have recognition alleles that

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determine the olfactory cues that allow detecting kinship. It has been suggested that during the initial spread of a small introduced population it was beneficial to have whatever alleles were the most common, and intense between-colony aggression eliminated all rare alleles (genetic cleansing). After such a process has taken place, all ants have such similar genetic profiles that they simply cannot tell a familiar individual from a stranger. They consequently consider everyone a friend – which, incidentally, may have contributed to their invasion success too. Reproductive Skew Theory and Dominance Hierarchies We now know that factors such as relatedness and current and future reproductive prospects are important in determining whether a subordinate accepts its current status or if it would benefit from an attempt to ascend in the hierarchy. ‘Reproductive skew theory’, a currently popular theme in the study of animal societies, is a collection of game theory models that all share the aim of predicting patterns of how reproduction is divided among individuals in different societies. These models start by making a few simple assumptions regarding the options that individuals have in the society: for example, does the dominant have full control over who reproduces in the group, or not (e.g., the queen of a large ant colony cannot eat all worker-laid eggs, particularly if she is much larger than the workers and cannot enter most parts of the nest), or can dominants forcefully evict subordinates from the group. Then, the models derive the game-theoretic best response of each individual to the others’ best actions. For example, it can be shown that it may be in the best interests of a dominant individual to allow subordinates to reproduce to some extent, even if she could prevent subordinate reproduction, and even if it reduces the resources available to the dominant’s own offspring. The benefit can arise if this makes the subordinates less likely to benefit from an attempted takeover as a consequence. Such an allocation of reproductive rights is called a peace incentive. Whether reproductive patterns in animal societies really reflect such exchanges (transactions) of reproductive benefits is a currently much debated topic in behavioral ecology, as is the promise of reproductive skew theory that it serves as a comprehensive framework that can describe all social systems. What is clear, however, is that behaviors of social species in particular are not genetically fixed at birth but can feature complicated rules of how individuals respond to each other in behavioral time rather than over evolutionary timescales. (This, of course, does not imply that the rules of responding to each other could not be shaped by natural selection.) For example, dominants may behave more aggressively toward subordinates that have shown signs of transgressing (punishment). Also,

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there is strong evidence that dominance hierarchy formation can be influenced by winner–loser effects, which refer to situations where an individual who has won a fight is more likely to win future fights (winner effect), and losers likewise become more likely to lose again (loser effect). Winner and loser effects can exist independently of each other, and where they both operate together, they can easily lead to the formation of a stable dominance hierarchy. Showing that the effects are real requires disentangling the strength of an animal from its success in fights: if the winner effect operates, winning should improve an individual’s future success more than predicted solely based on the fact that a strong individual’s fighting ability exceeds many of its opponents. This has been shown in green swordtail fish Xiphophorus helleri, where randomly chosen fish were assigned to a winning or a losing role by pairing them with large or small fish, respectively. The fish that gained positive early experiences because they first encountered small opponents, later rose to the top of dominance hierarchies, while fish whose first fights were against large opponents became low-ranking fish later – even though the first opponents were no longer encountered in the trials that determined the final hierarchy. Fish thus form memories of their past fight outcomes. Whether this is real (cognitive) memory or a simpler physiological response to stress is an interesting question, but the behavioral outcome is the same either way: a dominance hierarchy is formed.

Aggression in Sexual Contexts The primary reason for aggressive behavior is competition for resources that are limiting the reproductive success of an individual. In many cases, the resources in question are different for males and females. In the majority of species (but by no means all), females care more for young than males do. This creates intense competition among males to find new females, as males are more free to roam around and seek for new females to be fertilized. In other words, male reproduction is often limited by access to females, whereas females suffer from a shortage of males much less often. Intrasexual competition among males is often associated with much aggression. The same rules apply as in the general discussion of aggression above: fights are often ritualized, which helps to avoid injury, but intense or even lethal combat is not an impossibility. Models predict that lethal fighting becomes more likely, if reproductive skew is very high among males, because this implies that the benefits are only reaped at the top of the hierarchy winning and they can be large. For example, only a small minority of male elephant seals Mirounga angustirostris ever get to reproduce; thus, the stakes are high and fights are accordingly severe.

Often, evolutionary ecologists expect conflicts to be stronger among individuals of the same sex than between the sexes. In the past, this assumption was taken to the extreme: pair bonds were assumed to be harmonious, because both parents share an obvious interest in the well-being of offspring. However, the growing recognition that conspecific individuals can have strongly diverging interests in any given situation has also led to the study of ‘sexual conflict’. It remains true that conflict is much milder between a male bird and a female on the same territory, than between two male birds competing for the same territory: the former can do something constructive together, while in the latter case one individual’s gain is another one’s loss (except in unusual circumstances such as joint territorial defense, as in the fiddler crab example above). Nevertheless, there are also reasons why there can be conflict between individuals of different sexes. The simplest reason for this is that if offspring production requires time or energy, both individuals would benefit if the other did most of the work. Birds, for example, are typically able to work harder for their brood than they normally do, which is evident in increased food delivery rates by one parent if the other one dies. Experimentally increased workload of a parent, however, increases the parent’s mortality in the following winter, as has been shown, for example, for kestrels. Life appears to be full of tradeoffs. Recently found examples show how just intense sexual conflict can be. Males of numerous species harass females sexually, and in some cases females may get killed in the process, as has been found, for example, in feral sheep Ovis aries. Garter snakes Thamnophis sirtalis mate in large aggregations in which multiple males compete for the same females, who may get strangled to death. Obviously, killing a female prevents all subsequent offspring production too, so it cannot be selected for per se. But if generation after generation eager males gain more paternity than passive ones, extreme eagerness can be selected for, even if this sometimes leads to female killing as a form of collateral harm. On the other hand, in the case of nonlethal harm, direct selection favoring harmful male behaviors appears at least theoretically possible. For example, many insects possess spiky sexual organs that damage the female, and sperm of fruit flies contains seminal toxins that shorten the lifespan of females. Such traits can be beneficial to a male, if damaged females are less likely to mate with another member of the same species than healthy females: after all, the worst thing that can happen to a mated male’s offspring production is that his female mates multiply. However, it is controversial whether female-damaging male traits have evolved because they damage the female, or despite the damage they cause (which makes them again examples of collateral harm). For example, a spiky penis might simply form an anchor that makes

Animal Behavioral Studies, Non-Primates

copulations last sufficiently long for efficient sperm transfer. This can be important for male insects, in which copulations can last for hours, and the amount of sperm transferred is huge relative to the body size. Seed beetle females kick vigorously during copulation, presumably because it is potentially dangerous for an insect to be mounted, and foraging is difficult during copulation; for males the tradeoff is different as sufficient sperm numbers are required to outcompete conspecific males if there is a risk that the female mates with several males. In an experimental setting, females that were prevented from kicking during copulation mated for longer, and suffered more damage such that their lifespan was significantly shortened. However, they were not less likely to mate multiply than control females, which suggests that the harm was of a collateral kind. The fascinating world of arthropods offers still weirder stories of sexual conflict. A spider species, Stegodyphus lineatus, has an intriguing form of maternal care: the mother guards the eggs until hatching, after which the spiderlings are first fed by the female (by regurgitating), but they then switch to cannibalism. Eating the mother is an obviously efficient way to transfer nutrients to the next generation, essential for a good start in life for the young spiderlings. This ‘suicidal’ form of maternal care means that a male spider who comes across an egg-guarding mother benefits nothing from this encounter, if he is not the father of the brood, as the female will not be able to lay eggs ever again. Mating would therefore be pointless. But if the male cannibalizes the brood, the mother’s situation changes: the best option for her is to try again and produce at least some eggs after mating with the current, cannibalistic male. This is indeed what happens. The male’s cannibalism forces a delay in the mother’s ‘suicide’, which is detrimental for her reproductive success, as she has fewer resources left and can no longer lay as many eggs as she was able to initially. Thus the same species can feature two different kinds of cannibalism, one representing a form of parental care, the other a form of extreme sexual conflict.

Summary Nature abounds with fascinating examples of aggression and conflict. In this context it is important to emphasize that despite the language of strategies and behaviors that serve the interest of a male, female, parent, offspring, or worker, the evolutionary analysis of behaviors does not assume that there is any conscious thought or intention involved. Evolutionary biologists use colorful language ranging from suicide to nepotism simply because concise words from everyday use are preferable to abstract, complicated expressions that are hard to remember. The mechanisms that make behaviors evolve are not goal-

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directed. Instead, genes that are present in individuals today are those that have caused individuals to behave in ways that tend to increase the number of copies of that gene in subsequent generations. What this argument means in specific circumstances is the topic of evolutionary behavioral ecology, which uses mathematical analysis as well as experimental and field studies. There are numerous cases in which aggressive behavior benefits an individual, but tradeoffs (e.g., the need to avoid unnecessary injury when rewards are modest) typically dictate that there is an optimal level of aggression, rather than more being always better. Also, the best behavioral option may often be context dependent rather than invariable over the lifetime of an individual: male ants are cared for or fed to their sisters, depending on food availability. Regardless of whether one is interested in fixed or flexible (plastic) behaviors, evolutionary arguments are obviously based on the premise that there is genetic variation in behavior on which natural selection can operate, such as genetic variation that controls the developmental pathways related to hormone production or hormone receptors. The successful creation of highly aggressive and very docile dog breeds shows that this is indeed the case, and studies on many wild organisms likewise support the notion. The findings of evolutionary biology are often viewed with unease. Most evolutionary biologists agree that one should not base moral arguments on potential adaptiveness of a behavior (or lack thereof). Stealing, for example, can probably be considered adaptive if done cleverly and often enough so that resources required for offspring production or well-being truly increase. Yet this does not prove parents’ efforts pointless when teaching their children that stealing is wrong – while the reader might want to judge herself to what extent it provides an explanation for the a priori existence of a temptation to steal, that every society then has to deal with.

See also: Animal Behavioral Studies, Primates; Animals, Violence Toward; Behavioral Psychology of Killing; Biochemical Factors in Aggression and Violence; Decision Theory and Game Theory; Evolutionary Theory

Further Reading Arnqvist, G. and Rowe, L. (2005). Sexual conflict. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Backwell, P. R. Y. and Jennions, M. D. (2004). Coalition among male fiddler crabs. Nature 430, 417. Chapuisat, M., Sundstro¨m, L., and Keller, L. (1997). Sex-ratio regulation: The economics of fratricide in ants. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 264, 1255–1260. Daan, S., Deerenberg, C., and Dijkstra, C. (1996). Increased daily work precipitates natural death in the kestrel. Journal of Animal Ecology 65, 539–544.

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Davies, N. B. (1978). Territorial defence in the speckled wood butterfly (Pararge aegeria): The resident always wins. Animal Behaviour 26, 138–147. Dawkins, R. (1976). The selfish gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dugatkin, L. A. and Druen, M. (2004). The social implications of winner and loser effects. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B (supplement 6) 271, S488–S489. Edvardsson, M. and Tregenza, T. (2005). Why do male Callosobruchus maculatus harm their mates? Behavioral Ecology 16, 788–793. Ekman, J. and Sklepkovych, B. (1994). Conflict of interest between the sexes in Siberian jay winter flocks. Animal Behaviour 48, 485–487. Giraud, T., Pedersen, J. S., and Keller, L. (2002). Evolution of supercolonies: The Argentine ants of southern Europe. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 99, 6075–6079. Godard, R. (1991). Long-term-memory of individual neighbors in a migratory songbird. Nature 350, 228–229. Grafen, A. (1987). The logic of asymmetric contests: Respect for ownership and the desperado effect. Animal Behaviour 35, 462–467. Johnstone, R. A. (2000). Models of reproductive skew: A review and synthesis. Ethology 106, 5–26.

Kemp, D. J. and Wiklund, C. (2004). Residency effects in animal contests. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 271, 1707–1711. Kokko, H., Lo´pez-Sepulcre, A., and Morrell, L. J. (2006). From hawks and doves to self-consistent games of territorial behavior. American Naturalist 167, 901–912. Maynard Smith, J. (1982). Evolution and the theory of games. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Olendorf, R., Getty, T., Scribner, K., and Robinson, S. K. (2004). Male red-winged blackbirds distrust unreliable and sexually attractive neighbours. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 271, 1033–1038. Packer, C. (2000). Infanticide is no fantasy. American Anthropologist 102, 829–831. Schwagmeyer, P. L. (1979). Bruce effect: Evaluation of male-female advantages. American Naturalist 114, 932–938. Wenseleers, T., Helantera¨, H., Hart, A., and Ratnieks, F. L. W. (2004). Worker reproduction and policing in insect societies: An ESS analysis. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 17, 1035–1047.

Animal Behavioral Studies, Primates Irwin S Bernstein, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Definitions Functions of Aggression Conflict, Competition, and Aggression Aggression in a Social Context The Control of Aggressive Sequences

Glossary Aggression Behavior that increases the probability of injury to the recipient. Agonistic Aggression and typical responses to aggression, including submission. Dominance A learned relationship between individuals that influences the directionality of agonistic signals. Proximal Cause Event that acts as a stimulus for occurrence of behavior that follows.

Definitions When we try to define aggression we often do so in terms of the motivations and intentions of the actor, and sometimes the recipient as well. We may define aggression as behavior that is intended to harm another, or behavior that deprives others of their rights, or freedom, against their will. Such a definition implies that we know that the motivation of the actor was selfish or spiteful, that the actor intended harm to the victim, and that the victim would rather have avoided the consequences imposed. Of

Losing, Dominance, and Territoriality Polyadic Social Aggression Restoring Peace Conclusion Further Reading

Reconciliation Behavior that restores relationships following agonistic encounters. Submission Behavior indicating that aggression will not be initiated, but aggression may be provoked by attacks. Territoriality A learned relationship between individuals, specific to a geographic location. Trained Loser An individual who, having lost a previous encounter, retreats or signals submission at the start of any future encounter.

course, we may find that after we have classified an act as ‘aggression’, the victim denies that s/he was forced to do anything against his/her will and/or, that the perpetrator denies any ill intent, insisting that s/he had no intention of actually harming the victim, that his/her behavior was for the victim’s own good, and that the victim was a willing participant (s/he had ‘asked for it’) or deserved the treatment received. The very existence of such arguments implies that the definition is subjective and judgmental rather than an objective description of observable behavior.

Animal Behavioral Studies, Primates

If we can have disagreements about whether human behavior meets such a definition of aggression, think of how much more difficult it is to classify nonhuman behavior as ‘aggressive’. How would we know if an oyster or lobster were motivated to harm another or deprive it of its freedom or rights? Are these animals even aware that others have rights, or even that others exist? One can readily decide that an individual has been harmed, or deprived of a necessary resource, but this is not, in itself, evidence that the victim suffered as the target of another’s aggression. To invoke the concept of aggression we require that the ‘aggressor’ be at least aware of the existence of its victim and that she engages in the injurious behavior with some knowledge that the victim is motivated to avoid such treatment. This is particularly difficult for us to ascertain when dealing with invertebrates, but is it any easier to determine for nonhuman primates, even if these are the animals most like ourselves? We do not have the ability to ask them their motivations nor do they have the ability to reply and explain the state of their cognitive awareness. Believing that they must act and feel as we do, and that they share the same motivations as we do, is anthropomorphism. We are less tempted to engage in anthropomorphism when we deal with spiders but readily succumb to this temptation when monkeys and apes are viewed as ‘furry’ people. If we wish to study and understand aggression in nonhuman subjects and learn about the fundamental principles of aggression, we must define it in terms of observable behavior so that we can all, at least, agree what it is that we are trying to understand. Niko Tinbergen, in 1951, stated that we should begin by describing what we can see, hear, feel, taste, and smell – the structure of behavior. Such a description is much like what a video camera or other recording device would store. It is devoid of interpretation and, perhaps, relatively dry and uninteresting. It only becomes more interesting when we ask why it happened. According to Tinbergen, there were four answers to that question. The first answer can be obtained by identifying the situation in the environment that acted as the trigger for, or the stimulus, that elicited the behavior. This event, which releases or elicits the behavior of interest, is called the proximal cause. Proximal causes are observable events that can be described just as we can describe the behavior of interest, but they become more interesting to us when we think of them as being responsible for the occurrence of the behavior that follows. An extremely high correlation between the occurrence of a putative proximal cause and the behavior of interest (which follows in a brief temporal period) leads us to accept a hypothesis of causation. Of course, we know that individuals do not respond to the same situations in the same ways all through their lives. To understand why their behavior changes requires

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us to examine the second answer – the ontogenetic causes of behavior. Here we may explain the change in response to a stimulus over time as being due to maturational processes, physical alteration of the individual due to environmental events (injuries, amputations, the effects of exercise, etc.), and behavioral changes that result from learning. We may also note that different individuals (or species) respond differently to the same stimulus even when we control for ontogenetic events. In these cases we invoke the third answer – the concepts of evolution – to explain the differences in response to the same stimuli (or the different stimuli that produce the same responses), in different individuals or populations. The evolutionary cause of these differences relates to different evolutionary histories and the differences in selective pressures that operated on the ancestors of the subjects, thereby accounting for differences in the genetic material with which each began life. Of course, it is often very difficult to experimentally verify the effects of purported differences in selective pressures in the past and, as a consequence, research is often directed to animals with short generation times, such as fruit flies, so that evolution can be observed within the lifetime of the scientist. Finally, the ‘why’ question may be addressed to the functional consequences of the behavior. The consequences can be conceived of as the objectively described events that follow the behavior of interest, or may be perceived of as the long-term effects of the behavior on the genetic fitness of the actor, the adaptive significance of the behavior. Whereas the immediate consequent can be directly described, the question ‘What good did it do?’ requires a longer view of consequence and casts everything in terms of evolutionary theory. The two views of function lend themselves to a ready confusion of function with proximal cause. If the immediate consequence of the behavior is taken as equivalent to the motivation or intent of the subject just prior to or at the time of the response, then we are making a teleological error. Most of us are well aware of the differences between our intentions and the realities or results of our behavior. Why then are we so quick to gloss over this difference and to ascribe to an animal the intention to achieve the consequent observed? The second view of function leads to an even more egregious error when we assume that the animal was trying to improve its genetic fitness, as we later determined resulted as a consequence of its behavior. Of course, no one ever really assumes that animals understand evolutionary theory, nor that they are consciously attempting to improve their genetic fitness, but when we argue that the reason that the animal behaved in that manner was because evolution acted to select for individuals that behaved in a manner that maximized their genetic fitness, what are we implying? How could the individual have chosen among available

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alternative behavioral responses? What we are doing is hopelessly confusing proximal cause, evolutionary cause, and function. In dealing with aggression our task is made even more difficult by the fact that aggression is not a structure that can be objectively described. It is, instead, a class of behavioral responses linked to one another by some common consequent or function (as opposed to adaptive significance). We define broad categories such as feeding, reproduction, infant care, aggression, and locomotion based on the contribution of each element in the category to a particular function. Alternatively, we can postulate a common drive state, such as hunger, a maternal instinct, anger, etc. as the common cause of the behavior in a category, but with animals it is easier to observe what happens at the time of a behavior and what follows immediately from that behavior. How an animal felt (angry or not) and whether it intended to produce harm (meanness) are only subjects of conjecture. We can, however, note whether an injury occurred or whether the target individual was deprived of something as a consequence of the behavior of the actor. Losing something to another may occur as a result of several forms of competition and, in scramble competition, the competitors may even be totally unaware of each other’s existence. Being deprived of a resource due to the actions of another who is not even aware of your existence does not meet our subjective feel for what aggression is. On the other hand, an injury is believed to be a likely result of aggression, even if not all aggression results in injuries and not all injuries are a result of aggression. If an action is usually embedded in sequences where its presence increases the probability that the recipient is likely to suffer a physical injury due to the activities of the actor, then we are inclined to see that action as aggressive. This is a probabilistic definition in that we say that the behavior increases the likelihood of an injury following, rather than that it always produces an injury. Verification requires sufficient data to determine what the usual consequent of such sequences are when the act of interest is, and is not, present. It does not require us to know what the intentions or emotions of the parties involved were at the time of the activity, nor does it ask if the long-term effects reduced or contributed to the genetic fitness of the participants. The latter become empirical questions and we can now independently ask what functions aggression serves in terms of long-term consequences. If aggression in some cases harms the recipient but benefits the actor it will be selfish; if it harms both the actor and the recipient it will be spiteful; if it benefits the actor and recipient it will be mutualistic; and if it benefits the recipient at some expense to the actor it can even be altruistic. At first it may seem contradictory to ask if aggression can ever be altruistic. On reflection, however, we readily perceive that aggression can modify

the behavior of the recipient. Such behavioral modification may be brief or relatively long term (a learned response) and if it functions as a positive socialization experience, then it can modify the behavior of the recipient in such a manner as to enhance survival and reproduction. When we find that short-term injurious consequences can produce long-term benefits, we tend to search for new words like ‘punishment’ or ‘avoidance training’ rather than aggression to describe the very same motor acts with the very same immediate functional outcomes.

Functions of Aggression Nonhuman primates, lacking language skills, use relatively little positive reinforcement in the socialization of their young. They cannot explain that a reward was for not doing ‘bad’ behavior, or even for having done a particular good deed. Of course, they have no greater skill explaining punishment, but behavior that immediately elicits behavior in others with injurious consequences to yourself immediately receives your attention. The behavior of others that produces injuries to yourself, or the behavior of others associated with imminent escalation to behavior that produces injuries to yourself can powerfully alter behavior. Learning to avoid future injurious attacks is the basic element of avoidance learning. When an individual can respond to the threat of injury in such a manner as to avoid the injury, that individual has gained some measure of control over the behavior of the threatening individual. By providing a response that terminates sequences that otherwise escalate into exchanges that would be injurious to oneself, an individual has controlled the behavior of another. This is avoidance learning as opposed to punishment or negative reinforcement where a response is required to terminate a noxious or injurious sequence already in progress. Of course, there are many cases where aggression modifies the behavior of the recipient in ways that only benefit the actor. Although the target may avoid the aggressive consequences of the actor, the target must modify its behavior in some fashion such that it gives up a resource or engages in a behavioral pattern that it was not otherwise motivated to engage in. In contest competition, aggression is used as an instrumental act to gain preferential or exclusive access to a resource. The loser is deprived of the resource but one may question if the winner was ‘trying’ to harm the victim or only attempting to further its own selfish goals in obtaining the resource. In nonhuman primates ‘grudges’ and personal animosities generated during such competitions may occur, but they are not invariable consequents and must be independently measured and verified. They can be recognized

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when we note that a pair immediately resumes a fight on their next encounter even when there is nothing to provoke a new one and nothing to compete for. This is essentially a continuation of the previous fight, regardless of what the original cause of fighting was, and the relationship between the two parties may not be resolved until there is a clear winner and a clear loser. Even in such a case, where a fight might be described as occurring to determine who the winner or loser will be, one might not know if either combatant was motivated to harm the other rather than that each was just trying to elicit nonthreatening or submissive behavior from its opponent.

Conflict, Competition, and Aggression In nonhuman primates we can identify situations where individuals come into conflict (initiate different incompatible behavioral sequences), are in competition (both attempt to use the same limited resource at the expense of the other), or are engaged in aggression (one or both engages in behavior that is, or is likely to be, physically injurious to the other). Bill Mason has clearly differentiated conflict, competition, and aggression, and there is no reason to equate the three terms. Each can occur in the absence of the other two. For example, a conflict occurs when two individuals, who both want to remain together, want to travel in a different direction. Competition may involve ‘scramble contests’ where whoever gets there first wins the resource even if the ‘winner’ and ‘loser’ are unaware of each other’s existence. Aggression can occur when an individual attacks an uninvolved third party when attacked by another. Such ‘redirection’ is based on availability and proximity rather than any interaction with or behavior of the third party. Likewise, an individual may attack an individual already in an ongoing fight with another. Aiding another in a fight does not require any prior conflict or competition with the individual against whom aid is directed. Aggression, then, is not an invariable outcome of competition or conflict, nor is it limited to contexts involving competition and/or conflict. This has promoted some to talk of different ‘kinds’ of aggression with each kind defined by the situation in which it occurs or the specific functional outcome. Thus, we get ‘predatory aggression’ when an animal attacks a victim that it will feed on; ‘instrumental aggression’ when the behavior is seen as directed toward achieving some specific goal; ‘infanticidal aggression’ when an infant is killed as a consequence of the aggression; ‘pain-induced aggression’ when no clear function is apparent but pain is ascribed to the actor prior to the aggressive response; and, perhaps, aggression due to just plain ‘meanness’, a hypothesized temperament variable. Each possible outcome and each possible cause then becomes a separate type of aggression. Such a plethora of

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terminology only confuses matters as all are called ‘aggression’ and the common feature in each is that the recipient is likely to be injured, either immediately or in further escalated responses in the same sequence. Such sequences, in some cases, can be terminated or altered by specific changes in the behavior of the recipient, and then we sometimes assume that the change in the recipient’s behavior was what the aggressor was trying to achieve.

Aggression in a Social Context Most nonhuman primates are social animals, and in many species most individuals spend all of their lives as members of a social unit. Individuals may transfer between units and/or spend some time as solitaries in transit between units. In some species, individuals may travel or forage independently but nonetheless have frequent contact with certain specified individuals with whom they preferentially interact. Whatever the level of sociality, social units are collections of individuals that may come into conflict, or that may compete for the same resources. Some of these conflicts and competitions may be resolved by resorting to aggressive techniques. Social relationships between individuals may be described on a dimension of affiliative to antagonistic based on the ratio of agonistic to affiliative exchanges. If aggression increases the probability of injury to at least the recipient, then life in a social unit will require the development of means to prevent and control aggressive solutions to problems engendered by conflict and competition in socially living individuals. If aggression is elicited, then it must be limited, controlled, and regulated in such a way that it terminates with minimal risk of injuries. The expression and control of aggression must be regulated in any social unit lest the costs of aggression outweigh the benefits of sociality. On the other hand, not all aggression is antisocial. Aggression can serve as a social means of protecting a group against external sources of disruption. It can also be used to modify the behavior of group members in ways that benefit the individual whose behavior is being modified as well as other group members. Aggression can be used to socialize individuals into a group and can be used to promote the interests of members of one group over members of another. Uncontrolled aggression within a group, however, can destroy the group. Aggression in nonhuman primate groups has a multitude of expressions. These may vary from intense stares and various body postures and facial expressions to locomotor displays, such as charging, lunging, and rhythmic leaping, to interactions involving physical contact with the potential for bodily injury, such as slapping, kicking, pulling, biting, and slashing. Many nonhuman primates, and especially males, possess formidable canine teeth with

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the potential to inflict lethal injury. Some, such as drills and mandrills, literally have canines as large as those of any of the great cats, although they are only a fraction of the body size of a great cat and largely vegetarian or, at most, omnivorous in their diet. Despite this formidable armament, relatively few agonistic encounters between or within primate groups result in severe injuries or deaths, although some dramatic outcomes do result and excite our imaginations. It would also be a mistake to equate the potential for producing injury with aggressivity. Even if formidable teeth do result in obvious severe injuries, whereas less impressive physical equipment fails to do so, it would be a mistake to count injuries inflicted as a measure of aggression. Despite the sexually dimorphic nature of most nonhuman primates and the fact that males do often inflict most of the injuries in or by a group, females may engage in very comparable levels of aggressive behavior. The question of whether sex differences in aggression exist is an empirical question and incompletely answered by evidence of injuries inflicted by members of the two sexes. Given this extensive potential for mayhem, the question arises: ‘‘Why does life in a social group not result in a continuous set of injuries and wounds resulting from daily conflicts and the inevitable competition evoked when similar individuals, all with similar needs, seek the same limited resources?’’ There is no single answer to this question but, thankfully, we find that there are multiple mechanisms that come into play. These include: ritualization of aggressive expression, such that the most damaging forms of expression are rare within the group; development of nonaggressive means of resolving conflicts and competitions; and development of mechanisms that regulate aggressive expression within a group, including social means of terminating ongoing agonistic encounters.

The Control of Aggressive Sequences Although there are multiple causes of aggression, few aggressive encounters begin with an all-out fight. The potential costs of fighting are such that natural selection has favored individuals that avoid taking risks when the cost to themselves is likely to exceed the benefits of anything obtained by engaging in that interaction. When a situation develops where aggression is one possible way to achieve a desired outcome, the individual involved should first attempt to determine the likelihood of resistance and, second, the likely magnitude of that resistance. In other words, is the target signaling readiness to resist or counter attack (is it threatening?), and, if it is threatening, then what will be the likely strength of its resistance and/ or attack in terms of the costs that will be imposed? Animals often use body size, indicators of strength and

physical vigor, and a variety of bodily postures, facial expressions, and vocalizations as indicators of the potential costs that an opponent can inflict and the willingness of that opponent to inflict such costs. If insufficient information is available to decide whether to precede or to break off an encounter, based on available visual, auditory, chemical, or other signal modalities, then physical contact may follow. Physical contacts may gradually escalate such that initial contacts convey information about strength and ability without either participant running the risk of extensive injury. If such initial probing attacks do not provide sufficient information for one participant to break off the encounter, then further escalation to more damaging forms of aggression may follow. Finally, when one of the opponents has transmitted sufficient information to convince the opponent that the costs of further aggression will be unacceptable, that opponent may retreat, or use a ritualized signal of submission to end the encounter. The victor now has unrestrained access to whatever resource was being contested, or can now obtain whatever goal was being sought, and further attacks on the part of the victor would only serve as ‘spite’, since the victor risks further injury in resuming aggression against a retreating opponent. There is no further benefit to be gained and inflicting additional injury on a defeated rival at some risk to one’s self meets the definition of spite. Contest competition can thus be seen as being extraordinarily dangerous if the two opponents are nearly equal in ability and motivation so that neither perceives the other as a likely winner and both continue to escalate the encounter to obtain more and more information about the abilities of their rival. Alternatively, contest competitions can prove to be extremely dangerous to one or both participants even when there is a great disparity in abilities and if one or more of the opponents is incapable of recognizing that disparity. Monkeys reared in social isolation seem to lack the social skills required to assess: the willingness of a rival to engage in escalated aggression, the ability of the rival to inflict aggressive costs, and even the meaning of signals that a rival uses when conceding access to a contested resource. In these situations contests escalate rapidly and monkeys reared in social isolation may launch suicidal attacks against opponents who are clearly physically superior to them or, alternatively, may mount murderous attacks on opponents who are signaling submission and attempting to withdraw from the site of a contest. Every aggressive episode concludes when the parties involved cease further aggressive behavior. The individual who stops first may withdraw or otherwise show behavior incompatible with further aggression, and this individual is labeled the ‘loser’. The aggressive behavior of most winners ends when the goal is achieved, be that goal the attainment of a particular prize or the particular behavior demanded of the opponent (such as retreat).

Animal Behavioral Studies, Primates

Losing, Dominance, and Territoriality A winner and a loser emerge from a fight as a consequence of the sequence of events in that interaction. No further information is required to explain why one party retreated or ceased further aggression other than the events that transpired during the encounter. If every successive encounter followed exactly the same course as the initial encounter, then our explanation for the change in behavior observed in all encounters would be identical and limited to the exchanges that occurred during that encounter. The observer, on the other hand, may quickly recognize the similarities in the series of encounters and may soon learn to predict, with great accuracy, the outcome of each new encounter. This does not mean that the two opponents have established any special relationship or that either of them has learned anything, not if both go through exactly the same sequence on each new encounter. In this case only the observer has learned anything. If, on the other hand, there is a change in the directionality of agonistic behavior between the two opponents at the start of a new encounter, then we might believe that one or both were now more willing to attack or retreat and that this was due to the history of exchanges in prior encounters, that is, something had been learned. In most cases this learning means that one party immediately displays the behavior that it used to terminate the previous encounters. This is then the ‘loser’ and it is the loser who has learned something. The question now is what exactly was learned. If the learned component is so general that an individual who has lost previous encounters now immediately retreats or signals submission at the start of any future encounter, then we say that we have a ‘trained loser’. Such an individual is expected to break off any encounter whenever the opponent shows aggression. It has ‘learned’ because in the absence of such learning we should expect every encounter to proceed much the same way as the first. When there is no change in behavior, learning cannot be invoked in our explanations of behavior. If the loser has learned not to fight a particular opponent, but does not generalize to all opponents, then it will immediately yield to the aggressive signals of that particular opponent while continuing to respond aggressively to other opponents that it has previously defeated, and/or new opponents. What has been learned is specific to a particular individual and we can say that the subject has learned to be subordinate to that opponent, that is, a dominance relationship has been established. In future agonistic encounters, the subject will use the identity of its opponent in making its decision to submit or resist when faced with an aggressive challenge. Submission is in response to a perceived aggressive signal rather than a general response to the partner;

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dominant and subordinate partners can interact in nonagonistic forms of interaction. They may even come into conflict, or compete with one another, without aggression. When aggression is expressed, however, the subordinate will submit. Dominant animals can lose in competitions where scramble is involved and may yield resources whenever they are not willing to use aggressive means to claim them. In territoriality the relationship between the antagonists is complicated one step further. The individual that shows submission and the individual that shows aggression in a particular dyad will be determined by the geographical location of the encounter. When neither is on its territory, neither may show aggression, or both may do so, or some other mechanism will determine which of the two will be aggressive and which submissive. When a territorial individual is on its territory, however, we expect that the territorial holder will show aggression toward any member of a specified class of intruders. The key here is geography and not proximity. Whereas a territorial holder will cross any intervening distance to challenge a detected intrusion, many animals display flight and fight distances, or defense of personal space unrelated to geography. When another unexpectedly appears within a critical distance then the individual withdraws, but if the intrusion is within a smaller critical distance aggressive responses may be provoked. This should not be equated with territoriality as a ‘moving territory’. The physical laws of nature preclude two physical objects from occupying the same space at the same time but this would mean that all objects possessed territories if we followed this logic to reductum ad absurdum. Territoriality and dominance both regulate the expression of aggression between individuals, but slightly different, yet significantly, mechanisms are involved. Territoriality may be seen as the more complex of the two in that, in addition to the past history of interactions between the individuals, the location of the encounter determines which of the two will exhibit aggressive behavior and which one will retreat. Dominance relationships also influence which individual will show aggressive behavior and which one will withdraw, but this influence is independent of geographical location. In dominance, as a function of a past history of interaction between the individuals, there is a learned relationship specific to the two partners that is independent of geographic location. In territoriality, dominance, and encounters involving trained losers, the aggressive encounters are curtailed by learned elements so that only one or neither of the dyad displays aggressive behavior. Since the intruder or the subordinate or the trained loser leaves or submits immediately upon receiving an aggressive signal, escalation is rare and injuries are avoided. Assessments of opponents are based on membership in a class (trained losers) or individual identity (dominance) or individual identity

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and location (territoriality) rather than on displays and contests testing another’s abilities and resolve. Injuries often occur in aggressive encounters as part of the assessment process. In an aggressive encounter one or both participants uses aggressive techniques to modify the behavior of the other. Since the use of aggressive behavioral elements entails some risk of retaliation, the opponents must assess the value of the goal they seek and the likely costs to be incurred in attaining that goal. If an individual can anticipate costs greater than it is willing to bear to attain the goal, then retreat would be the better part of valor. Aggressive encounters thus may be seen as periods during which constant assessments are being made. For example, if two individuals are using aggression to compete for a particular resource, neither should be willing to sustain a cost greater than the value of that resource to itself. The value of the resource may not be equal to both and the costs that each can impose on the other may also be unequal. The antagonists therefore begin by assessing the value of the resource to themselves, and then the likely costs to be imposed by the antagonist based on indications of the antagonist’s aggressive potential and resolve. If sufficient information is available on the amount of cost that the antagonist can impose based on past interactions, and the resolve of the antagonist to impose such costs based on geographic location, then territoriality applies. If only the identity of the opponent is sufficient to assess the likely costs of aggressive resistance, then dominance applies. If all aggressive signals from any opponent are equally effective in eliciting retreat, then we have a trained loser. Of course, the application of these principles requires signals from the antagonist indicating that it is prepared to impose an aggressive cost – ‘threat’ behavior. Lacking such signals, a subordinate, or an intruder, or a trained loser should readily collect a valuable resource even if all the while monitoring the potential antagonist for any sign that an aggressive cost was about to be imposed.

Polyadic Social Aggression Aggressive episodes in nonhuman primates are not limited to dyadic encounters. Primates are social creatures and use social techniques to meet environmental (physical and social) challenges. Antagonists in aggressive encounters are often rapidly joined by others who take sides in the dispute. Assessment in these cases is not simply restricted to the opponents’ size, strength, and willingness to escalate, but also on the size and strength of the opponents’ allies and their availability and willingness to join in the encounter. When monkeys and apes become involved in agonistic encounters, the episodes are usually noisy, with each vocalizing its presence (and identity) and scanning the vicinity for potential allies and adversaries. Monkeys and apes often resolve fights

based on the willingness of others to join on one side or another. In this way size and strength become much less important than the size and reliability of social alliances in resolving fights between individuals. It is no longer the largest and most powerful who will be the victor, but perhaps the most socially adept. The cohesion shown by all the members of a group when faced by a source of threat or disturbance from outside the group results in mobbing of predators, and joint attacks on rival groups. This same cohesion by subunits of a social group in resolving fights within a group results in cliques and alliances. Unresolved struggles between such cliques and alliances can cause fissioning or fragmentation of groups. To remain cohesive, groups must develop means of resolving conflicts between subunits within the group.

Restoring Peace Having developed methods to assess rivals and regulate and avoid fights, it should not be surprising to find that nonhuman primates have also developed techniques to restore peace and harmony in their all-important social units once fighting and/or conflict has occurred. Whereas fight interference, the joining in of uninvolved parties in an ongoing aggressive encounter, excited initial attention, more recently attention has been focused on the behavior that follows after an agonistic episode. Monkeys and apes have been noted to seek out former opponents in the minutes immediately following a fight, not to further the agonistic exchange, but to engage in positive affiliative contact. Such positive social behavior immediately following a fight exceeds the rate that would have been predicted based on positive social exchanges when no fight occurs and this has, therefore, been described as reconciliation. Either of the two former combatants, the winner or the loser, may be the first to initiate affiliative social interactions, although the loser is somewhat more likely to do so. If this is ‘reconciliation’ functionally, then the occurrence of positive affiliative behavior immediately following an agonistic encounter should mean that the former opponents can now interact or engage in behavior in proximity to one another without resumption of hostilities. Indeed, Marina Cords found that former combatants who were allowed to reconcile did indeed share resources and cooperate in matters where they had formerly done so, whereas in the absence of such reconciliations, tension continued and the animals were reluctant to come into close proximity. The functional definition of ‘reconciliation’ therefore seems to be firmly established. Following what was said about the polyadic nature of agonistic encounters it should be no surprise to discover that many monkeys and apes reconcile polyadically. Following an agonistic encounter the aggressor, and/or

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the victim, may initiate positive social interactions with the close associates (generally kin and close allies) of its opponent in the minutes immediately following a fight. Alternatively, an animal’s usual allies may initiate the positive interactions with its opponent. These indirect reconciliations may thus restore the relationships between alliances as well as the individual combatants. On the other hand, whereas consolation may be considered related to reconciliation, instead of the allies of a combatant showing positive behavior to the combatant’s opponent, positive behavior is directed to the combatant; nonetheless, evidence for consolation among monkeys is sparse indeed. Although some evidence is available to support its presence in apes, this evidence is not nearly as convincing as is the evidence for reconciliation. It has been speculated that reconciliation serves the immediate interests of the reconciling parties whereas consolation requires empathic ability on the part of the consoling agent that, itself, receives no direct benefit. Empathic abilities may be poorly developed in monkeys that do not readily take the perspective of another, and only rudimentary in apes where such cognitive skills seem at the upper limits of ape abilities. Research in these areas is still ongoing, new, and hardly conclusive.

more demanding social skills; elimination of aggression is virtually impossible. Aggression socializes newcomers into the group, protects the group from external threats, modifies the behavior of disruptive group members, and is used as an instrument to further the goals of a group in competition with rival groups. On the other hand, aggression between members of a social unit threatens the integrity of the group. Social and individual mechanisms exist to limit the expression of aggression within a group and to counteract disruptive consequences. Social relationships among individuals must be restored, for this is the very fabric that constitutes the social group, and that provides extensive advantages to nonhuman primates. All of a group’s highest capabilities will be expressed in dealing with problems associated with aggression and its consequences, not so much to eliminate what in some form is essential, but to control the consequences so as to reap the maximum benefits with the least risk.

Conclusion

Further Reading

Aggression, then, is not disorganized antisocial behavior. It is not base and basic animal behavior. Aggression is of sufficient consequence to individuals so that all of an individual’s skills can be expected to be called into play in aggressive encounters. In nonhuman primates with extensive social and cognitive skills, these skills will be employed in aggressive conflicts. Extensive cognitive skills will be employed in the difficult assessments of opponents’ abilities and resolve. Well-developed social skills will be employed to establish alliances and detect the existence of opposing alliances. Social mechanisms within a group developed in order to maintain social units so that group members would each receive the benefits of social living. These social mechanisms must include mechanisms that not only use aggression to preserve the social unit, but also ensure that aggression between members of the unit does not destroy the unit. Aggression occurs within a social environment in nonhuman primates and that shapes the expression of aggression and modifies the sequences of behavior in aggressive encounters. Social mechanisms have developed to restore social relationships threatened by disruption due to aggressive episodes, and both direct reconciliation and social reconciliation involving third parties can be demonstrated. Restoring the peace may be one of the

Aureli, F., Veenama, H. C., van Pathaleon van Eck, C. J., and van Hooff, J. A. R. A. M. (1993). Reconciliation, consolation, and redirection in Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata). Behaviour 124, 1–21. Bernstein, I. S. (1981). Dominance: The baby and the bathwater. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 4, 419–457. Bernstein, I. and Ehardt, C. L. (1985). Agonistic aiding: Kinship, rank age, and sex influences. American Journal of Primatology 8, 37–52. Cords, M. (1994). Experimental approaches to the study of primate conflict resolution. In Roeder, J. J., Thierry, B., Anderson, J. R., and Herrenschmidt, N. (eds.) Current primatology, vol. II: Social development, teaming behaviour, pp. 127–136. Strasbourg: University Louis Pasteur. Cords, M. and Aureli, F. (1993). Patterns of reconciliation among juvenile long-tailed macaques. In Pereira, M. E. and Fairbanks, L. A. (eds.) Juvenile primates: Life history, development, and behavior, pp. 271–284. New York: Oxford University Press. Cords, M. and Thumheer, S. (1993). Reconciling with valuable partners by long-tailed macaques. Ethology 93, 315–325. de Waal, F. (1989). Peacemaking among primates. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. de Waal, F. (2005). Our inner ape. New York: Riverhead Books. de Waal, F. (2006). Primates and philosophers. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University. de Waal, F. B. and Aureli, F. (1996). Consolation, reconciliation, and possible cognitive difference between macaques and chimpanzees. In Russon, A. E., Bard, K. A., and Parker, S. T. (eds.) Reaching into thought: The minds of the great apes, pp. 80–110. Cambridge, NY: Cambridge University Press. Gust, D. A. and Gordon, T. P. (1993). Conflict resolution in sooty mangabeys. Animal Behaviour 46, 685–694. Mason, W. A. and Mendoza, S. P. (1993). Primate social conflict. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Tinbergen, N. (1951). The study of instinct. Oxford: Clarendon Press of Oxford University Press.

See also: Aggression and Altruism; Aggression, Psychology of; Animal Behavioral Studies, Non-Primates; Behavioral Psychology of Killing; Neuropsychology of Motivation for Group Aggression and Mythology

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Animals, Violence Toward

Animals, Violence Toward Elizabeth Cherry, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA James M Jasper, City University of New York, New York, NY, USA ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Hunting in Pre-Agricultural Societies Domestication and Traditional Agriculture Hunting for Pleasure Suffering as Entertainment Modern Agriculture Biomedical Science

Glossary Animal Baiting A form of entertainment, once quite popular, in which one animal is attacked or tormented by others, especially a large species like a bull or bear attacked by dogs. Animal Rights The claim, popularized in the 1980s, that nonhuman species have absolute rights of various kinds, including protection from unnecessary suffering and the opportunity to live an existence ‘‘natural’’ or appropriate to the species. Anthropomorphism The perception or projection of human traits onto nonhuman creatures or objects, which has helped many humans to see considerable similarities between themselves and other species.

In only a tiny portion of the human societies that have ever existed would the concept of violence toward animals make sense, since the pejorative tone of the word ‘violence’ implies unjust, unnatural, or unexpected aggression. For most humans through history, inflicting pain, suffering, and death on nonhuman species was a natural and expected part of life, and violence toward animals made no more sense than the idea of violence against timber, iron ore, or corn. Only in the last several hundred years, a tiny blip in the 2 million years of human existence, have significant numbers of people felt and argued that violence was even a possibility in the treatment of animals. To them, violence against animals occurs when humans intentionally inflict or tolerate suffering in other species, perhaps even when they prevent those species from living ‘natural’ lives. Whatever anachronistic labels we apply, all human societies have relied on animals in one way, or many ways, so much so that over many generations humans and other species have made considerable adjustments

Extinction and Endangerment Animal Protection Efforts Parallels and Nonparallels with Violence against Humans Further Reading

Factory Farming A term for modern agricultural techniques involving the mass processing of vast numbers of anonymous animals in controlled environments. Habitat The local environment that sustains the life of a species or individual. Vegetarianism The refusal to eat any form of meat; in its extreme form (called veganism), the additional refusal to eat products derived from animals, such as eggs, cheese, and milk. Vivisection Literally, the cutting up of live subjects in scientific research; more broadly, the use of animals in research.

to each other. One use of animals, as pets, is unique in the concern for the life and comfort of the animals, in contrast to virtually all other uses in which the nonhuman species either dies or suffers considerably for human benefit. It is no accident that it is primarily citizens of industrial societies, who encounter living animals almost exclusively as pets rather than as prey, predator, or economic resource, who have begun to see other human uses of animals as questionable or even violent. By today’s refined standards, the history of humans and animals is almost identical with the history of human violence toward animals. Most societies have treated nonhuman species with the same respect, indifference, or even cruelty with which people treated each other. Hunter-gatherer bands face considerable pain and suffering themselves, and have few compunctions about inflicting it on other species. In the no-nonsense worldview of most settled agrarian societies, animals are treated more kindly, as long as this does not interfere with their use as economic resources, which

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is paramount. But then, children in these societies are also treated as simultaneously a source of pleasure and an economic investment. In the industrial world, with decreasing direct contact with animals in the wild or as resources, the treasured pet has become the paradigm at the same time that the rights of individuals and the cherishing of children has expanded. From this perspective, in which individual humans and animals are recognized as having inherent value and rights, it is possible to reframe many uses of animals as violence against them. There are different ways in which animals suffer because of the actions of humans. Deliberate cruelty is the most likely to be recognized as violent. Neglect, in contrast, is a sin of omission, often through ignorance of an animal’s needs or a human’s inadequate resources for proper care. But animals also frequently suffer through their ‘normal’ use by humans, which often involves coercion and force. Finally, animals may suffer quite inadvertently when human development threatens their necessary habitats. In the right perspective, any of these may be framed as violence against other species.

Hunting in Pre-Agricultural Societies Hunting is the oldest use of animals, predating the steady supply that comes from domestication. For nearly the entire time that Homo sapiens have existed, they were hunter-gatherers, and hundreds of such groups survive today. In the absence of technology, however, humans are not especially adept as hunters, so that our earliest ancestors’ hunting had a kind of equality to it. They were able to capture small mammals, birds, and fish, and to pick over the remains left by larger, more efficient, hunting species. But if they encountered one of the latter, such as leopards, lions, or hyenas, our ancestors were more likely to be prey than predator. Despite several generations of anthropologists who saw hunting as a defining characteristic of humans, it is now thought that most huntergatherer societies have relied primarily on gathered fruits and vegetables, with meat as only an occasional treat. The efficiency of hunting depends on the tools available, and hunter-gatherers use rather primitive ones. Bows and arrows and spears require patience and tenacity on the part of those who use them, who must track and stalk animals in order to get close enough to wound or kill them. Depending on how sharp and hard the spear or arrow, and how good the hit, the animal may only be wounded, requiring further tracking until it dies. Snares and nets work on many animals. They require less strength or stamina from humans, although there is often a live and frantic animal to be dispatched. Societies in which one must kill one’s own meat often encourage children to be indifferent to animal suffering.

When a litter of puppies is born among the Inuit, for instance, children are encouraged to adopt the strongest as pets, to cuddle them, speak lovingly to them, and treat them – before they are put to work – as pets. At the same time they enthusiastically kill the weaker litter mates by smashing their skulls against rocks, throwing them off cliffs, or into the sea. Animals are distinguished by their utility to humans, not their ability to feel pain. Those who live in industrial societies tend to see these attitudes and behaviors as cruel or contradictory, but they are appropriate to the context. Life is harsh for many huntergatherers, and survival may depend on the ability to kill another creature quickly and thoughtlessly, or to be fearlessly aggressive in the face of large animals. One cannot be squeamish about blood or violence. For humans too, there is plenty of blood, suffering, and death to be more or less stoically faced. This lack of concern for animals’ pain often coexists with a spiritual reverence towards them. The totemism associating human groups with animals does not preclude the groups’ killing and eating those animals. In a society of hunters, the grace and stamina of other species are naturally things of awe and inspiration. But only rarely does this respect interfere with human’s utilitarian use of the animals. They may ask the animal’s soul to forgive them for killing it, but kill it they do. Similarly, many animals are sacrificed to various gods, but eaten by the human celebrants.

Domestication and Traditional Agriculture Around 10 000 years ago, independently in several parts of the world as the earth warmed, many hunter-gatherers settled down and started to raise their own plants and animals, drastically changing the ways they used animals. Dogs seem to have been the first species tamed, possibly even before settled agriculture developed, and they have remained one of the most useful animals in hunting and agriculture ever since. Agriculturalists have almost unanimously held dual attitudes toward animals: fondness and concern for some, especially those that help get the farming done, but a harshly realistic view of animals as economic resources. Some animals have value through sustained service: the dogs that help herd sheep, the horses or mules used for transportation and plowing, the cows used for dairy and breeding, and so on. Others have value primarily as meat, and their lives last no longer than it takes to fatten them sufficiently. Even these might be valued when young, as the young lambs so often kept in the huts of their owners for the first year of their lives, treated as pets, especially by children. But when their time for slaughter comes, their status shifts abruptly from pet to resource.

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Like hunting, agriculture has grown more sophisticated over time, with an increasing division of labor in the uses to which animals are put. Especially among wealthy farmers, and peaking with aristocratic estates, dogs have been bred to accentuate valuable traits. Some became expert sheep-herders, others tenacious watchdogs. Of the many breeds kept for hunting, some grew adept at pointing or flushing game, others at following a scent, some at retrieving downed birds, and some others at restraining large exhausted prey. Horses too have been bred to pull heavy weight, or to move swiftly with a single rider. These animals are, in many ways, lucky, performing valuable labor. Unlike the animals they help to hunt or herd, they will not usually be cooked and eaten as soon as they are mature (although they might be eaten or rendered later, when no longer productive). Cats have few uses on farms beyond rodent control, at which they excel when partly feral. So even as dogs gained status in early modern Europe, most cats remained outside the charmed circle of pets. Associated with sexuality and witchcraft, as late as the eighteenth century they were valued more as objects of ritual killing and torture than as family pets. Throughout the nineteenth century dogs remained by far the favorite, seen as loyal and loving, with the noted independence of cats prized mostly by intellectuals and artists. Cats’ fortunes improved in the twentieth century, and in the United States they have now surpassed dogs as the most popular pet. Traditional agriculture is a good example of what philosopher Mary Midgley calls a ‘‘mixed community’’ in which humans and other species live together in a kind of symbiotic division of labor. There is a clear distinction between those animals that ‘work’ alongside the humans and shorter-term residents whose ultimate utility will be as food. It is easier to label the treatment of the latter as violence.

Hunting for Pleasure In the agricultural and industrial worlds hunting continues, more as a sport than a serious source of food. Aristocrats were probably the first to pursue game primarily for the social and ceremonial pleasures of hunting, although in late medieval Europe hunting was also defended (not very plausibly) as a way for warriors to maintain their skills between campaigns. Before the modern era, hunting did require a certain strength, even bravery. The chase, through thick woods and underbrush, on either foot or horse, demanded stamina, and the kill, when still accomplished with spear or dagger, a certain degree of strength. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, however, servants flushed out the prey, increasing numbers of dogs were used to pursue and corner it, and nets would often be used to hold the exhausted animals

for final slaughter. In England there were no wild boars left to pursue, so less-than-ferocious deer became the favorite prey. Queen Elizabeth I was said to enjoy slicing the animal’s throat herself, although firearms were used more and more often to do the job. Other forms of hunting – letting teams of whippets or greyhounds chase hares or using hawks and falcons to kill other birds – were even less warrior-like. Hunting became a pageant for displaying the wealth, power, and leisure of landowners. Deer parks were carefully fenced, hedged, or ditched in, and the ‘hunters’ would be accompanied by an enormous retinue of servants and guests, including ladies, who often had the privilege of finally dispatching a terrified and exhausted deer. No one loved the sight of blood more than Henry VIII, but his increasing weight and ill health shifted his, and consequently England’s, style of hunting toward the more sedentary. At the extreme, the deer from a park would be rounded up in advance, the king would pick the one he wished to hunt, and a pack of dogs would herd it past a platform from which the king and his guests would shoot at it. Technological innovations as well as wealth made hunting the rather one-sided affair it remains today. Men would sneak up on their prey hidden behind ‘stalking horses’. They would hide in trees and shoot at deer with powerful crossbows. Or deer would be driven into water, where men in boats would slice their throats. Most of all, long guns with multiple shot were invented and deployed. Patience replaced valor as the virtue taught by modern hunting. In Britain, at least, hunting retained a link to warfare only in its legal restrictions and political battles around these. The Normans claimed one-quarter of England as the King’s own forests, and over time further regulations were designed to restrict deer-hunting to the wealthiest landowners. For many, then, poaching became a political act. Sometimes it was done in order to defy new regulations or enclosures, at other times to test the power of a local aristocrat. Bands of as many as 50 men (often led by gentry, but mixing gentry and commoners) would invade a deer park, leading to physical battles with gamekeepers. In the most political forms of poaching the bodies would not even be carried off for food, but left as an insult. Only after the Black Act of 1723, which made it a capital felony to hunt in disguise, did poaching decline. There is probably nothing that British aristocrats have done that American upper classes have not mimicked, but hunting, horses, and dogs are foremost. In the United States sport hunting became popular with the upper classes in the late nineteenth century, as part of a more general nostalgia for nature on the part of an increasingly urbanized elite. As these wealthy classes built estates on the fringes of the emerging cities, they populated them with horses and dogs, and they took up hunting as a

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pastime. Here was a way to spend time outside, to ride a horse, as well as to examine and show off one’s property. They applied new and peculiar rules to hunting to transform it from an occupation into a ‘gentlemanly’ sport. They were sure to allow a bird to take wing before firing at it, and only aimed at one bird at a time. Through etiquette books on hunting and field sports, they sustained an elaborate jargon, with different names for different numbers of different species: a flock of partridge were a ‘covey’, of ducks, a ‘badelynge’. A pair of partridge were a ‘brace’, but two grouse were a ‘leash’. Most of all, they insisted that true sportsmen did not eat their prey. As a result they favored smaller, less edible birds. They also successfully promoted state laws aimed at banning professional hunters who sold wild birds in local markets. ‘Pot shot’ became a pejorative term for birds destined for the table. Hunting was a symbolically important facet of Europe’s colonization of much of the rest of the world, especially in Africa and India, where the British often adopted existing aristocratic traditions such as hunting from atop elephants. Hunting parties, not so different in size or arms from war parties, no doubt impressed locals with their firepower. The wanton slaughter of large numbers of animals, without any practical intent such as food, was probably meant as a humiliation of the natives as well as a warning. Proponents of hunting universally speak of the pleasures of male camaraderie, and solitary hunting is rare. In hunting-gathering societies, the men often leave the women behind when they hunt, sometimes for days or weeks at a time, and hunting has regularly been a rite of passage from boyhood to manhood. The poaching fraternities of early modern Britain were secret and stable, often lasting 5 or 10 years, with a typical size of 8 or 10 men. Even former President Jimmy Carter has written nostalgically about his boyhood hunting in Georgia. His father would take him in the predawn dark to rendezvous with friends, and they would stand around a potbellied stove or hearth fire. They would indulge in – and these seem to be the heart of the pleasure of hunting – ribald stories and alcohol. Only then would they divide into pairs to enter, along with their dogs, the woods. In the contemporary United States, barely 4% of adults hunt. This is a considerably higher proportion than in other developed countries. Those 13 million hunters – the vast majority of them men – take about 200 million hunting trips per year, and spend $20.6 billion doing so. Most of them hunt large game, especially deer, although they manage to kill far greater numbers of birds. From the point of view of both time and money, hunting is an inefficient way to procure meat, even with modern firearms. Most hunters have motives like Jimmy Carter’s: hunting connects them to their fathers, to other men, and to what they perceive as a broader male subculture. After

increasing through most of the twentieth century, despite urbanization, hunting in the United States has declined in the last 30 years. It has also grown easier, with the advent of canned hunts and internet hunting. Canned hunts take place on private facilities that offer customers their choice of native and exotic animals, trapped within the enclosures of the farm. Internet hunting is also a form of canned hunt, but the customer need not even travel out of doors in order to hunt – the hunter shoots at animals via remotecontrolled rifle software. Both canned hunts and internet hunting have brought together animal protectionists and hunters as unlikely allies against the practices. Not all animals are killed with firearms; trapping remains popular in certain areas of the United States, where it appears to be primarily the activity of adolescent boys. These are not necessarily rural areas, and a significant number of pets are among the 15 million animals caught in American traps each year. Most industrial countries, and many of the individual American states, have banned traditional steel-jaw traps. Animals suffer considerably in these traps, which frequently break an animal’s leg without killing the creature. Animals have been known to break their own teeth or gnaw off their own legs in efforts to escape. Even among indigenous peoples, few make a living at trapping, in part because the majority of animals used in the fur industry are raised on ranches. The average American trapper makes only a few hundred dollars a year at the activity. The treatment of wild animals raises different issues from that of domesticated ones, for humans control the lives of the latter more directly. In nature, animals suffer. They are stalked, attacked, and eaten by other animals. They suffer accidents, illnesses, and diseases that either kill them slowly or make them more vulnerable to predators. They starve when populations of species get out of balance. During the twentieth century we have become keenly aware of the effects of ecological balance among species, including the unfortunate contributions of humans to imbalances. Hunters claim that they help keep populations in balance, especially the deer who have proliferated in suburban America since the destruction of their natural predators. They argue that a sudden shotgun blast is preferable to most forms of death wild animals face, a claim that applies only to clean, fatal wounds rather than those that fester and debilitate an animal.

Suffering as Entertainment In ways that many people today find hard to understand, humans throughout history have been keenly amused by the suffering of other creatures. Organized public activities include bull- and bear-baiting, the once extremely

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popular practice of setting a pack of dogs loose to torment these large animals. Bulldogs have the shape they do because the English bred them specifically so that they would be low to the ground, avoiding the bull’s horns, but with powerful jaws so that they could hang on when they bit into a bull’s nose or mouth. Singly and in groups, animals have been pitted against each other for the amusement (and, often, betting opportunities) of humans. Cockfights, for which animals are specifically bred and raised to be vicious, apparently originated in Asia 3000 years ago. In other cases, such as bullfighting, humans themselves inflict the pain. Until they grew more popular in the late nineteenth century, cats were a favorite target, in part because of the terrible noise – caterwauling – they make when tormented. A favorite use was to stuff them into burlap sacks making up the ‘body’ of political figures being burned in effigy. We can only imagine the full range of treatments practiced locally, but they include various kinds of mutilation, decapitation, and the pursuit of terrified animals. The fear and squirming of smaller creatures seems to have retained its special delight for children, especially boys, somewhat longer than it did for most adults – one reason that humane societies in the nineteenth century concentrated their efforts on the humane education of children. Although it is comforting to believe that such cruelty – the most blatant, inexcusable form of violence against animals – is a thing of the past, this is hardly the case. Bullfights continue in many parts of the Spanish-speaking world. Cockfighting and dogfighting persist in many parts of the United States despite laws against them. For example, a 1995 raid in New York City led to the arrest of 300 spectators at a cockfighting tournament. More recently, ‘crush’ videos, or fetish films in which women are depicted crushing kittens, fish, and insects with highheeled shoes, have come under fire by animal protectionists. Animals also entertain humans in circuses and zoos, and many of today’s animal protectionists claim that these animals are being abused in various ways ranging from beatings and deprivation during training to their being prevented from living ‘natural’ lives. A few activists go so far as to claim that pets exist only for the satisfaction of their owners, not for the benefit of the pets. Although most animal suffering arises from neglect or as a byproduct of other uses to which humans put animals, the pain of animals has been directly amusing to large numbers of humans through history. Both the direct infliction of cruelty and the accompanying lack of sympathy or empathy with these animals may parallel attitudes toward fellow humans. Humane societies once centered their arguments on the idea that cruelty to animals taught children cruelty to other humans, and some research, despite difficulties in testing the hypothesis, supports that link. In addition to direct causal links,

actions toward those who cannot fight back are thought to be especially telling signs of human character. On this dimension of violence toward animals, there seems to have been considerable improvement with the rise of modernity.

Modern Agriculture Although domestication, breeding, and agriculture always require systematic efforts, the Enlightenment seems to have brought new attention to farm techniques. Systematic experimentation helped to increase yields in Britain in the eighteenth century, and prepared the way for the application of scientific discoveries to agriculture. Because agriculture was more respectable than commerce or industry, enterprising gentry applied their talents to raising animals. Although beef had been raised in England since prehistory, it was only in the 1700s that it overtook venison as the most popular meat. Landowners began to commission paintings of their favorite bulls, hold competitions and exhibitions of their prize animals, and organize meetings for the dissemination of breeding tips. They enclosed new lands for cattle and sheep-grazing, began feeding their animals turnips and other foods to fatten them even in the winter, and selectively bred ever-larger animals. The elite who could afford these experiments, often denied any interest in profits, congratulating themselves instead on their patriotism and public service. Today’s prize-winning farm animals are still treated more like pets than resources, but the highly efficient, rationalized lives of all other farm animals are seen as nothing but a source of profit. The term ‘factory farming’ has been applied to contemporary agriculture because so many animals are kept indoors in crowded conditions, remaining alive just long enough to be fattened to a profitable point. Veal calves, as many critics have pointed out, are not even allowed to walk, for this would toughen their flesh. Food, water, and ventilation have been automated to save on labor costs. The dogs and horses that once assisted farmers have now disappeared. Laying hens rest in wire cages so that their droppings fall out and can be swept up without disturbing the animals. A regimen of hormones and other drugs prevents disease and stimulates rapid growth. The size of these operations is staggering: the number of laying hens in an average building increased from 20 000 to 80 000 in the two decades (1955 to 1975) that much of the new mechanization took place. The number of animals eaten by humans dwarfs all other uses. Worldwide, 45 billion land animals are killed each year for meat, milk, and eggs. The overwhelming majority of these animals are birds at 43 billion, followed by 1.2 billion pigs, 795 million sheep and goats, and 306 million cattle, buffalo, and calves. The United States alone accounts for nearly 20% of these worldwide

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numbers, despite comprising less than 5% of the world population, with approximately 10 billion land animals in addition to 10 billion aquatic animals killed for human consumption each year. Of these US land animals, 95% are birds: 9 billion chickens and 250 million turkeys are raised for meat, in addition to nearly 300 million hens that are kept busy laying eggs. These numbers also include 100 million pigs, 35 million cattle, 9 million dairy cows, 5 million sheep and lambs, and 1 million veal calves. Assembly-line farming is efficient, to be sure. A hen, for example, lays up to 10 times as many eggs as its ancestors did. But it lives only about a year and a half, rather than 10– 15 years, before being used as food itself. In the United States alone, 200 million male chicks, unnecessary for egg production, are destroyed each year. According to critics many of them are still, despite prohibitions, sealed in large garbage bags to suffocate. It should not be concluded, however, that farm animals were treated well in the past. In fact, their transportation and slaughter were the subject of laws passed in the United States and Britain in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Most of the American states passed protective legislation, but federal laws of the period only covered interstate transportation of animals. Under pressure from environmentalists and animal protectionists, recent decades have seen a spate of new laws regulating farm animals, most of them in the nations of Europe. The European Union has passed laws banning tiny crates and anemic diets for veal and the keeping of breeding sows in tight stalls, and by 2012 they will phase out the use of battery cages for laying hens. Germany and Switzerland have already restricted the use of such cages, insisting that the natural movements and behaviors of the animals be possible. Britain has also passed laws banning the hot branding of cattle and most tail-docking of pigs and cattle. Sweden passed the most sweeping regulations in 1988, aimed at allowing animals to perform natural behaviors, protecting them from illness, restricting the use of drugs except to protect the animals’ health, and controlling genetic manipulation. Such efforts to encourage ‘humane’ farming, however, are balanced by the situation in the United States. There, much protective legislation, at both the state and federal levels, exempts farm animals. In 1992 federal legislation, intended to discourage animal protectionists, increased penalties for vandalism and other crimes against agricultural business. In the United States, humane products such as free-range chickens and eggs depend entirely upon consumer demand. This remains extremely limited.

Biomedical Science Although much in the news in the last two decades, the number of animals used in scientific research has always been modest compared to those used as food. The ancient

Greeks and Romans had performed some demonstrations with animals, but vivisection gained prominence with the beginnings of modern medicine in the seventeenth century. For example, William Harvey published De Motu Cordis in 1628, arguing that blood circulated through the bodies of humans and animals, pumped by the heart. Both backers and opponents cut into live animals in the ensuing debates, as direct experiments became more credible as sources of evidence. Such activities expanded again in the nineteenth century with the development of modern research laboratories and universities. Experimental physiology, hitherto a rather disreputable hobby of a few physicians, became a respected academic pursuit in France and Germany after 1850, in England after 1870, and in the United States after 1880 (at which time they were joined by bacteriologists, who also used live animals). Anesthetics and analgesics were developed only in the nineteenth century (ranging from morphine in 1806 to aspirin in 1899), so vivisection in this period entailed horrible pain during procedures and considerable suffering afterward. The most that can be said in defense of those who inflicted this pain is that they performed surgery on humans in much the same way. There was wide opposition to vivisection, based largely on religious resistance to the perceived ‘soullessness’ of modern science. The twentieth century saw an enormous expansion of the use of animals in laboratories. In the 1890s the biomedical profession managed to fuse the interests of scientists and physicians, establishing their credibility and market power on the basis of scientific advances. With the rise of chemical and pharmaceutical industries, the use of animals, especially for substance testing, grew exponentially from the 1890s until the 1970s. Although good data are rarely collected, the worldwide number of animals used in testing and research each year for the past two decades is estimated at over 100 million , most of them mice and rats. In countries with strong animal protection movements, the numbers have actually fallen in the last 20 years. In Britain and the Netherlands, which collect the best data, they have been cut almost in half. Many new methods of testing toxicity in new products and substances have been developed, including the use of computer models; organ, tissue, and cell cultures; and human volunteers . The notorious Draize test, in which substances are put into the eyes of white rabbits to see how badly irritated they become, has been severely curtailed. Private corporations, especially cosmetics companies, have been eager to switch to the alternatives, which are usually less expensive than older animal tests (see Figure 1). Most advanced industrial nations now regulate the use of animals in research. In the Netherlands, all investigators must take a course on ethics before they conduct research. Denmark, Germany, and Britain also have detailed rules, and in 1986 the European Community adopted guidelines. More recently, the European Union passed a law that will go into effect by 2009, which bans

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Figure 1 Rabbits lined up for the Draize test of toxicity. Substances are put in their eyes so that researchers can observe the degree of redness, swelling, and pus formation. Albinos are used so that these effects can be judged more accurately. Once the animal protection movement began attacking the test in the 1980s, many scientists questioned its utility, and the number of Draize tests used each year has fallen dramatically. (Courtesy of PETA: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals)

the use of animal testing for cosmetic products. The United States passed an Animal Welfare Act in 1966, since amended several times, but this law excluded rodents (which comprise 90% of lab animals) and was directed at the care of the animals more than the uses to which they are put in experiments. In 1985, amendments to this act required laboratories with federal funding to establish Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees, which review the protocols of experiments in an effort to reduce pain and stress. There is some agreement that researchers today have grown more sensitive to the suffering of their animal subjects because of regulations such as these. Illegal break-ins at animal laboratories handed effective recruitment materials to animal protectionists in the United States and Britain. In 1984 the Animal Liberation Front removed videotapes of experiments using baboons at the University of Pennsylvania, which People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals edited into a short film. Graduate student researchers were seen making fun of severely injured animals. In Britain the following year, a raid at the Royal College of Surgeons uncovered rather dubious treatment of experimental monkeys, one of which had the word ‘crap’ tattooed on its forehead. Memorable cases such as these helped spark the rapid growth of the animal rights movement of the 1980s.

food. Ten thousand years ago, as humans spread southward through the Americas, they caused the extinction of roughly 75% of the large mammals then existing in North America and 80% in South America – species such as sabertooth cats, mammoths, camels, long-horned bison, ground sloths, even a form of horse only distantly related to the Spanish species later introduced. Similar catastrophes occurred after the arrival of humans in Hawaii, Australia, and New Zealand. Native species were not accustomed to these predators, and disappeared before any kind of balance was achieved. Direct slaughter was not the only mechanism for destruction: the introduction of new, non-native species brought not only competitors but new diseases. And as many large mammals disappeared, they took with them other species that depended on them, usually species of vulture or condor. In recent centuries, humans have threatened species primarily by destroying the habitats necessary for their survival. In addition to the disappearance of many habitats, chemical pollution has rendered others unsuitable for the sustained reproduction of certain species. Rachel Carson’s 1962 expose´, Silent Spring, helped inspire the modern environmental movement by documenting the devastating effects of DDT and other pesticides on the environment. Some species are especially vulnerable because their habitats are extremely limited – often a single forest, pond, or field. Changes in habitat also affect the destinies of animals in ways that fall short of extinction or endangerment. Some even flourish because predators have been eliminated. Deer are perhaps the pre-eminent example: in suburban parts of the United States, their numbers fluctuate according to local laws governing their hunting and other policies concerning wildlife ‘management.’ Active intervention is one reason so many of the deer’s predators have disappeared. At various times in American history, for example, there have been bounties placed on wolves, coyotes, rattlesnakes, bobcats, mountain lions, groundhogs, blue jays, crows, and woodpeckers, in many cases decimating these populations. The destruction of habitats often leads directly to animal suffering. More often, species lose their ability to reproduce themselves over time. Although the latter appears less violent, the endpoint of endangerment or extinction is the same.

Animal Protection Efforts Extinction and Endangerment Wherever they have traveled, now the entire planet, humans have destroyed native species, especially the large mammals and birds that were especially valued as

Before the eighteenth century, concern for animals, in the rare cases when it developed, usually grew out of religious visions. Hinduism and its offspring, perhaps because followers believe in reincarnation, and the possibility of reincarnation as other species, have been especially

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concerned with how practitioners treated animals. To build up good karma for the next life, it is desirable to practice ahimsa, or respect and noninjury to all living things. This concern is most developed in Jainism, whose followers (numbering five million today) pursue ahimsa through an extreme asceticism, even striving to avoid killing tiny insects by stepping on them or breathing them in. Jainist monks, who normally wander freely, move into temples during the rainy season to avoid crushing the invisible creatures living in the mud. Most vegetarians have adopted their practices because of theories, some accurate and others not, concerning human health, but the result has always been fewer animals consumed. In the sixth century BCE, Pythagoras argued that humans were poised between the divine and the bestial, and that killing other creatures for food drew people toward the latter. In the late seventeenth century an Englishman named Thomas Tryon popularized these ideas in The Way to Health, adding a Christian interpretation of the divine in humans. Tryon also showed some concern for the suffering of the slaughtered animals, an issue that reappeared in a cluster of works around 1800 also espousing vegetarianism. With both Tryon and his successors, however, abstention from meat was primarily seen as good for human health. In the West, vegetarianism became more common in the early nineteenth century, and the English word, coined in the 1840s, seems to have been popularized by the founding of the Vegetarian Society in Britain in 1847. The most famous vegetarians, such as Percy Bysshe Shelley and Sylvester Graham, continued to see vegetarianism as a way to preserve one’s health in an industrial, urbanizing environment. In early modern Europe, isolated individuals began to appear who were concerned about violence toward animals for secular reasons that had nothing to do with human health. These were often philosophers, clergy, or aristocratic ladies of letters. Their appeals were generally ridiculed, although the eighteenth century did see some increase in benevolent concern for other humans as well as other species. It was the rapid industrialization in much of nineteenth-century Europe and North America that seems to have spurred, not only vegetarianism, but the first organized movements for animal protection. Reasons may include decreased contact with animals as economic resources, the sentimentalization of nature, an increase in pet owning, and a broader climate of altruistic, often religiously based, benevolent movements for reform. Scientific discoveries, culminating in Darwin’s arguments about natural selection, made the differences between humans and other species appear considerably smaller and less significant than they once had seemed. Anthropomorphism, the perception of human traits in things other than humans, has further helped break down these perceived differences between humans and other

animals. Though humans have long anthropomorphized animals (since at least the cave drawings of the Paleolithic era), modern pet-keeping brought a more emotional form of anthropomorphism, which helped spawn the animal protection movements of the same era. Easily anthropomorphized animals, such as those with faces, large eyes, or fur, were the main beneficiaries of the recent increase in sympathy. Organized movements to help nonhuman species date from England in the early nineteenth century. From 1800 to 1822, when an act was finally passed, several parliamentary bills were introduced to ban bull-baiting. Two years later an organization called the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was formed, later adding Royal to its name when Queen Victoria adopted the cause in 1840. It was a favorite charity of the upper classes, who saw it as a way to civilize the working classes who abused cart and carriage horses in congested city streets. In the 1860s similar organizations began to appear in the United States, eventually spreading to all the major American cities outside the South. These groups addressed the suffering of animals in a wide range of practices: cockfights, the beating or starvation of pets by owners, the use of carriage horses in extreme heat, the beating of such horses, the inadequate anesthetization of animals in scientific experiments, and the conditions and transportation of animals raised for food (see Figure 2). They persuaded many states to pass protective legislation. After 1900, under the counterattack of scientists and with horses being replaced by motors, most of these humane societies came to focus on the treatment of pets. From then until the 1980s, they would be known primarily for their work in reducing pet overpopulation and strays.

Figure 2 A collapsed carriage horse. The mistreatment of carriage horses was one of the earliest issues addressed by the humane societies of the nineteenth century, as middle- and upper-class patrons were horrified by the language and abuse used by drivers, often immigrants, in carrying out their work. This was one of the last utilitarian contacts with live animals most people had in the emerging industrial city. (Courtesy of PETA: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals)

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Antivivisection appeared alongside other issues on the agendas of the early humane societies, but it met a different fate. Much antivivisectionist sentiment was based on distrust of the medical profession, which had done little over the centuries to win popular confidence. The status of both physicians and scientists changed rapidly in the 1880s and 1890s, however. One reason was the series of medical breakthroughs, especially in immunology, that began to save lives in the fights against rabies, diphtheria, and typhoid. But medicine’s status was rising even before these triumphs, due to efforts at institutionalization and legitimation on the part of practitioners: state licensing, more rigorous training in medical schools, and other ventures by the profession to police itself. Such efforts were largely a response to antivivisectionists, who soon found themselves on the defensive. Even humane societies began to back away from their antivivisectionist stances in the 1890s, and antivivisectionism became a marginal concern until it rejoined animal protectionism in the 1980s. Some of the nineteenth century groups, such as the American Society for the Protection of Animals created in 1866, became large and wealthy. Others, such as Henry Salt’s Humanitarian League of the 1890s, remained essentially the work of one person. Most older groups, especially those that have lasted, were driven by compassion for creatures seen as helpless victims, emphasizing animals’ feelings more than their cognitive capacities. Although many groups represented only the idiosyncratic concerns of their founders, they usually appeared in waves that reflected widespread changes in public sentiment. A cluster of groups were founded in the United States in the late 1950s and early 1960s, concerned in part that stray pets were ending up in unpleasant laboratory experiments. The most recent surge began in the 1970s in Britain and the 1980s in the United States. Today, over 1.5 million people worldwide participate in animal protection organizations, with groups existing in roughly 150 countries. In the 1960s and 1970s, a wave of protest movements had questioned basic aspects of modern societies, including large bureaucracies, corporate profits, the uses to which science and technology are put, unrestrained economic growth, and various ways that people oppress each other. There appeared a general sense that industrial societies hurt the powerless in many ways. In particular, the environmental movement demonstrated the social, economic, and esthetic costs of ecological imbalance and pollution, and large numbers of people began to worry about the disappearance of many species of wild animals. With the women’s movement, many women began to recognize that they were disadvantaged, and to develop a language for criticizing the major institutions of advanced industrial societies.

These movements eventually affected how people thought about animals. In the late 1960s and early 1970s new groups were formed to aid wild animals, including baby seals that were hunted for their white fur, dolphins that were being killed in nets meant for tuna, and the wolf, which had been almost completely eliminated from the continental United States (see Figure 3). Through generations of television specials, magazine articles, and books, Europeans and Americans had come to appreciate the complex mental capacities and deep emotional loyalties of other species. Gorillas and chimpanzees can communicate with humans by learning more than a hundred keyboard symbols; they even play jokes on their keepers. Many people began to feel uneasy over the destruction of these animals’ natural habitats, but also over how other mammals were treated every day in modern societies. The humane societies of 100 years ago saw animal cruelty as aberrant and unusual; those trained in the movements of the 1960s saw the same practices as systemic and widespread. Key institutions of

Figure 3 Canadian seal about to be clubbed. Among the most effective photographs for the environmental movement in the early 1970s were those of seals being killed for their fur. With their large eyes, cute faces, and unthreatening behavior, these animals are easily perceived as similar to humans in many ways. Sympathies like these helped form the animal rights movement 10 years later. (Courtesy of IFAW: International Fund for Animal Welfare).

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contemporary society depended deeply on what increasing numbers of activists now saw as violence against animals. Unlike many men and women with the same sentiments who were content to volunteer at local animal shelters, this small constellation of interested citizens was dissatisfied with traditional activities. They saw existing humane societies as timid in their protective efforts, more concerned with maintaining the support of wealthy patrons than with extending their activities on behalf of animals. For these would-be activists, the works of several philosophers provided a language and ideology that seemed to crystallize their new concerns over the treatment of animals. Most influential was Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation, which denounced ‘‘speciesism’’ as a bias parallel to racism and sexism, arguing that, because the pains and pleasures of nonhumans were as intense as those of humans, they should not be ignored or discounted. The book also contained considerable evidence of animal suffering in scientific research and modern farming – two core institutional arenas ignored by most animal welfare organizations. In the United States these initial activists founded a new generation of groups in the early 1980s, perceiving violence in a wide range of animal treatments, including the issues raised by the first generation of humane societies, but also questioning practices in which the animals did not suffer obvious physical harm, such as the keeping of animals in zoos, the use of fully anesthetized animals in research, the performances of animals in circuses, and the shearing of sheep for their wool. Violence against animals could be mental as well as simply physical. Many of the new activists attacked all domestication of animals as an infringement on these beings’ deserved autonomy, including the keeping of pets (or ‘‘companion animals,’’ in the phrase of activists more sympathetic to the practice). Thus a more radical ‘animal rights’ movement developed alongside existing humane societies and animal ‘welfare’ organizations: even the language implied that animals were active subjects rather than passive recipients of charity or of good and bad treatment. Different groups used different tactics. The Animal Liberation Front (ALF) began in Britain in the 1960s and favored property destruction and threats. When it was imported to the United States at the end of the 1970s, it favored sabotage and laboratory break-ins which not only ‘liberated’ animals but also yielded notorious videotapes showing experimenters in an unfavorable light. Even activists within the movement debated whether such tactics helped or hurt the movement’s public image, especially after the FBI labeled the group ‘‘terrorist.’’ People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the United States’ largest animal rights group with more than one million members and supporters, deployed many tactics, especially those involving media

attention that would enhance its direct-mail fundraising. For example, it sponsored a ‘‘barf-in’ at the headquarters of cosmetics giant L’Ore´al; protestors pretended to vomit into a large papier-mache´ toilet to show that animal testing ‘‘makes us sick.’’ Older organizations, like the Humane Society of the United States, founded in 1954, also grew more radical under the influence of new groups and ideas, although they continued their traditional practices of lobbying and education. During the 1980s as many as one million Americans joined or contributed to the radical new groups. Especially in the Western world, there have been fundamental shifts in humans’ views of animals, so that today it is possible to conceive of violence against them. Wherever individuals or public policymakers draw the line between acceptable and unacceptable treatments, they must confront questions that once could not be seriously entertained. Although the animal rights movement of the 1980s faded somewhat, notably in media visibility, during the 1990s, it created a controversy that seems likely to endure.

Parallels and Nonparallels with Violence against Humans Moral judgments about how humans treat animals – whether a given case is violence or something more mundane and innocuous – usually depends on the similarities we see between animals and humans. Today, throughout the world, there are standards for human treatment, even when they are broken, that recognize an ideal of an individual as autonomous, capable of making decisions, free from bodily constraints or torture, and having some say in one’s government. There is no such universally accepted standard for nonhuman species. Those who emphasize that many animals, especially mammals, have nervous systems close to those of humans easily empathize with the suffering of those animals under conditions that would hurt humans. As do those who believe that, like humans, animals make choices or plans that affect their lives. In contrast, those who reject any such similarities between humans and other species seem less likely to worry about the suffering or death of these animals. Even within the same society, there are widely different moral intuitions about the suffering and rights of animals. The evidence seems clearest concerning physical suffering. Closest to humans are chimpanzees, which share over 98% of our genes, making it extremely likely that they feel pain much as we do. Other mammals also seem close and thus comprehensible; nonmammals and especially invertebrates are more opaque. It is hard for humans to imagine what it is like for a frog or insect to feel pain, and our science has not been able to give us much

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direction. Physical pain, in the eyes of those who have benefited from industrialization and modern medicine, is an undesirable experience, which should be prevented not only in humans but in other animals that can feel it. Assessing and empathizing with physical pain is easy compared to what we might anthropomorphically call ‘psychological suffering’. There is, however, considerable evidence that individual animals feel some sort of bond to other individuals, for example mating for life. In some cases, such as dogs or elephants, we easily believe that these animals suffer when a parent or companion dies. But there are considerable cultural differences in human willingness to recognize animals’ feelings. The life of an animal is a different issue from its suffering. Protectionist claims that it is wrong to take the life of an animal, even if this could be done painlessly, assume that its life has meaning and positive value to an animal. This seems most acutely true for humans, who plan and think about what their lives will be like decades in the future, who have certain expectations about when or how they might die, who usually maintain affectionate contact with children, grandchildren, and beyond. Humans have a cultural image of a ‘natural’ or expected life span, and cutting this short seems wrong or tragic. Few other species, if any, have such an elaborate vision of the future, and the positive value of an animal’s life, if it has any, must lie more in the present. Pampered pets, who are provided good healthcare, presumably enjoy their lives, so that taking their lives from them is a deprivation. It is harder to fathom how a crated veal calf feels about its life, or a laboratory rat about its. Large gaps persist in our knowledge about animals, especially about their subjective consciousness. We fall back on our own intuitions about how they think and feel, intuitions that differ greatly even within the same society. Whether accurate or not, the tendency in modern societies has been more and more to see other species as being like us, capable of suffering, of controlling their lives, of having intentions and preferences, and thus capable of being treated violently. This historical trend directly parallels that toward greater recognition of human rights. See also: Aggression, Psychology of

Further Reading Arluke, A. (2006). Just a dog: Understanding animal cruelty and ourselves. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Blum, D. (1994). The monkey wars. New York: Oxford University Press. Carter, J. (1994). An outdoor journal. Fayetteville, AR: University of Arkansas Press. Cartmill, M. (1993). A view to a death in the morning: Hunting and nature though history. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Dizard, J. E. (1994). Going wild: Hunting, animal rights, and the contested meaning of nature. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press. Dunlap, T. R. (1988). Saving America’s wildlife: Ecology and the American mind, 1850–1990. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Garner, R. (1993). Animals, politics and morality. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Greek, C. R. and Greek, J. S. (2000). Sacred cows and golden geese: The human cost of experiments on animals. New York: Continuum. Hancocks, D. (2001). A different nature: The paradoxical world of zoos and their uncertain future. Berkeley: University of California Press. Jasper, J. M. and Nelkin, D. (1992). The animal rights crusade: The growth of a moral protest. New York: The Free Press. Kellert, S. R. and Wilson, E. O. (eds.) (1993). The biophilia hypothesis. Washington, DC: Island Press. Midgley, M. (1983). Animals and why they matter. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press. Norton, B. G. (1987). Why preserve natural variety? Princeton: Princeton University Press. Ortega y Gasset, J. (1972). Meditations on hunting. New York: Scribner’s. Ritvo, H. (1987). The animal estate: The English and other creatures in the Victorian age. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Rowan, A. N. (1984). Of mice, models, and men. Albany: State University of New York Press. Serpell, J. A. (1986). In the company of animals. New York: Basil Blackwell. Singer, P. (1990). Animal liberation, 2nd edn. New York: New York Review of Books. Turner, J. (1980). Reckoning with the beast: Animals, pain, and humanity in the Victorian mind. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Wilson, E. O. (1992). The diversity of life. New York: W. W. Norton.

Relevant Websites http://www.aavs.org/American Anti-Vivisection Society http://www.animalsandsociety.org/Animals and Society Institute http://www.hsus.org/Humane Society of the United States http://www.ifaw.org/International Fund for Animal Welfare http://www.peta.org/People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals http://www.wwf.org/World Wildlife Fund

Anthropology of Violence and Conflict, Overview 75

Anthropology of Violence and Conflict, Overview Andrew J Strathern and Pamela J Stewart, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA Published by Elsevier Inc.

Overview Classic Ethnographic Studies Studies in Religion, Witchcraft, and Sorcery Modes of Settling Conflicts, Including Ritual The Place of Language Forms and Discourse in Disputing Violence, Peacemaking, and Ethology

Glossary Cultural Materialism An anthropological theory in which it is argued that material factors are the primary causes of the development of cultural patterns. Divination A ritual act by which the causes of an event or the guilt or innocence of accused persons is determined. Egalitarian Society A society based on the idea of relative equality between groups and persons within it. Ethology The study of fixed motor patterns in animals and the way in which these contribute to social relationships. Genital Mutilation The act of surgically removing parts of human genitalia, for example, in rituals marking a transition from childhood to sexual maturity.

Conflict involves disputing over issues and interests that may lead to violence or the use of force whose legitimacy may be contested. Anthropologists have made their greatest contribution in discussing these topics as they relate to small-scale, stateless societies in which a balance of power is obtained between the different groups. This article discusses this contribution and also considers a range of related themes on both states and stateless societies in contemporary circumstances, including the transnational issues of terror and terrorism.

Overview Conflict and violence are long-standing aspects of human behavior and social relationships. As with many other such phenomena, explanations for this fact have appealed either to biological/genetic patterns or to cultural/historical ones, or to a combination of both. General explanations may certainly implicate biological

The Anthropology of War, and Warfare in ‘Tribal’ Contexts Violence, Ethnicity, and Nationalism Violence, Individual Action, and the State Terror and Terrorism: The Role of the Imagination Further Reading

Ritualization The process whereby a dispute or conflict is handled peacefully by transforming an aggressive signal into a peaceful one. Segmentary System A social system in which the groups are arranged in such a way that smaller, closely related groups combine in opposition to similar more distantly related ones. Sociobiology A branch of biology in which it is argued that the maximization of individual reproductive success is an important determinant of behavior. Violence An act or a threat of physical force between persons, the legitimacy of which may be contested; discursive elaborations of such acts or threats.

characteristics, but specific ones require that we take into account at least cultural factors as they have developed historically in particular formations. Such an approach may also lead to further levels of sociological generalization. Given the prevalence of conflict and violence in historical experience, our scope in this survey needs to be delimited. We have chosen a range of topics that have been recognized widely as anthropological, along with their extensions into contemporary arenas of conflict linked to ethnicity, nationalism, and globalization and ‘terror’. Hallmarks of the anthropological approach, as we see it, are (1) an emphasis on first-hand observation and fieldwork, augmented by the use of other sources; (2) a concern with the small-scale as well as larger scales of events and processes; (3) an interest in the interpretation of meanings and the expression of intentionality, agency, and the capacity for action, including sensitivity to language use; and (4) an understanding generally of the role of symbols and ritual in sociopolitical history.

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A concern with meanings obliges us also at the outset to consider the meaning of the term ‘violence’ (conflict is taken to be less problematic here, referring to any situation in which the participants see themselves as at odds over an issue or set of issues and engage practically in attempts to settle the issue by negotiation, force, or other means). D. Riches has examined the definitional question in a collection of studies on the topic and points out that the choice lies between adopting a new definition of a general kind or building on what he calls Anglo-Saxon meanings. Opting for the latter, and stressing the intentional agency of social actors, he pinpoints a crucial feature: violent behavior is behavior that is subject to contested legitimacy, and this is inherent to it. Violence is thus not simply physical force, although it stereotypically involves the use of force. Rather, it is the use of force in contexts where one or more parties may consider it to be legitimate (and the definition of what is legitimate may also be subject to varying interpretations). Riches also speaks of the triangle of the performer, victim, and witness, in which the witness is often the agent who evaluates the question of the legitimacy of a violent action. His viewpoint enables us to understand how a state agency may undertake a violent action in order to curb violent offenders, since violence, in a sense, is in the eye of the beholder/actor. In particular, a performer of violence may consider it a justifiable or legitimate use of force while the victim disagrees and witnesses are divided in opinion. For our purposes here, without claiming this as a generally valid definition for all purposes, we shall adopt Riches’ viewpoint, focusing attention on violence as an action characterized by force (physical or otherwise) that is subject to contested interpretations of legitimacy. Finally, the placement of violence in a typology of forms of disputing and dispute settlement needs to be specified. Such a typology may have to do with: (1) social contexts of disputing, in terms of scale and the degree of closeness or distance between the parties; an act that is heinous between siblings (e.g., incest, fratricide) may be acceptable or even expected between major enemies; (2) the matters at issue; serious matters may elicit violent responses whereas trivial ones may, or should, not. In terms of nonviolent disputing processes, Philip Gulliver made a clear distinction between settlement by adjudication, mediation, and negotiation. Adjudication occurs in a context where laws exist and decisions can be imposed according to them; mediation where a third party attempts to act as a go-between or broker between disputants and is given power to do so; negotiation typically occurs between the disputants themselves and their support groups, who may take on, in part, roles of mediators or adjudicators. In the context of negotiation, Gulliver further noted an alternation between coordination and antagonism, leading ideally to a coordination that in some way is ritually confirmed, beginning with

the search to define an arena of dispute, through an attempt to narrow the differences, and then on to the final bargaining. The model presumes settlement but, in reality, negotiations often break down. Since breakdown is marked by antagonism, it is here that violence may come into play, either as a way of settling matters or as a way of postponing and complicating a settlement. Socially defined emotions also become involved, and enter into political definitions of what is done.

Classic Ethnographic Studies B. Malinowski, in Crime and Custom in Savage Society, introduced questions of individual motivation and emotion into the study of primitive law and overturned the notion of the savage who was supposed to follow blindly the dictates of custom and tradition within the group. His extensive case history account of a youth who committed suicide as a result of shame sparked off a long tradition of looking at the significance of self-regulated sanctions in behavior. His major stress, however, was on the positive incentives and ideals that keep people in conformity with expectations and remove a need for violence or for imposed punishments in situations of conflict. Certain elements of adjudications were, of course, present in the Trobriands case history he was describing, since chiefs could impose certain decisions and were also feared for the sorcery and magical powers they commanded (see section titled ‘Studies in religion, witchcraft, and sorcery’). This overall Malinowskian approach, via the study of emotions, has returned in contemporary anthropology after having been displaced for a while by the functionalism of Radcliffe-Brown and the structurally oriented work of Evans-Pritchard and Fortes. Evans-Pritchard, in The Nuer, discusses politics, law, social control, and violence in a tribal social system based on a balancing of forces between territorial segments and a principle of the merging of segments in widening scales of opposition or conflict. He developed his model to account for (1) order in a society without government (the ordered anarchy concept) and (2) the place of physical force in such a society. The Nuer people were warlike and had been expanding at the cost of neighboring peoples such as the Dinka, who were captured and assimilated into Nuer local groups. Evans-Pritchard pointed out that bloodwealth or compensation for killings was likely to be paid only within the tribe, the largest political group. He also noted the important role of the leopard-skin chief or man of the earth in giving ritual protection to killers and mediating in discussions over bloodwealth. A combination of structural rules and ritual role-playing kept violence to certain limits within the tribe. The threat of forceful action, however, was equally important in ensuring the territorial spacing of people and

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their access to resources. Such an ordered anarchy requires a certain level of consciousness of violence to maintain itself. Both Malinowski and Evans-Pritchard were, from different angles, tackling the question of whether all societies have law, in some sense or the other. The same matter was explicitly at issue between P. Bohannan and M. Gluckman. Gluckman, in his study of the court system of the Lozi or Barotse people in Rhodesia (Zambia), argued that definite rules could be derived from the study of court cases heard by magistrates and that the principles of law involved could be compared with English-law concepts such as that of the reasonable man. Bohannan, on the other hand, stressed the local cultural contexts in which the Tiv people of Central Nigeria pursued disputes through moots, general meetings, rather than in introduced courts. Bohannan’s account therefore implied difficulties of comparison between societies, based on the problem of cultural difference. The debate between Bohannan and Gluckman has often been taken as an example of the conflict between the particularizing and generalizing moments in anthropology. More specifically the difference of viewpoint they exhibited can be derived from (1) the differences between Tiv and Lozi society (relatively egalitarian vs. relatively hierarchical) and (2) Bohannan’s stress on indigenous processes, Gluckman’s on a court system influenced by British colonial ideas. Comaroff and Roberts, in their survey of legal anthropology, settled the issue of rules versus processes by pointing out that even the most complex rules are formulated and brought to bear only in elaborate negotiated processes, whose outcomes are therefore unpredictable and multiplex. They demonstrated this argument with reference to Tswana (South Africa) succession patterns and marriage disputes. The debate between Gluckman and Bohannan was thus in a sense finally laid to rest. None of these studies was particularly concerned with violence, or the intersection between law and politics. Bohannan’s study, however, was of interest here because of his chapter on the moot at home, in which he discusses the concept of tsav. Leadership, and in fact ability generally, was thought by Tiv to depend on a substance called tsav. Men with tsav were said to repair the tar, or local community, through sitting in moots by day and settling disputes. But the same men also acted by night to protect the tar mystically against attacks by outsiders and were said periodically to require a human to be sacrificed as a victim for their work of mystical protection. Tsav in this context was a kind of witchcraft power. In other words, political power, seen as a form of witchcraft, depended also on notions of mystical violence. In times of political upheaval, Bohannan notes, the men with tsav were thought to kill for personal gain and the love of consuming human flesh.

Studies in Religion, Witchcraft, and Sorcery The use of sorcery and witchcraft as a means of controlling the acts of others is a common anthropological theme. It is often considered an illegitimate form of social control but examples also demonstrate its accepted and legitimate uses. Types of sorcery that are used include food sorcery (poison), leavings sorcery (taking something that has a part of a persons ‘soul’ in it and imprisoning it or subjecting it to torture to make the person ill or die), and assault sorcery (violently attacking someone from another community and causing their death). All these forms of sorcery are greatly feared and attacks of these sorts are repelled through proper actions and/or the assistance of healers who possess magical spells or means of divining who the sorcerer or witch is and thereby confronting the individual. In Melanesia among the Melpa, Pangia, and Duna peoples, sorcery and witchcraft are greatly feared and not generally considered to be a legitimate form of social interaction. Those who are witches are viewed as greedy persons who are attempting to take the health or life of another to satisfy their own desires. The fear of witches (kum koimb, in Melpa) who eat human flesh – stealing children and waylaying adults – has increased in conjunction with changing sociopolitical and religious circumstances. This description is paralleled in the African ethnographic records in which sorcery and witchcraft are socially condemned practices. In Africa, sorcerers use medicine to harm those toward whom they have an ill will, while witches are able to do extraordinary things beyond the capabilities of ordinary human beings in order to harm other people. In both the African and Melanesian contexts sorcery and witchcraft accusations have often been read as indices of conflict and tension. Sorcery accusations directed at enemy groups may increase in-group solidarity and increase the likelihood that a war will be initiated against the accused group. In addition, among the Kuma of the Western Highlands of Papua New Guinea, war sorcerers were highly respected and legitimately used their powers to enlist the spirits of the dead and the ancestors to aid in battle against the enemy. Among the Wola of the Southern Highlands of Papua New Guinea, sorcery is also used to attack the enemy in war in addition to appealing to the clan spirits and ancestors of the enemy side to ask that a longstanding dispute be resolved through a divination process in which the physical substance from the decomposing body of a sorcery victim is allowed to pass onto a pig that is to be eaten to determine who is guilty of the sorcery killing. The victim’s essence is thought to act as a poison that will kill those who are lying and their relatives. Just before

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eating the potentially lethal piece of pork, the accused swears an oath declaring the truth of his assertions of innocence. After the eating of pork the feuding ceases, and further revenge deaths will be caused, it is thought, by the ancestors if they judge that they are warranted. Ideas regarding sorcery and witchcraft are appropriate to consider here, since they both reflect and constitute modes of hostility between categories of people, and are experienced as forms of violent action. This is particularly true of notions of assault sorcery that effectively depict images of assassination and murder by a mixture of physical and mystical means as seen in the writings of Stewart and Strathern (1999a). As the example of the Wola indicates, the same forms of cultural logic that inculcate fears of sorcery can be brought into play in the service of divination and oath-taking (on the latter, see also section titled ‘Modes of settling conflicts, including ritual’). A major feature of the processes through which fears of witchcraft can lead to accusations and violence against suspects is the prevalence of gossip and rumor. This theme is explored in depth in Stewart and Strathern (2004) with references from a global context (see section titled ‘Terror and terrorism: the role of the imagination’).

Modes of Settling Conflicts, Including Ritual Within the category of settlement by negotiation we can distinguish between settlements that lead to an ending of the specific dispute, or at least a phase of it (partial settlement), and settlements that lead to a reconciliation or establishment of new positive relations between the parties. A number of writers have cautioned against the assumption that settlement means good feelings. Moore (1995) cites Gluckman’s description of ‘‘the case of the headman’s fishdams’’ and how it was cleverly settled at the time but how Gluckman later found that one of the parties involved had subsequently killed the other. Similarly, Elizabeth Colson in the same volume sums up materials on the Gwembe Valley Tonga of Zambia by arguing that moots and courts can settle individual claims but ‘‘have much less success in convincing contenders that they are in the wrong, and they do little or nothing to heal ruptured relationships or abate anger and contempt.’’ A dispute occasion may be a part of a longer-term and more deep-seated conflict involving persons other than the immediate parties. It has been argued for Melanesia that ongoing dispute is a part of a normal mode of social interaction and as with debt the aim is not to end but to continue it. While this may be overstated as a generalization there is certainly some truth in it. Nevertheless, in the Mount Hagen area, at any rate, there is an idea that a proper settlement should lead to an admission or confession of wrongdoing followed by a

compensation payment to enable the offended party to recover good feelings. For Hagen, and for many parts of the Pacific and Indonesia, there is a special equation of wealth with human life itself, so that killings can also be compensated for by bloodwealth payments that may, in turn, lead to ongoing exchanges of wealth goods (pigs, shells, money) between the parties and their group-mates. If negotiations about the size of such a compensation payment break down, however, direct reprisals by way of retaliatory killings, destruction of property, or the confiscation of wealth goods may cut in. In contemporary disputes, settlements leading to productive exchanges have become harder to arrange and the possibility of violence has come much closer again, because of the increase in scale of social relations, a process that began with pacification in the 1930s and was evident already by the early 1970s. If disputes are ‘‘both theater and real contests’’ in Colson’s formulation, we might expect them to become a locus of the major tensions caused by the complicated overlapping and layering of institutions and processes in a postcolonial context, such as we find among both the Gwembe Tonga and in Hagen. Colson also has some sharp words to say about the potential of ritual for bringing about the healing of social relations. Compensation in Hagen would fall into the definition here, but it is important to note that where the ritual consists of the handing over of large amounts of wealth this carries its own potential for efficacy. It was Victor Turner, in his work on the Ndembu people of Zambia, who most powerfully expressed the role of ritual in these terms, but we should note the specific context into which much of his material was set, that is, rituals of healing for sickness in the bodies of particular persons. Turner was arguing that such healing rituals were constructed in terms of a specific cultural idea, that deepseated disharmony of feelings can cause sickness, and therefore sickness can be healed only by the (re)establishment of harmony. The idea of dispute as sickness is found in Papua New Guinea also. In Hagen, for example, there is a strong idea that frustration (popokl) can cause sickness and such sickness will again be healed only by overtly venting (confessing) the cause of one’s anger, leading at least to an attempt to put matters right. Ndembu and Hagen logic are at one within this fundamental, or cosmological, level, then. Turner’s approach therefore does not imply that harmony is always achieved, only that it is seen as a prerequisite for healing certain sickness conditions. Sickness prompts people to bring up matters of dispute that have not been settled and to make a fresh attempt at dealing with them. Disputes where sickness is not (yet) implicated may nevertheless refer to the potentiality of both sickness and violence as their outcome if talk cannot solve them. Gulliver, in his book on disputes among the Arusha of Tanganyika (Tanzania), spends the bulk of his time

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explaining the modes of discussion that lead to settlements, mostly through the influence of age-mates. At the end of the book, however, he turns to the topic of additional means of coercion. The coercion he has been discussing is, as he says, ‘‘of a non-violent kind,’’ and it may have to be followed up with further modes of persuasion after an agreement is reached in order to make sure that a promised payment, for example, is made. Occasionally, physical seizure is resorted to, but ritual curses and oaths may be employed also. Both curse and oath appeal to an authority of power beyond the immediate context and they bridge the gap of doubt or mistrust that can arise between disputants. Arusha say that oaths are resorted to only when a dispute cannot otherwise be settled agreeably. The ritual mechanisms ‘‘all operate by producing illness or death in an offender,’’ and a diviner is employed postmortem to verify that the ritual has worked in this way. Effects can be warded off, however, by confession. The Arusha know several categories of oaths appropriate to different circumstances, for example, olmoma, to bring peace to two related men, involving the consumption of sacrificial meat as an embodied act: the meat is accepted by one party and offered by the other. This is a striking instance of the importance of the consumption of substances as a marker of truth on the body. These Arusha mechanisms are closely paralleled again by ideas from the Pacific. In Mt Hagen consumption or burning of the sacred mi plant that is a group’s emblem brings with it the putative sanction of death if one lies. Such mechanisms, going beyond words and into the bodies of the disputants, but invoking the deepest levels of cosmological notions, are perhaps important as backstops to Arusha discourse.

The Place of Language Forms and Discourse in Disputing The idea of disputing brings to mind words primarily: images of words spoken in contest, and therefore of the stylistic and rhetorical resources people bring to bear on an issue. It also makes one aware of how people view words and truthtelling. In Hagen, for example, it is assumed that people readily lie, but the group divination substance, the mi (or nowadays the Bible) can equally readily find them out. A refusal to swear on the mi is tantamount, therefore, to admitting guilt. The aim of an investigation is to ‘‘dig out the roots of the talk,’’ which are buried, entangled, and hard to bring to light but are at the bottom of the problem. Brenneis, in a survey article on this theme, makes a number of significant points. He refers to Mather and Yngvesson’s model of dispute transformation dealing with how and when/why issues are broadened or narrowed, and points out that analysis of the verbal ways in which transitions are made from one phase to another would be more productive. Brenneis also notes Maurice Bloch’s argument linking formalization of style to

authority in the rhetoric of the Merina, a hierarchical society in Madagascar, noting that the argument works less well in egalitarian communities. In Bloch’s original edited volume, A. J. Strathern remarked on a variant of the Merina pattern found among the Melpa of Mt Hagen, in which stylized oratory called ‘arrow talk’ (el ik) stands for a ritualized statement of the outcome of an event as if it were authoritative, marking a stage of consensual agreement between competitive groups. Brenneis goes on to note that forms of expression may play different roles at different phases of a dispute. Insults, for example, may function as preludes to physical violence or as an understood way of expressing and discharging hostility, depending on the stage of a dispute or the relationship between the parties. Silence as an avoidance of talk may also be highly significant and, in effect, communicate meanings. In the Papua New Guinea Highlands the winners of contemporary parliamentary elections are often advised not to say anything about their win, not out of any false modesty but simply to avoid antagonizing the supporters of the jealous losers and provoking violence. The winner of the regional election in the Western Highlands in July 1997, a Catholic priest, mediated this problem by announcing that he would celebrate his victory by drawing all the other elected members of his Province together and ‘‘giving all the praise and thanks to God.’’ Brenneis outlines two different approaches to the relationship between language and social process in disputes. In one (called ethnomethodology) social organization is seen as produced through language interaction. The other is the ethnography of speaking, which takes speakers’ intentions, strategies, and extralinguistic power differentials more into account. While the second approach provides a valuable expansion of the first, Brenneis also notes that language does not just reflect relations, it also often brings them into being and gives them form. In this regard, it is worthwhile to add that he does not greatly take into account here the question of emotions in disputing nor does he discuss the markers of transition from verbal to nonverbal expression that occur when talking stops and physical violence begins. A. J. Strathern has discussed how in Hagen verbal behaviors may copy patterns of dominance and appeasement that can be expressed nonverbally. A. J. Strathern and P. J. Stewart’s study (2000) details that when such verbal rituals break down, violence may result, and peacemaking is thereby made harder.

Violence, Peacemaking, and Ethology The mention of dominance and appeasement reminds us of the question of peacemaking generally, and the distinction between peace founded on mutual agreement and

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peace imposed by winners on losers. It reminds us also of the general debate on aggression, territoriality, and ritualization stemming from the work of Konrad Lorenz and I. Eibl-Eibesfeldt. We are not concerned here with the aspects of debates stemming from Lorenz’s work that deals with the possible innate or genetic basis for aggressive behavior in humans and other animals. We are rather interested in the question of ritualization. In certain animals gestures of appeasement in conflict situations are made by motor actions that correspond to fixed dispositions. In human social interactions standardized rituals are developed that function in a similar way, within a shared cultural milieu, to move from confrontation to conciliation. The mechanisms involved may be verbal, but often are nonverbal. Human ethology can thus provide interesting pointers for the analysis of rituals of both aggression and peacemaking, whether or not we consider these to have an innate basis. Sociobiological theory provides a more focused, and more disputed, approach to conflict, arguing that the maximization of reproductive success is at stake, as argued by Napoleon Chagnon for the Yanomamo people. Chagnon presents the male war-leaders among these people as motivated in their violence not by protein scarcity but by polygyny, suggesting a correlation between killings and wives. Other scholars have taken a different view (see further). Eibl-Eibesfeldt has collected together several examples of appeasement behavior that are interesting: for example, the waving of plant fronds and flowers to indicate a wish for peace, and the inclusion of women and children in parades as an indication of a desire for a resumption of friendly relations. In Hagen, this is directly expressed in a verbal mode also, when men say they are coming ‘‘like women’’ to a meeting, not to fight but to settle. Merlan and Rumsey (1991) have depicted the roles of women too in these processes. Robert Dentan has argued that ‘peace’ rather than ‘war’ may be the ‘normal condition’ of societies, even though conflicts are common in practice.

The Anthropology of War, and Warfare in ‘Tribal’ Contexts R. Brian Ferguson has described war as ‘‘organized, purposeful group action, directed against another group. . . involving the actual or potential application of lethal force.’’ The anthropology of war is complex and can involve conflict over a myriad of diverse factors (e.g., political stakes, an expression of witchcraft beliefs, revenge, wealth, etc.). Ferguson has pointed out the importance of conflict over material resources such as land, food, and trade goods, suggesting that an analytical research strategy on the anthropology of war must not

overlook cultural materialism. Robarchek (in Hass 1990) notes that commonly the explanations of conflict in preindustrial societies are materialistic. He suggests that a focus on the capacity of humans to decide to become involved in conflict at the individual level by examining motivations (defined as all the forces, factors, options, and constraints, both intrinsic and extrinsic that influence the choices people make) for participation is crucial and that in all conflicts and disputes multiple levels of causality and contexts of tension coexist. He goes on to state that ‘‘warfare or nonviolence, like other behaviors, occur when they are perceived and selected from among a field of possible alternatives as viable means of achieving specific, largely culturally defined, goals.’’ Robarchek does not deny the importance of biology or the environment in shaping the forces that lead to warfare but points out that cultural constraints and individual and collective behavior determine if war will ensue. As noted already, many different views have been taken of the causes of warfare and also of its prevalence in various kinds of social contexts. Materialist theories generally argue that warfare has to do with competition over resources and therefore with population growth and territorial expansion. These theories hold in many contexts, but not all. Some kinds of warfare take the form of tournaments more than actual war, becoming an arena for the pursuit of prestige, such as the Great Wars among the Enga of Papua New Guinea. Some are connected with religious imperatives, such as headhunting, although from within the people’s own life-worlds this may have to do with the aim of increasing fertility and population. The Marind-Anim of New Guinea undertook raids not only for heads but to obtain children in order to increase their population. Aside from the general debates, interesting discussions have been entered into with regard to the place of warfare in interactions between state and nonstate societies. Ferguson and Whitehead have argued strongly that warfare in nonstate (‘tribal’) societies has been greatly influenced by interactions with state societies, and that consolidated tribal formations themselves are sometimes the historical product of such interactions, especially in contexts of encounters with expanding states. The same argument applies to colonial contexts, as for example among the Nuer of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. Ferguson and Whitehead’s argument is applied broadly to cases from Roman North Africa, early Sri Lanka, the Aztecs and the Spanish, the West African slave coast, the Iroquois, Eastern Peru, and Papua New Guinea, as well as to their own work in South America. Whitehead argues it both ways: tribes make states and states make tribes. (The term ‘tribe’ is used here in a neutral and technical sense.) Ferguson uses a sophisticated version of cultural materialism to argue that Yanomami aggressiveness was

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greatly influenced by the historical impingement of Europeans bringing disease, different settlement patterns, and new wants, and thereby increasing the shortage of game and levels of tensions in social groups. The Yanomami emerge as much the victims of colonization as the warlike tribesmen projected in the work of Chagnon. Ferguson concludes: ‘‘The ‘fierce people’ represent Yanomami culture in an extreme conflict mode, a mode that is clearly attributable to the exogenous factors of Western contact.’’ This conclusion does not absolutely refute Chagnon’s view, but it does contextualize it considerably and provides another way of viewing the situation. That warfare has been a pervasive feature of human life is not in doubt, but the specifics of its historical development need also to be examined carefully, as we have repeatedly noted. A different argument concerns the place of revenge practices and feuding in cultural practice. Revenge and intergroup hostilities are closely connected in Melanesian histories of war. Otterbein has argued that these practices tend to be most marked where hostilities are based on fraternal interest groups. Feud, he argues, with its limited reciprocities of retaliatory killings, is a way of avoiding larger-scale warfare between such groups. One can comment here that if it is so, it nevertheless can escalate into war, and the more effective way to halt escalation is to pay compensation, as has happened in the historical development of New Guinea Highland societies. Feud without compensation could interestingly be compared with feud with compensation in this regard, a comparative study that waits to be done in detail. Stewart and Strathern (2002) discuss revenge in more detail. The social and historical construction of tribes feeds in topical terms into consideration of the construction of ethnicity and the relationship between nationalism, ethnicity, and violence in the contemporary world.

Violence, Ethnicity, and Nationalism The end of the twentieth century has seen a series of historical changes in the world that have forced a new alignment between the interests of historians, political scientists, and anthropologists. Nation-states have broken up, violent and lethal conflicts based on ethnic ideologies have arisen, and new claims to national status have been made with bewildering rapidity and complexity around the world. In general, these events can be attributed to the recent collapse of the Soviet Union and to the longerterm results of colonial and postcolonial history in Africa. Anthropologists have been forced to expand their scope of reference, while political scientists have had to contract theirs and attempt seriously to understand the intertwining of kinship and politics. Descriptive/analytical

categories such as ‘warlords’, applied to political leaders in Somalia, have emerged in this new context. Here we use a selection of anthropological ideas to comment briefly on this situation. The first is that of the ‘segmentary system’ and the scale of politics. The ‘segmentary principle’ means that different ranges of persons may come into conflict depending on the social distance involved. This idea gives us a calculus for the rapid expansions and contradictions of arenas of conflict that can be seen in contexts of ethnicity. It does not, however, account for the fluidity and partiality of such arenas that are sometimes found. The same idea, however, also implies that a tribe may become an ethnic group tomorrow and a nation the next day, depending on the historical trajectory of conflict it may become involved with. The nation may thus draw on a naturalized symbolic repertoire of notions based on blood and kinship, thus creating itself as markedly different from others, a process EiblEibesfeldt calls ‘‘pseudo-speciation.’’ The phenomenon of physical violence tends to outrun the explanatory theories we apply to it. Allan Feldman has combined versions of anthropological and psychological theory to considerable effect in exploring ideas about violence in Northern Ireland; E. Valentine Daniel, among others, has given a moving account of how the experience of lethal violence is mediated in Sri Lanka. Both these authors manage to convey a sense of the construction of meaning even in an arena of mass killing that may lead us to reflect further on events in other parts of the world, such as Cambodia and Rwanda. Most scholars agree that we cannot simply ascribe violence to an aggressive human nature, yet neither can we argue that violence is simply a manifestation of culture. Rather, we need detailed studies of its social construction and the use of grounded generalizations such as the fact that in a cross-ethnic dispute, both sides may feel that they are the victimized minorities, depending in what majority is chosen for comparison. Processes of learned misunderstanding and extreme othering are also involved here. A combination of approaches from social psychology and anthropology could help greatly in rendering comprehensible the human capacity to kill. Where anthropology also needs to come into its own is in the study of the means, largely ritual and by no means always effective, whereby a measure of peace and healing can be constructed out of the destructiveness of warfare. New Guinea Highlanders, with their conversion of warfare via killings into compensation payments, and these into productive exchanges between groups, have in this regard been at the forefront of human political development. Their subsequent interactions with state systems and the new development of forms of violence and criminality within them, along with their own attempts to develop new compensatory rituals, have further shown how such a development can itself be overtaken by history.

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Violence, Individual Action, and the State In a number of ways, the actions of authorities in society and of dominant or deviant persons in the community, may be seen as violent, and may produce violent responses, including that of self-punishment by suicide. In this section we look at a range of actions that belong under this heading, from capital punishment to domestic violence.

Capital Punishment Capital punishment may be considered the supreme act of governmental violence in state contexts, and jurists point out that to distinguish it from mere execution or lynching, elements such as judicial interpretations and the stay of execution have to be brought into play. Recently, Austin Sarat has pointed out that the practice of allowing the kin of victims to make statements at the sentencing of persons convicted of violence has reintroduced elements of revenge found in retaliatory killings in nonstate societies.

Homicide and Suicide Homicide may, in certain instances, take on some of the characteristics of capital punishment in societies without state institutions of control, as when suspected sorcerers or witches are killed for their alleged offenses. Community opinion, however, may be divided over such killings and they may represent the interests of a particular faction rather than a whole community. Bruce Knauft, in his study of homicide among a Papua New Guinean people, the Gebusi, found a surprisingly high rate of homicide among them to be related to male competition over marriageable women. There was a tendency for sorcery accusations and killings of sorcerers to be focused on those who had failed to reciprocate in marriage exchanges. Outbreaks of homicidal actions punctuated long periods in which harmony was stressed and the expression of anger or aggression discouraged. The Gebusi are unusual in terms of their very high putative homicide rate but not in terms of a cultural emphasis on male violence, which is found elsewhere in the world, for example, in other New Guinea societies and Amazonia, and is connected with warfare. Suicide may also sometimes be forced on persons in a manner reminiscent of capital punishment, as among the Duna people of the Papua New Guinea highlands in the precolonial past when female witches were, according to accounts, forced to hang themselves if found guilty. Stewart and Strathern (2003) have presented a contemporary update on such suicides among the Duna. The element of shame is powerfully involved here, as in other cases where persons found guilty of transgressing

norms voluntarily choose suicide. The motivation of shame may be compounded further by a desire to protest against a situation and to bring shame on those considered to have caused it. Classically, a woman forced into a marriage or treated badly within it may, in maledominated societies, protest in this way, either by drowning or hanging herself (examples can be found from New Guinea also). The sociologist E´mile Durkheim in 1897 classified suicide into three distinct types: egoistic, altruistic, and anomic. In the first, the individual is seen as insufficiently integrated in the group, in the second the individual is overidentified and may commit suicide out of shame or as an act of sacrifice, while in the third the cause of suicide is a social crisis in which individuals are unable to realize their aims. The first and third types are commonly found in contexts of rapid familial and social change such as have been commented on since the early 1970s for many parts of Micronesia in the Pacific. Rates of suicide in Micronesia are by far the highest for young males, indicating their problems of adjustment to society, their inability to find monetary employment, their use of alcohol and drugs, and the breakdown of kin structures such as lineage ownership of land that provided orderly patterns of resource control in the past. Conflicts of interest are always involved in all three types of suicide: quarrels over marriage and sexual activity, over the disposition or availability of resources, and the resulting feelings of shame and frustration, may all be involved. Suicide as protest is quite marked in Pacific contexts where the idea is that the suicide’s ghost may continue to bring trouble to the living. It may also be on the increase in contexts where other social sanctions on behavior have broken down or altered. Assault and Robbery Similar patterns of disintegration of social ties of control equally lead to an increase in violence on the part of young males who form into gangs and prey on social groups in urban contexts away from their home places. In Papua New Guinea such gangs concentrate their activities by robberies in the major towns and the highways that connect them, holding up travelers, killing them if necessary, and sometimes compounding their actions by rape and torture. Narratives of their activities circulate as cautionary tales and tales of horror among the rest of the community. We may call this, following Durkheim, a category of egoistic violence, prompted also by contexts where youths cannot easily meet their economic aspirations. Some of these gang members or ‘rascals’ in Papua New Guinea have voluntarily given up their ways when they received grants to start small businesses or been converted to Christianity. Stewart and Strathern (1999b) have presented narratives of ‘rascals’ and violence in relation to roads in Papua New Guinea.

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Torture

Female Genital Mutilation

Torture itself has most often been used as a means of domination to extract confessions of information about activities from enemies, from persons suspected of witchcraft (internal enemies), or from dissidents. State authority may legitimize such forms of violence, as it does capital punishment and imprisonment. Torture need not be compounded by killing the victim, although it may do so, making a demonstration of the humiliation of the body as in the case of the ‘Shankill butchers’ in Northern Ireland, who were said to torture or kill both Catholics and, by mistake, Protestants in gruesome ways. Paramilitaries in Northern Ireland could expect that they themselves would be arrested by the authorities and interrogated violently with a view to breaking down their resistance and then extracting information. As Feldman points out, torture is concentrated on the captive’s body and creates its sense of power out of that concentration, as well as by the terror or threatened or simulated execution. Pointing the gun or the knife here is the same gesture as that exercised by the robber or gang member, but with the force of the state behind it. Further action, such as rape, is often enforced by means of a threat or other violence. One of the ways in which domination over others is exercised is through forms of torture and forced work, such as in the coercive contexts of slavery and forced child labor. Issues of how torture is to be defined and how coercive force may legitimately or otherwise be used in interrogation have arisen in the context of debates about the ‘war on terror’ in the early twenty-first century.

Female genital mutilation can be discussed here under violence although this category, like suicide, falls into the grey zone of actions that are undertaken freely in some instances. Some outside (i.e., Western) observers have placed this practice under the rubric of child abuse since the female are generally very young when the operations are performed on them. The phrase ‘genital mutilation’ may be seen as placing a culturally accepted practice into an unacceptable category by relabeling it. Female circumcision has also been called a ‘maladaptive cultural pattern’ by those who would like to see the practice halted. One consideration here is that these practices are also followed when families move to the United States or elsewhere in the world where female circumcision is not an accepted practice. Thus, issues of religious and ideological freedom arise. There is some evidence that lowered fertility may occur in some individuals as a result of scar tissue, which may inhibit sexual activity, and from chronic infections that result in higher rates of miscarriages. Janice Boddy has pointed out that these same problems have entered into the social construction of female cults of possession in the Sudan, in which women take control of their bodies and express themselves in ways that modify male control over them and also express their own view of themselves in the wider patterns of life. In this context, they do not oppose, but support, the practices of female circumcision and infibulation.

Domestic Violence

Rape Rape is a form of violence directed mainly at females, although males may also be violently and forcefully sodomized, especially in prison conditions. During wartime, rape is often used as a form of terror and revenge-taking against enemy groups. A recent example is the Bosnian war where women were frequently raped in attempts to subjugate enemy groups. In contemporary Papua New Guinea violence sometimes erupts in the Highlands during and after local and national elections. At these times women who belong to groups targeted for violence are sometimes raped while males are beaten or threatened and property is destroyed. The form of rape on these occasions may involve a group of males attacking one female in what is known as gang rape. The same action may be undertaken as a form of humiliating ‘discipline’ exercised against a wife who has been defined as errant. Control of this sort is sometimes cited in other contexts as a reason for what has been described as female genital mutilation.

Domestic violence is a common problem in many parts of the world and much of it is directed at women and children. According to a United Nations study on this subject, it appears that to one degree or another violence against women in the home is a problem that can be found across all cultures and in all countries. The issues that bring on domestic violence often center on establishing authority and control in the household over the sexual activity of the partner as well as availability and use of resources such as animals (pigs and cows) and garden spaces, or property (e.g., house and vehicle). At other times domestic violence arises because of overconsumption of alcohol and/or drugs, or as a means of releasing anger/frustration that has arisen from some event outside of the domestic sphere but triggers violence in the home solely as a ‘coping’ mechanism in which anger is released against an innocent third party who is in some sense an easier target. Frequently reported forms of domestic violence include: (1) punishment/discipline, when a person is beaten because they are to be ‘taught a particular lesson’, that is, forced into one or another action or behavior pattern;

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(2) preventive, when a household member is beaten in order to remind them who is in control of the relationship and the material goods that are associated with it; and (3) defensive, when one household member hits back after being hit or threatened. Of course, domestic violence often involves forms of verbal abuse in addition to physical violence which can be equally devastating and destructive to the individuals involved. Both forms of domestic violence are disturbing to children and may produce lifelong psychological problems in addition to physical scars.

Terror and Terrorism: The Role of the Imagination In recent years the themes of ‘global terror’ and ‘the problems of terrorism’ have come to play an increasingly important part in the worldwide political processes, and a number of anthropologists have responded to this situation by addressing it through their writings. The place of religion in the enactment of terror and violence has also become contested and has been addressed by political scientists, sociologists, and psychologists, as well as by anthropologists Juergensmeyer presented a benchmark study on this subject in 2000. More generally, the role of the imagination, whether pertaining to the arena of religion or otherwise, is a crucial factor to consider when one is trying to understand the phenomenon of terror as portrayed in the studies by Strathern, Stewart, and Whitehead in 2006. Terror, then, and its manifold representations have taken hold of the global imagination in the decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of radical political movements opposed to the ‘West’ not simply in terms of political ideologies but also under the banner of religious differences. The events of 9/11/2001 and the conflicts in the Middle East and Afghanistan have undoubtedly been central in this reconstruction of the global imagination as well as the recognition of a new era of practices in relation to violence, at least from the perspective of the USA, and mutatis mutandis in the expanding sphere of the European Union. Terror in the abstract and practical terrors in concrete reality have become very much a part of everyday media representations, making issues to do with terror palpably present in many people’s lives. Present terrors surround us, both in our imaginations and the processes and practices of violence which feed into the imagination. Imagination and practice are closely linked. It is equally important to note that violent practices constantly lead themselves to the intensification of imaginative concerns, and that representations of these practices as events in the news constantly stimulate further imaginations and further practices, fusing together actions and images of actions

in repetitive cycles. Images themselves, conducted in a creative or fictional mode (such as newspaper cartoons), may have as their intended, half-intended, or wholly unintended consequence the provocation of violent episodes of actions. Images and messages also stimulate and facilitate the mobilization of masses of people in crowds, protesting against government actions and eliciting forceful, if not violent, actions from police or military authorities. Small-scale and large-scale processes of conflict, and the terror that accompanies phases of violence, share many fundamental features. Scale itself, however, makes a difference. The global village and the Papua New Guinea village are in many ways alike (and, certainly, villages in Papua New Guinea are greatly affected by the world at large). Differences between these contexts lie in terms of the types of conflict they experience and their relative intractability. The world, for example, does not have many very effective rituals of reconciliation such as the New Guinea pig festivals and marriage exchanges. Studies in Papua New Guinea have recently merged with the general sphere of anthropological discussions of violence. As discussed in some earlier publications (e.g., Strathern, Stewart, and Whitehead in 2006; and Stewart and Strathern in 2002), a transactional theory of interactions was pioneered by David Riches (1986). Violent acts can be seen as belonging to ‘the triangle of violence’ between performers, victims, and witnesses as depicted by Stewart and Strathern in 2002. In the context of intergroup fighting, both sides are both performers and victims and include also witnesses. And casualties in fighting seen as ‘warfare’ may be considered by their kinsfolk as ‘heroes’ who have sacrificed their lives to the cause of their group rather than as ‘victims’. Similarly, the killers of others may be lauded as heroes. Lethal acts in warfare are given fundamentally different meanings from those in other contexts. The assignment of labels and meanings is always context-dependent, depending on the side of the conflict parties align themselves with. Riches’ transactional model is useful, especially when combined with two other observations he made. He points out that acts of physical violence have their own peculiar effectiveness; and their legitimacy also is often contested and ambiguous. These contests regarding the legitimacy of violence take place to a good extent in the milieu of its witnesses. Acts of violence may therefore be regarded not only in terms of their immediate instrumental effects as practices from the viewpoint of their performers, but also in terms of their intended or unintended auras of meanings – meanings that they gather within the space of the triangle of violence as we have defined it. Violence is about meanings and thus enters into the world of discourse, representations, and imagination. ‘Terror’ refers to these worlds, worlds both beyond and yet constrained by physical acts. In many ways, terror also belongs distinctively to boundaries and borders, such as have existed

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in the historical past between Scotland and England (Strathern and Stewart 2001), or in the more recent past between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland (Strathern and Stewart 2006). Furthermore, in terms of how meanings are created and communicated, rumor and gossip, whether spoken or in printed form, are often tremendously important, especially in the context of violence, threats of violence, and fears of violence. We have previously, in 2004, argued for this viewpoint, particularly in relation to accusations of witchcraft and sorcery, but also more generally in terms of issues and feelings that are conducive to conflictual acts. Rumor and gossip, like violence itself, are transactional acts, passed from person to person, often demanding reciprocity, and subject to disparate evaluations by ‘witnesses’ who then enter into the communicational network in which rumor flourishes. Rumor and gossip trade on fear, uncertainty, and ambiguity, and they deal with the boundaries of legitimate action and speculations about those boundaries. They operate at different levels of societal complexity, from the interpersonal to the international. Intelligence agencies of governments essentially trade on hearsay as much as on direct observations and so may be regarded as purveyors (as well as evaluators) or rumors. Deliberate misinformation is often mixed with sheer inaccuracies as well as kernels of truth in these contexts of international life. And such acts of rumormaking and reception are not neutral; they are often political tools, and in any case they have consequences, leading to the mobilization of people in favor of certain causes. The study of events and physical acts inevitably, then, leads us back into the worlds of fluctuating, negotiated, constructed meanings, and thus, in turn, into representations of the events which form people’s memories and link to their desires and frustrations.

See also: Clan and Tribal Conflict; Cultural Anthropology Studies of Conflict; Ethnic Conflicts and Cooperation; Language of War and Peace, The; Peaceful Societies; Ritual and Symbolic Behavior; Warriors, Anthropology of

Further Reading Aijmer, G. and Abbink, J. (eds.) (2000). Meanings of violence: A crosscultural perspective. Oxford: Berg. Bloch, M. (ed.) (1975). Political language and oratory in traditional societies. New York: Academic Press. Bohannan, P. (1957). Justice and judgment among the Tiv. London: Oxford University Press, for the International African Institute. Brenneis, D. (1988). Language and disputing. Annual Review of Anthropology 17, 224–237. Caplan, P. (ed.) (1995). Understanding disputes: The politics of argument. Oxford: Berg.

Chagnon, N. (1990). Reproductive and somatic conflicts of interest in the genesis of violence and warfare among tribesmen. In Haas, J. (ed.) The anthropology of war, pp. 77–104. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Colson, E. (1995). The contentiousness of disputes. In Caplan, P. (ed.) Understanding disputes: The politics of argument, pp. 65–82. Oxford: Berg. Comaroff, J. and Roberts, S. (1981). Rules and processes. The cultural logic of dispute in an African context. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Daniel, E. V. (1996). Charred lullabies: Chapters in an anthropograph of violence. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Eibl-Eibesfeldt, I. (1979). The biology of peace and war: Men, animals and aggression. New York: Viking Press. Evans-Pritchard, E. E. (1940). The Nuer. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Feldman, A. (1991). Formations of violence: The narrative of the body and political terror in Northern Ireland. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Ferguson, R. B. (1990). Explaining war. In Haas, J. (ed.) The anthropology of war, pp. 26–55. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ferguson, R. B. (ed.) (2003). The state under siege. London: Routledge. Ferguson, R. B. and Whitehead, N. (eds.) (1992). War in the tribal zone. Expanding states and indigenous warfare. Santa Fe: School of American Research. Ferme, M. C. (2001). The underneath of things: Violence, history, and the everyday in Sierra Leone. Berkeley: University of California Press. Gluckman, M. (1955). The judicial process among the Barotse. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Gulliver, P. (1963). Social control in an African society. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Gulliver, P. (1979). Disputes and negotiation: A cross-cultural perspective. New York: Academic Press. Haas, J. (ed.) (1990). The anthropology of war. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hutchinson, S. E. (1996). Nuer dilemmas. Coping with money, war, and the state. Berkeley: University of California Press. Juergensmeyer, M. (2000). Terror in the mind of god: The global rise of religious violence. Berkeley: University of California Press. Knauft, B. M. (1985). Good company and violence. Berkeley: University of California Press. Leopold, M. (2005). Inside west Nile. Violence, history and representation on an African frontier. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Malinowski, B. (1926). Crime and custom in savage society. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Merlan, F. and Rumsey, A. (1991). Ku Waru. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Moore, S. F. (1995). Imperfect communications. In Caplan, P. (ed.) Understanding disputes: The politics of argument, pp. 11–38. Oxford: Berg. Otterbein, K. (1994). Feuding and warfare. Selected works of Keith Otterbein. New York: Gordon and Breach Science Publishers. Riches, D. (ed.) (1988). The anthropology of violence. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Stewart, P. J. and Strathern, A. J. (1997). Sorcery and sickness. Spatial and temporal movements in Papua New Guinea and Australia. Discussion papers series no. 1. Townsville: James Cook University, Centre for Pacific Studies. Stewart, P. J. and Strathern, A. (1999). ‘Feasting on my enemy’: Images of violence and change in the New Guinea Highlands. Ethnohistory 46(4), 645–669. Stewart, P. J. and Strathern, A. (1999). Death on the move: Landscape and violence on the Highlands Highway, Papua New Guinea. Anthropology and Humanism 24(1), 24–31. Stewart, P. J. and Strathern, A. (2002). Violence: Theory and ethnography. London: Continuum Publications. Stewart, P. J. and Strathern, A. (2003). The ultimate protest statement: Suicide as a means of defining self-worth among the Duna of Papua New Guinea. Journal of Ritual Studies 17(1), 79–88. Stewart, P. J. and Strathern, A. (2004). Witchcraft, sorcery, rumors and gossip. New departures in anthropology, no. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Strathern, A. J. (1971). The rope of Moka. Big-men and ceremonial exchange in Mount Hagen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Strathern, A. (1992). Let the bow go down. In Ferguson, R. B. and Whitehead, N. (eds.) War in the tribal zone, pp. 229–250. Santa Fe: School of American Research. Strathern, A. (1993). Voices of conflict. Ethnology monographs no. 14, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh. Strathern, A. (1993). Violence and political change in Papua New Guinea. Pacific Studies 16(4), 41–60. Strathern, A. J. and Stewart, P. J. (1997). The problems of peacemakers in Papua New Guinea: Modalities of negotiation and settlement. Cornell International Law Journal 30(3), 681–699. Strathern, A. and Stewart, P. J. (2000). Arrow talk. Transaction, transition and contradiction in New Guinea Highlands history. Kent, OH: The Kent State University Press. Strathern, A. J. and Stewart, P. J. (2001). Minorities and memories: Survivals and extinctions in scotland and Western Europe. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press.

Strathern, A. and Stewart, P. J. (2003). Conflicts versus contracts: Political flows and blockages in Papua New Guinea. In Ferguson, R. B. (ed.) The state under siege, pp. 300–317. New York: Routledge. Strathern, A. J. and Stewart, P. J. (2006). Narratives of violence and perils of peace-making in north–south cross-border contexts, Ireland. In Strathern, A. J., Stewart, P. J., and Whitehead, N. L. (eds.) Terror and violence. Imagination and the unimaginable, pp. 142–170. London: Pluto Press. Strathern, A., Stewart, P. J., and Whitehead, N. L. (eds.) (2006). Terror and violence: Imagination and the unimaginable. London: Pluto Press. Turner, V. (1957). Schism and continuity in an African society. New York: Humanities Press. Whitehead, N. L. (2002). Dark shamans. Kanaima´ and the poetics of violent death. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Whitehead, N. L. and Wright, R. (eds.) (2004). In darkness and secrecy. The anthropology of assault sorcery and witchcraft in Amazonia. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Architecture, Sustainable Peace Building See Sustainable Peace Building Architecture

Arms Control Dinshaw Mistry, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, USA ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Arms Control: Definitions, Theory, and Aims Arms Control before World War II Post-World War II Arms Control The Baruch Plan and Nuclear Arms Control Nuclear Test Ban Treaties The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty US–Russian Nuclear Arms Control and Missile Defense Chemical and Biological Weapons Arms Control Supply-Side Regimes Regional Nuclear-Free Zones

Glossary Arms Control A form of collaboration on military issues between generally antagonistic states or potential rivals, involving limits on the development, production, deployment, or use of arms. BWC: Biological Weapons Convention An international treaty signed in 1972 requiring states to renounce the development and possession of biological weapons; the treaty contains no verification mechanism. CBMs: Confidence Building Measures Initiatives such as the advance notification and monitoring of military exercises, intended to promote transparency and trust between states; also known as operational arms control.

Conventional Arms The Inhumane Weapons Convention and the Landmine Convention Confidence-Building and Conventional Arms Control in Europe Regional Arms Control Outside Europe Unilateral Arms Control Limitations of Arms Control Conclusions: Assessing Arms Control Further Reading

CFE: Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty A treaty signed in 1990 by former Warsaw Pact and NATO states, limiting their conventional armed force sizes. CSCE: Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe A forum for dialog on European security issues, renamed OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) in 1995. CWC: Chemical Weapons Convention An international treaty signed in 1993 requiring states to renounce the development and possession of chemical weapons; contains an extensive international verification system. Nonproliferation Preventing the spread of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. Sometimes

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differentiated into vertical nonproliferation (measures to limit existing declared nuclear states from further building up their nuclear forces) and horizontal nonproliferation (measures to prevent additional states from acquiring nuclear weapons). NPT: Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty 1968 Treaty under which non-nuclear states agree to not develop or acquire nuclear weapons, in exchange for which they are permitted the peaceful use of nuclear energy, and the declared nuclear states agree to eventually eliminate their nuclear forces. NWS: Nuclear Weapon States The US, Russia, the UK, France, and China – these states tested nuclear weapons before 1967, and are legally permitted to keep them under the NPT with the understanding of eventually eliminating them. Three other states acquired nuclear arsenals after 1968 and are not in the NPT – India, Israel, and Pakistan; North Korea pulled out of the NPT in 2003 and its nuclear status is unclear. All other states have signed the NPT.

Arms Control: Definitions, Theory, and Aims An arms control accord is an agreement between states to define the military environment within which they act and to adjust their specific strategic relations in mutually desirable ways. Some arms control endeavors seek to incorporate all states in the international system, for example, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). Other arms control agreements, such as regional nuclear-free zone treaties, seek the inclusion of states in a region or continent. Still other types of arms control arrangements do not desire universality but rather only seek the participation of selected key states associated with a specific arms control problem. For example, the Missile Technology Control Regime seeks the membership of states capable of exporting missile technology. Arms control accords may also involve just two states when the issue is of purely bilateral concern, such as United States–Russian nuclear arms control treaties or Argentina–Brazil confidence-building agreements. Arms control between rivals rests on the seemingly paradoxical assumption that armed opponents, each seeking to use or threaten force to get its rival to behave in preferred ways, will mutually agree to limits on their respective military capabilities, their deployment, development, and use. The incentives for rivals to enter into arms control accords generally arise under conditions in which neither opponent is able to impose its will on the

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OPCW: Organization for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons Monitoring Agency for the Chemical Weapons Convention. SALT: Strategic Arms Limitation Talks Agreement between the US and former Soviet Union. SALT I restricted the US to 1054 ICBMs and 710 SLBMs, and the Soviet Union to 1618 ICBMs and 710 SLBMs. SALT II limited strategic delivery systems, both missiles and bombers, to 2400 for each superpower. START: Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty A series of agreements between the US and Russia to reduce their strategic nuclear arsenals to 1600 delivery systems and 6000 warheads (START I), 3000–3500 strategic nuclear warheads (START II), and 1700–2200 strategic warheads under the Strategic Offensive Reduction Treaty (SORT). Supply-Side Regimes Informal agreements among approximately 40 supplier states to not export sensitive dual use industrial technologies and materials that may be used to build WMDs or ballistic missiles. WMDs: Weapons of Mass Destruction Nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.

other through force or threats without running unacceptable risks of reciprocal damage to valued material assets and life. When adversaries perceive that they have reached this stage (or seek to avoid a costly and damaging arms race), they have reason to negotiate arms control accords that reduce levels of risk and cost for all concerned parties. This point became particularly relevant in superpower nuclear arms control during the Cold War, because the introduction of nuclear weapons produced a qualitative change in the security environment, requiring new types of agreements even among adversaries. The capability of nuclear weapons to destroy a nation’s economic infrastructure and living environment meant that wars fought with such weapons would negate any possible gains, even in the case of a victory. The feasibility of arms control accords also depends on the prevailing security environment. When states are involved in war or intractable conflicts, arms control may be impossible; when states are engaged in a cooperative pluralistic security community, arms control may be unnecessary. It is between these two extremes of interstate relations that arms control becomes relevant and feasible. Arms control fulfills broadly overlapping political, economic, and social objectives. On social and economic grounds, arms control may result in reduced military expenditures, thereby releasing resources that contribute to national social and economic development. In addition, arms control has humanitarian objectives, seeking to

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reduce damage if war occurs, and aiming to eliminate mass destruction and inhumane weapons. On political grounds, arms control aims to diminish the likelihood of war by (1) limiting the overall level of world armaments; (2) preventing the spread of arms to specific regions; (3) creating transparency between rivals and reconfiguring military force structures and balances to preserve crisis stability and maintain deterrence stability. The several interrelated goals of arms control are elaborated upon in the following discussion. First, arms control aims to prevent the outbreak of hostilities between rivals as a consequence of accident, miscalculation, misperception, or inadvertence. A border skirmish or an armed clash between units of each side – provoked, say, by mismanaged military exercises or by random firing of weapons – could prompt a major confrontation that neither opponent sought. Such unanticipated incidents might also arise during periods of political tensions in which the movement of troops or weapons might be misperceived as an imminent attack. Of particular concern to states is the possibility of being subject to surprise attack, with the threat appearing more ominous in situations where weapons of mass destruction might be used. Such threat perceptions may lead one side to initiate a war by launching a pre-emptive attack. These varied concerns to both rivals prompt the search for arms control accords to preclude such unsought outcomes and to prevent unexpected incidents that either side might perceive as hostile from escalating into crisis and possible war. A second goal of arms control agreements is to stabilize the military balance and environment of the rivals. Of specific significance to both sides is the preservation of mutual deterrence between them. If either can gain a strategic advantage by striking first or by developing a greater quantity or superior quality of arms, deterrence may be undermined to the potential disadvantage of the contending parties. Under the condition of rapid technological change, each side has an interest in checking their opponent’s incentives to defect, by cooperating in sustaining a deterrence regime. To maintain stable deterrence, both sides may, under some circumstances, actually have to increase their arsenals, develop new weapons, and deploy forces to ensure that they cannot be disarmed by a surprise attack. Opponents may also have to assist each other to achieve this level of mutual deterrence through improved command, control, and communications mechanisms, as well as through the exchange of strategic intelligence about the state of readiness and whereabouts of their forces. The above examples underline the point that arms control should not be confused with disarmament. It is a more varied and potentially supple strategic and diplomatic tool than disarmament, and places more demanding limits on rivals and allies in managing their real or

potential conflicts. It requires the continuous maintenance of transparency and communication between rivals, and possibly even a mutually acceptable increase in forces in the search for deterrence stability. In contrast, disarmament aims solely at reductions leading to the total elimination of entire categories of arms, a process that may not automatically provide for stability and security. Furthermore, under certain circumstances, for example, when the pace of reductions is unequal leaving one side with a military advantage at any particular stage of the arms reduction process, disarmament initiatives can actually create incentives for opponents to attack or to use their perceived advantage to coerce their rival, because the contending states failed to negotiate a stable and secure military balance. A third goal of arms control is to limit damage to life and material assets if deterrence fails and war erupts. Such arms control may take the form of international treaties banning inhumane weapons or chemical and biological agents. Another aspect of damage-limitation involves setting in place checks on the escalation of armed conflict beyond the interests of each party. This implies that open communications be maintained between adversaries during periods of hostilities. Measures to contain their conflict might include the limitation of military exchanges to areas outside their territories or zones of primary concern, or the use of surrogates and satellites to conduct military operations. These limits have been observed by states in varying degrees, most notably the United States, the Soviet Union, and the People’s Republic of China during the Korean War. Fourth, rivals also have incentives to bring hostilities to a swift close but not at the expense of their respective vital strategic and political interests. Mechanisms for third-party intervention, including international organizations like the United Nations, might have to be in place before hostilities erupt. Provisions for cease-fires and moratoriums on bombing or military operations might have to be defined beforehand. Secure and confident communications of intent might also have to be devised since armed clashes cloud perceptions of an enemy’s intentions and weaken adherence to limits on the scope of an armed confrontation and the weapons and forces employed in battle. Fifth, arms control agreements can also foster regional and global security by lowering tensions between rivals, reducing overall expenditures on arms, reducing national military arsenals, and increasing transparency and mutual confidence among states. The following historical sketch of arms control treaties, conventions, protocols, and understandings testifies to this growing collective concern among states that they have a shared interest in addressing threats to regional and international security. These agreements – ranging from accords to ban inhumane means of killing using dum-dum bullets, to checking

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the spread of chemical, biological, and nuclear arms – have not always met with universal adherence. Yet efforts to universalize such controls are now a permanent part of international arms control negotiations, and their global promotion are enshrined in the United Nations Charter. Sixth, arms control agreements may be undertaken for, or may nevertheless result in, economic benefits. By placing limits on the size of armed forces or on the development of particular weapons, arms control agreements prevent excessive military expenditures that would arise from an unchecked arms race. Reducing defense spending holds the theoretical promise of providing a peace dividend, releasing resources that may be utilized for social and economic development. Arms control accords, whatever their specific aim or composition, also have some additional characteristics worth mentioning. The first concerns verification. A common feature of most arms control agreements is their verification provisions whether, for example, through on-site inspections, monitoring stations, or aerial or satellite reconnaissance. Verification increases the confidence of parties in an arms control agreement by assuring states that violations are not occurring and that other parties are complying with the agreement. It provides states with warning of a possible breakdown of an arms control agreement, and allows for countermeasures to be employed in a timely manner. These countermeasures may involve sanctions to penalize transgressors and deter future violations, steps to seek political and strategic compensation, or rearming to provide an adequate defense against an adversary’s military attack. Moreover, arms control accords and their accompanying verification provisions may be viewed as a stepping stone to confidence-building measures (CBMs) between states, most notably adversaries. These may include the right to observe military exercises of the opponent or timely notification of troop movements. They may lead to the exchange of military officers and attendance at their respective military colleges and schools. In turn, these CBMs may also set the stage for structural arms control accords involving force reductions or adjustments to create a stable military balance. Both CBMs and structural arms control may be keyed to a diplomacy of detente to create a political atmosphere disposed to the relaxation or resolution of political differences. In addition, while arms control accords are negotiated between countries, some arrangements are advanced by domestic grassroots movements and reflect public concerns about arms races and conflict. In the 1980s, advocacy groups in the United States pressed for a nuclear freeze campaign in opposition to President Reagan’s proposed nuclear arms buildup, while groups in Western Europe campaigned against the deployment of US intermediate range missiles.

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Finally, it should be noted that some scholars and policymakers eschew the very notion of arms control. For some the notion is incompatible with military strategy and diplomacy. If adversaries are assumed to be imposing their interests and values on their opponent, arms control is viewed then as a snare to induce one of the parties to let its guard down. Conversely, there are many so opposed to the solution of differences by force or threats that they insist on disarmament as the only justifiable objective of a nation’s strategy and foreign policy. Arms control appears then to weaken the incentives and drive for disarmament. Worse, it is seen by some as justifying arms and arms races. An intermediate position between these polarized schools of thought regards arms control as an important mechanism, in conjunction with other forms of diplomacy, to avoid not only self-defeating arms races but also to advance wider strategic and political accords between adversaries that surmounts their military competition and rivalry.

Arms Control before World War II Attempts to practice arms control date back many centuries. Almost every advance in weaponry – from the crossbow to firearms, and from the bomber to nuclear weapons – has been accompanied by calls for its abolition. In the modern era, important pre-World War II arms control agreements concerning regional issues included the Rush–Bagot Treaty, arms control in Central America, and the Versailles Treaty. Other arms control endeavors – naval arms control, the Hague conferences, and attempts to regulate the arms trade – involved a limited number of states but dealt with issues having wider global implications. The Rush–Bagot Treaty was signed in 1817, following naval warfare between the US and Great Britain on the Great Lakes in 1812. This treaty called for and attained the removal of US and British (and later Canadian) naval vessels from the Great Lakes. Arms control in Central America sought to preserve regional peace following the outbreak of armed clashes in the region in the early 1920s. A US-backed conference of Central American states adopted the Central American Arms Limitation Treaty in 1923, which restricted the size of armed forces for Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, and served to prevent further outbreaks of hostilities between these states. The Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907 codified the laws of war and addressed the arms control objective of reducing the scope of violence. These conferences barred the use of arms such as fragmenting or dum-dum bullets and poisonous weapons that caused unnecessary suffering. They also prohibited the killing or wounding of prisoners. In subsequent decades, as a response to the use of chemical weapons – primarily gases such as chlorine and

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phosgene – in World War I, the Geneva Protocol of 1925 banned the use (but not the development or acquisition) of chemical and bacteriological weapons. Although the majority of participants at the Hague and Geneva conferences were European states, the laws and norms adopted at these conferences were concerned with wars on all continents. Post-World War I attempts to incorporate government regulations on the commercial arms trade included the 1919 St Germain Convention which aimed at prohibiting the transfer of surplus World War I equipment to Africa and Asia; the 1925 Geneva Convention on Arms Trade; and a draft conventional arms convention in 1929. These initiatives were implemented, with varying degrees of success, by national governments through legislation regulating and licensing the arms trade. The 1919 Treaty of Versailles sought to prevent future war in Europe by disarming Germany and by limiting its future military buildup. The treaty restricted the German army to 100 000 men and prohibited Germany from maintaining submarines (U-boats) and an air force. Germany violated the Versailles Treaty by maintaining hundreds of thousands of paramilitary forces and secretly conducting submarine and aviation research and construction through firms based in other European states. The Versailles Treaty failed to attain its long-term peace and security objectives since Germany’s violations through continuing military research and development permitted the rapid expansion of German armed forces once Germany renounced the treaty and undertook rearmament. The 1932 World Disarmament Conference was the long-delayed fulfillment of a key section of the Versailles settlement which projected German disarmament as the first step towards general disarmament. This conference unsuccessfully attempted to limit the size of military forces in all European states. The conference failed after Germany insisted on military parity with France, while France sought to retain military superiority for security against any future German attack. Naval arms control in the 1920s and 1930s had its origins in an initiative by President Warren Harding to restrict economically burdensome defense expenditures by averting a naval arms race among major naval powers. The reduction in the aggregate level of naval forces was also intended to reduce the probability of armed clashes between the major powers. The 1922 Washington Treaty restricted total capital ship tonnage to 500 000 tons for the US and Great Britain, 300 000 tons for Japan, and 175 000 tons for France and Italy. The 1930 London Treaty stipulated tonnage restrictions for cruisers, destroyers, and submarines. In 1934, Japan abrogated its adherence to the Washington Treaty. While naval arms control involved only a handful of major naval powers, these arms control accords had wider global security implications because naval forces allow states to project their power across continents.

Post-World War II Arms Control The belief that World War I had been caused by an arms race fostered subsequent arms control. The UN Charter emphasized the peaceful settlement of disputes and the pursuit of disarmament. In practice, however, the first half-decade after World War II presents a confused picture with respect to arms control. On the one hand, the United States, militarily the most powerful Western state, undertook a vast program of demobilization. Further, the disarmament of the defeated states, Germany and Japan, was vigorously pursued. On the other hand, the Soviet Union, Britain, and France, while cutting their forces below World War II levels, did not dismantle them. The Soviet Union extended its military control over eastern Europe and half of Germany while Britain and France found themselves deeply engaged in hostilities around the globe to preserve their failing empires. Meanwhile, China was divided by civil war, and colonial wars were erupting around the globe as people in the developing world fought for their independence. In this setting, the victorious powers agreed that the newly created United Nations would be invested with enhanced collective security powers. These were lodged in the Security Council whose five permanent members – the United States, Soviet Union, China, Britain, and France – were expected to cooperate in keeping the peace. That expectation was shattered with the onset of the Cold War in Europe, the victory of the Communist Chinese in 1949, the eruption of the Korean War in June 1950, and the creation of NATO and the Warsaw Pact. In this context, arms control gave way to rearmament in the Western states, including West Germany. The Cold War essentially framed arms control negotiations for the next 40 years. The East–West struggle, paradoxically, limited the scope of the agreements and proposals that could be realistically advanced, and yet prompted arms control efforts by rivals, principally the superpowers, to prevent the Cold War from spiraling into a world conflagration.

The Baruch Plan and Nuclear Arms Control The US-initiated Baruch Plan of 1946 represented the first, though unsuccessful, attempt to achieve global nuclear disarmament. This plan called for an international authority to be entrusted with worldwide control and ownership of atomic energy. Once a global nuclear control regime was in place, the US would eliminate its atomic stockpile. The Soviet Union rejected this plan and proposed instead that the US first relinquish its atomic monopoly, after which an international control system would be implemented. The onset of the Cold War and

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heightened US–Soviet tensions contributed to the eventual collapse of the Baruch plan, as well as alternative global nuclear disarmament proposals. Thereafter, the goals of disarmament gave way to more pragmatic but nevertheless important nuclear arms control objectives. These involved (1) limiting the nuclear forces of the declared nuclear states (vertical nonproliferation, which forms the first step towards nuclear disarmament); and (2) preventing additional states from acquiring nuclear weapons (horizontal nonproliferation, often referred to simply as nonproliferation). The Limited and Comprehensive Test Ban Treaties, the NPT, regional nuclear-free zones, and supplier controls addressed these vertical and horizontal nonproliferation objectives.

Nuclear Test Ban Treaties Following a US thermonuclear test in 1954, during which the crew of a Japanese trawler was exposed to radiation, calls by international leaders and organizations arose to end nuclear testing. World public opinion for a nuclear test ban was driven by concerns about the health hazards of radioactivity released from nuclear testing in the atmosphere. Under these circumstances, the then nuclear states (the US, UK, and the Soviet Union) commenced negotiations in 1958, and came close to agreeing upon a comprehensive test ban treaty. The negotiations failed mainly because of disagreement over the number of onsite inspections necessary for the treaty’s verification. In lieu of a total test ban, a Limited Test Ban Treaty (LTBT), also called the Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT), which did not require inspections for verification, was attained in 1963. This treaty banned testing in the atmosphere and underwater, and restricted nuclear tests to underground sites. The LTBT achieved in 1963 symbolized cooperation among two antagonistic superpowers that came close to a nuclear confrontation barely a year earlier, during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. The LTBT thus built confidence among the superpowers. Yet its nonproliferation goals were not achieved. France and China did not sign the LTBT for more than a decade, and conducted atmospheric nuclear tests until 1974 and 1980 respectively. The LTBT also did not constrain nuclear weapons development by the US, the UK, and the Soviet Union, who continued nuclear testing underground and developed new generations of nuclear weapons. Some three decades after the LTBT was signed, and following the end of the Cold War, efforts to attain a comprehensive test ban treaty (CTBT) intensified. The then Soviet Union, the UK, and the US ended nuclear testing in 1990, 1991, and 1992, respectively. International negotiations on a test ban began in January 1994 at the Conference on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva and were

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completed in 1996. The CTBT was significant as a vertical nonproliferation measure in the NPT context because, by prohibiting the nuclear states from testing, it prevented them from developing a new generation of nuclear weapons. The test ban also somewhat checked horizontal proliferation. It could constrain newly nuclear and non-nuclear states from developing advanced nuclear programs. In the absence of testing, these states would find it difficult to reliably miniaturize their firstgeneration (Hiroshima-equivalent) nuclear capability for deployment on missiles; they would also find it difficult to develop more powerful second-generation thermonuclear weapons. As of 2007, the test ban treaty had not entered into force because a few key countries remained outside the treaty. While nuclear-armed Britain, France, and Russia ratified the treaty, China and the United States only signed but did not ratify it (the US Senate rejected ratification of the treaty in 1999), and Pakistan and India had not signed the treaty. If the CTBT is eventually signed and ratified by all the required states, and then enters into force, it would restrain horizontal and vertical proliferation and thereby strengthen the nuclear nonproliferation regime.

The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty The NPT signed in 1968 provides the institutional foundations for the global nuclear nonproliferation regime. Under the NPT, non-nuclear states undertake not to develop or acquire nuclear weapons. In exchange, Article IV of the NPT permits the peaceful use of nuclear energy by non-nuclear states, while Article VI calls upon the declared nuclear states to eventually give up their nuclear weapons, that is, to pursue nuclear disarmament. The NPT addresses nuclear security concerns of nonnuclear states by operating through the logic of collective action. If all states in a region signed the treaty and renounced their nuclear option, then each of them would not face a nuclear threat from its neighbors, thereby enhancing the security of all parties in the region. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) provides a verification mechanism for the NPT to check that parties do not renege on their NPT commitments. States also renounced or did not pursue nuclear programs for reasons unrelated to the NPT: some states do not perceive security threats from neighbors and so do not need nuclear weapons; other states have external allies that provide for their security – thus alliances with the US (and previously with the Soviet Union) influenced some European and Asian states to refrain from nuclear weapons. One criticism of the NPT has been that the treaty is discriminatory because it does not impose equal obligations on all states. The NPT permits the five declared

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nuclear states, which acquired and tested nuclear weapons before 1968, to retain their nuclear arsenals, while all other states have to renounce their nuclear weapon options. Disapproval of this inequality is reflected in an Argentine statement made in 1978 at the UN, which noted that ‘‘from the very beginning we [Argentina] rejected the Nonproliferation Treaty because of its discriminatory character, since, for the first time in history, it legitimized a division of the world into two categories: countries which can do anything as regards nuclear affairs and countries which have their rights curtailed.’’ On account of similar objections, a few key states, including nuclear states France and China, as well as Argentina, Brazil, and India, opposed and stayed out of the treaty until the early 1990s, although France went on record abiding unilaterally with the NPT’s provisions. Argentina, Brazil, and India, as well as Pakistan and Israel, also had national security reasons for remaining outside the treaty. A second criticism of the NPT was that the nuclear states did not strongly pursue their Article VI commitment to disarmament. Although the superpowers signed the START treaties (see the following section ‘US– Russian nuclear arms control and missile defense’), they retained thousands of nuclear weapons. Despite these criticisms, the NPT was indefinitely extended at the May 1995 Extension and Review Conference. While noting its limitations, non-nuclear states also recognized the treaty’s significance in stemming proliferation and agreed to its indefinite extension. In exchange, nuclear states were called upon to undertake stronger steps to fulfill their Article VI obligations. One step was to halt nuclear testing and attain a comprehensive test ban treaty no later than 1996 (a goal that was fulfilled although the treaty’s entry into force remains uncertain). Another step was a legal undertaking to stop producing plutonium and uranium for nuclear weapons under a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT). The US, Russia, Britain, France, and possibly also China, had ceased nuclear weapons-related fissile material production in the 1990s, but this was not legally binding. And, as of 2007, India and Pakistan were continuing fissile material production. In 2006, the United States introduced a draft text of the FMCT at the Conference on Disarmament, but this draft excluded verification provisions and was therefore not supported by many states. A further step suggested at the 1995 NPT conference was to provide legally binding positive and negative security guarantees to assure non-nuclear states that they would not face the threat or use of nuclear weapons. This remains unfulfilled. The possible resumption of nuclear testing to build new low-yield nuclear weapons, and the acceleration of missile defense programs that negate prospects for the FMCT, can also set back progress toward disarmament.

By the mid-1990s, ideological criticism of the NPT’s discriminatory nature diminished and was replaced by recognition of the treaty’s nonproliferation benefits. France and China joined the treaty in 1992, Argentina joined in 1995, and Brazil entered it in 1998. A number of other states that previously maintained nuclear programs also acceded to the NPT. South Africa built seven nuclear devices in the period 1979–89, then dismantled them in 1990–91, and signed the NPT in July 1991. Three former Soviet republics that inherited nuclear weapons from the Soviet arsenal returned these weapons to the Russian Federation and joined the NPT in 1993–94. The accessions of these states represent important gains for the NPT. Five cases which highlight drawbacks of the NPT should also be noted – those of Iraq in the 1980s, and North Korea, Iran, Libya, and a covert nuclear supplier network in the 1990s and 2000s. North Korea announced its intention to withdraw from the NPT in 1993; once North Korea left the treaty, it could legally pursue a nuclear weapons program unconstrained by international monitoring. International diplomacy convinced North Korea to suspend its withdrawal, and the subsequent 1994 Agreed Framework with the United States persuaded North Korea to shut down its plutonium-producing reactor at Yongbyon. Yet, after another crisis with the United States in 2002, North Korea pulled out of the NPT in 2003, restarted its Yongbyon reactor, and acquired plutonium sufficient for some five to ten nuclear weapons. It tested a nuclear device in 2006. It later switched off the Yongbyon reactor in 2007 as part of a six-party arrangement under which it would eventually dismantle its nuclear programs in exchange for political normalization with and economic assistance from the United States and other countries. Iraq pursued a covert nuclear program in the mid and late 1980s that escaped IAEA detection. Previously, in 1981, Israel sought to halt Iraq’s nuclear program by bombing Baghdad’s Osiris nuclear reactor. Iraq subsequently rebuilt its nuclear facilities, and, following the end of the Iran–Iraq war in 1988, pursued a clandestine uranium enrichment program. While it did not actually build many centrifuges or enrich uranium, it was undertaking research on centrifuges. This covert nuclear program only became known in 1992 following the Gulf War, after which the Iraqi program was placed under stricter international monitoring. Iraq did not, thereafter, pursue significant WMD programs, and these were definitively ended with the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003. In the 1990s, a covert nuclear network run by Pakistani scientist A. Q. Khan supplied centrifuges (that are used to enrich uranium) to three countries, North Korea, Iran, and Libya. Libya renounced its nuclear intentions in 2003, and then benefited from the lifting of international sanctions; Libya’s renunciation helped expose the Khan network.

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Iran built up a nuclear infrastructure, assisted by the Khan network, without probably violating the NPT. In particular, in the 1990s, it secretly built centrifuges from designs and prototypes supplied by the Khan network (the NPT legally allowed countries to build centrifuges without declaring them as long as no uranium was passed through them. As long as a country did not actually enrich uranium in centrifuges, it was not a major risk because only enriched uranium is useful for nuclear weapons; the hardware such as centrifuges is not part of a nuclear weapon). Iran only declared this centrifuge program in 2003, and also declared that it had used some 2 kg of imported uranium hexafluoride (which is a very small and insignificant amount of material) to test its centrifuges in 1999–2002. It then passed uranium through cascades of a few hundred centrifuges in the presence of international inspectors. While Iran’s nuclear programs are subject to international inspections, one concern is that Iran could pull out of the NPT at a future date and then use its presently-monitored facilities for nuclear weapons development. To avert future Iran-like situations, the IAEA Additional Protocol now calls on countries to declare all nuclear facilities even if they do not involve the actual use of uranium or plutonium. International experts are also exploring rules to prevent any new country from building uranium enrichment facilities. In exchange, countries could be given uranium for their nuclear energy reactors through an international consortium of supplier countries – countries that presently have uranium enrichment programs. Only a few countries presently have uranium enrichment programs – the five NPT-nuclear states and Pakistan, Germany, Japan, and Netherlands have plants with thousands of centrifuges, while India, Israel, Iran, and Brazil have smaller scale enrichment programs.

US–Russian Nuclear Arms Control and Missile Defense Bilateral US–Soviet arms control agreements were intended to maintain deterrence stability by regulating the number and composition of strategic nuclear forces – intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and long-range bombers – upon which each side based its nuclear deterrent. By bringing the two superpowers to the negotiating table, arms control also aimed at fostering dialog and decreasing tensions between the two Cold War adversaries. In addition, nuclear arms control was an obligation undertaken by the superpowers under Article VI of the NPT. It should be noted that although strategic nuclear arms control involved only the two nuclear superpowers, it dealt with issues that were global in scope. If deterrence failed and a nuclear war erupted, the effects of a nuclear

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exchange would not be confined to the territories of the United States and the Soviet Union, but rather would rapidly spread globally. The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) began in 1969, and produced two agreements in 1972 – the AntiBallistic Missile (ABM) treaty and SALT I. The ABM treaty limited both sides to 100 defensive interceptor missiles at two sites; these provisions were later amended to restrict defenses to a single site. In general, defensive systems can undermine deterrence, and by limiting the number of defensive interceptors, the ABM treaty intended to preserve deterrence stability. The treaty held for over two decades. It impeded the Reagan administration’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) program and curbed the scope of subsequent US National Missile Defense (NMD) initiatives. The Bush administration pulled out of the ABM treaty in 2002 and deployed some 20 missile defense interceptors in California and Alaska by 2007 (their capabilities were limited as the missile defense system was still in its development and testing phase at the time). If NMD expands to undermine China’s nuclear deterrent, then China may greatly expand its nuclear forces and may not join a future FMCT. India may then do the same, as would Pakistan. The SALT I Interim Agreement of 1972 limited the US and Soviet Union to their then-existing level of strategic nuclear missile forces. The US was permitted 1054 ICBMs and 710 SLBMs, while the Soviet Union was allowed 1618 ICBMs and 710 SLBMs. SALT I did not restrict an emerging technology, Multiple Independently-targetable Reentry Vehicles (MIRVs), which allowed each missile to carry several warheads capable of hitting many cities or targets. MIRVs raised the total number of nuclear warheads on each side to over 10 000, and thereby negated any significant gains in terms of nuclear force reductions. SALT II was signed in 1979. It reaffirmed the previously reached Vladivostok agreement of 1974 restricting both superpowers to 2400 nuclear delivery systems (to be reduced to 2250 by 1981), of which no more than 1320 could be MIRVed missiles. It also counted long-range bombers which had been excluded from the SALT I understanding. While placing no overall total limit on warheads, SALT II restricted the number of warheads to no more than ten on each new ICBM and 14 on each SLBM. The next significant US–Soviet nuclear arms control agreement was the Intermediate Nuclear Force (INF) treaty signed in 1987. This treaty was not directed at strategic nuclear forces, but rather was aimed at eliminating short and intermediate range nuclear forces whose deployment had resulted in a quantitative and qualitative change in the European security situation. The INF treaty called for the destruction of the newly deployed and particularly destabilizing MIRVed SS-20 as well as

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older SS-4 and SS-5 missiles on the Soviet side, and the elimination of Pershing II and cruise missiles on the US side. An additional outcome of the INF agreement was that it brought about the elimination of an entire category of nuclear delivery systems on a global basis – all US and Russian missiles (not just those in Europe) having ranges between 500 km and 5000 km were destroyed under this treaty. The Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START), initiated in 1982, took nine years to result in the first START treaty in July 1991. START emphasized reductions, in contrast to the focus on limitation in SALT. START I restricts the US and Russia to 1600 strategic nuclear delivery vehicles (SNDVs) – missiles and bombers – and 6000 accountable warheads each, with these limits to be attained by December 2001. START II, signed in January 1993, called for the US and Russia to reduce their nuclear forces to 3000–3500 strategic nuclear warheads. START II significantly called for the elimination of all MIRVed ICBMs, systems considered to be particularly destabilizing. It never entered into force. A START III framework reducing US and Russian arsenals to 2000– 2500 deployed strategic nuclear warheads was informally agreed upon but not actually signed in the late 1990s. While START I and II primarily required the elimination of delivery systems but allowed nuclear warheads to be retained in storage, START III aimed for the destruction of strategic nuclear warheads. A weaker substitute to START III was SORT (the Strategic Offensive Force Reduction Treaty). It called for reductions to 1700–2200 strategic nuclear warheads by 2012, but did not require the destruction of warheads, nor did it ban MIRVed systems. It was signed in 2002 and entered into force in 2003. The pace of negotiation, ratification, and implementation of the SALT and START agreements was considerably influenced by prevailing political events. SALT I and START II were negotiated within a short period of a few years, while SALT II and START I took several years. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and the subsequent deterioration in US–Soviet relations caused SALT II ratification to be put on hold. While the treaty was never ratified by the US Senate, the Reagan administration abided by its limits until 1986. Mikhail Gorbachev’s coming to power in the Soviet Union in 1985 and his willingness to reduce nuclear forces and accept unequal cuts gave impetus to the INF and START initiatives. The Reagan administration’s insistence either on deep cuts in long-range nuclear capabilities, particularly warheads, or, in the absence of such an accord, the pursuit of a nuclear war-fighting capability, including SDI as a component, considerably delayed a final agreement beyond START I. START II was ratified by the US Senate in January 1996, but was held up in the Russian Duma – the Duma expressed concerns over issues such as NATO expansion, the 1998

US–UK airstrike on Iraq, and the 1999 war in Kosovo, and also linked START II to the continuation of the ABM treaty. This in turn affected START III; while START III limits were informally agreed upon, formal START III negotiations did not commence because START II did not enter into force. Eventually, SORT replaced START.

Chemical and Biological Weapons Arms Control Two international treaties – the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) of 1972 and the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) signed in 1993 and entering into force in 1997 – aim to control chemical and biological weapons proliferation in a manner similar to which the NPT controls nuclear proliferation. One important difference between these treaties is that the CWC and BWC impose equal obligations on all parties – they do not permit any signatory to retain chemical and biological weapons – while the NPT allows five states to keep nuclear weapons. Under the BWC, states pledge not to develop or acquire biological agents and toxins. The BWC contains no verification provisions, although negotiations have been undertaken, through an ad hoc Group of states that was established in 1994, to invest the treaty with verification and compliance measures. The CWC prohibits states from developing and acquiring chemical weapons; these undertakings are subject to verification by an international agency, the Organization for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). Chemical and biological weapons, along with nuclear weapons, are regarded as weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). The CWC and BWC, like the NPT, are international treaties which states voluntarily sign. As of 2007, some key states that had not signed the CWC were Egypt, Syria, and North Korea (Israel had signed but not ratified). The Arab states remain outside the CWC because Israel remains outside the NPT. Further, especially for the BWC, states may sign but nevertheless violate this treaty without much difficulty, since the treaty has no verification agency. Non-state actors, such as rebel forces or terrorist groups, may also resort to chemical and biological warfare, although such incidents have been rare. Since the 1990s, only two major incidents of terrorist-related chemical attacks have taken place – a sarin gas attack in a Tokyo subway in 1995, and insurgent attacks using truck bombs combining explosives with chlorine gas in Iraq in 2006–07.

Supply-Side Regimes In an effort to address limitations of the NPT, CWC, and BWC, supply-side regimes create additional barriers against WMD proliferation. Supply-side regimes were

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initiated in agreements among a group of 30–35 primarily industrialized states to restrict and regulate their exports of nuclear, chemical, and biological technology. The Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) that restricts nuclear transfers was formed in 1975 in response to the 1974 Indian nuclear test. The Australia Group (AG) restricting the export of certain chemicals was established in 1984 after the use of chemical weapons in the Iran–Iraq war. The Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) was established in 1987; ballistic missiles are systems of concern because of their WMD delivery capability. The MTCR prohibits the sale of ballistic missiles, and restricts the transfer of missile-related industrial technology such as engines, guidance systems, and manufacturing and testing equipment. Another supplier group, formed in 1995, is the Wassenaar Arrangement on Export Controls for Conventional Arms and Dual-Use Goods and Technologies. This arrangement is more concerned with conventional arms trade control rather than WMD proliferation. The Wassenaar arrangement seeks to prevent the acquisition of armaments and sensitive dual-use items having military end-uses by states of concern to the group’s participants. Wassenaar is the successor to a US-initiated Cold War export control regime, Cocom (the Coordinating Committee), which curbed Western technology transfers to the former Eastern bloc. The supply-side regimes mentioned complement national domestic legislation such as US export control laws that restrict the transfer of weapons-related technology and munitions. In 2004, UN Security Council Resolution 1540 universalized the principles of supplyside regimes by calling upon all countries to adopt strict legislation against the export of sensitive WMD technology. International treaties and supplier controls both have limitations. International treaties are not binding on nonsignatory states. States that sign a treaty may nevertheless violate their treaty commitments and pursue a clandestine WMD program. Supplier controls are often inadequate barriers to proliferation. While nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles are hard to indigenously develop, a large number of states have the industrial capability to build chemical and biological weapons and cruise missiles. Thus neither international treaties nor supplier controls may halt a technologically capable state that is determined to develop WMDs and their means of delivery. One additional issue of concern is the control of weapons grade uranium and plutonium from the former Soviet nuclear arsenal. The US government’s Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program has attempted to address this issue. CTR facilitated the return to Russia of 1000 nuclear warheads from Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine and the removal to secure storage of over 2000 warheads from missile and bomber bases. CTR also

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allowed some 5000 former Soviet weapon scientists and engineers to be employed on civilian research projects, thus reducing the possibility of the transfer of their expertise to potential WMD-seeking states and terrorists.

Regional Nuclear-Free Zones Nuclear-weapon-free zones (NWFZs) have been established in six geographic regions – Latin America, the South Pacific, Southeast Asia, Africa, Antarctica, and Central Asia. NWFZs prohibit the deployment, transport, manufacture, or testing of nuclear weapons in the area covered by the zone, and thus go beyond the NPT’s nonproliferation agreements which permit some of the activities mentioned earlier. While regional nuclear-free zones strengthen and reinforce the global nonproliferation regime, they assume greater significance as a nuclear confidence- and security-building measure among states in a region. They also symbolize regional solidarity and are aimed at keeping external nuclear forces outside the region. The nuclear weapon states were initially reluctant to participate in regional nuclear-free zones because they preferred to maintain unrestricted rights of passage for their naval vessels and retain the option of nuclear testing, especially in the South Pacific. Since the end of the Cold War, the nuclear weapon states have generally agreed to respect regional nuclear-free zones, although they have also noted difficulties in formally adhering to all provisions of the Southeast Asian zone. In this respect, the nuclear weapon states sought to exclude oceanic regions such as national exclusive economic zones (EEZs) and continental shelves that are contained in the definition of the Southeast Asian zone. Also, the Western nuclear powers objected to certain provisions of the Central Asian nuclear-free zone concerning security ties between the Central Asian countries and Moscow. The 1959 Antarctic Treaty, originally signed by 12 states, prohibited the establishment of military bases and nuclear activities in the region. This treaty, besides establishing a regional nuclear-free zone, is more important for averting interstate discord over territorial claims in Antarctica. The 1967 Treaty of Tlatelolco negotiated among Latin American states establishes a nuclear-free zone in Latin America. The treaty was greatly strengthened following bilateral Argentina–Brazil nuclear confidence-building measures that included the establishment of the Argentina–Brazil Agency for Accounting and Control of Nuclear Materials (ABACC) in 1991; these Argentina–Brazil CBMs have ensured that nuclear facilities in both states are placed under inspection and therefore not of proliferation concern, thus strengthening the regional nuclear-free zone. The South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone, established in 1985 in response to French nuclear testing in the South Pacific, was enhanced with

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the end of nuclear testing and the accession of France, the US, and UK to the zone in 1996. Nuclear-free zones have also been established in Southeast Asia (1995), Africa (1996), and Central Asia (2006), and Mongolia declared itself to be a single-state nuclear-free zone in 1992.

Conventional Arms The conventional arms trade has been largely unaffected by arms control regimes. Conventional arms are viewed as a legitimate means to national security. The arms industry is also an important source of employment and revenue for the national economies of many states. The value of global arms transfer agreements was estimated at $145 billion from 2002–05, of which 64% was with developing countries, compared to $149 billion from 1998–2001, of which 69% was with developing countries. The largest arms suppliers during 2002–05 were the United States ($56 billion), Russia ($24 billion), France ($13.5 billion), UK ($10.5 billion), Germany ($5.8 billion), Italy ($3 billion), all other European countries ($19 billion), and China ($3.8 billion). For 2002–05, developing countries with the largest arms agreements were India ($13 billion), China ($10 billion), Saudi Arabia ($9 billion), Egypt ($6 billion), Taiwan ($5 billion), and the UAE, Pakistan, South Korea, and Israel (each with $3–4 billion). Two global conventional arms control initiatives were undertaken in the 1990s. First, the UN Conventional Arms Register was created in 1992. The Register requires states to voluntarily provide data on their arms exports and imports, thereby facilitating the identification of potentially destabilizing arms transfers. Approximately 90 to 120 states have participated in the Register each year. The Register lacks an international verification agency, although informal verification occurs by comparing Register entries with public data, and cross-checking export and import entries within the Register. A second drawback of the Register is that by including only arms transfers but not indigenous arms production within a country or military inventories, the Register does not allow for an accurate assessment of military balances between states. Beyond the Register, the United Nations has devoted additional attention to small arms and light weapons, holding conferences on this topic in 2001, 2003, and 2005.

in Ottawa in October 1996, the treaty was completed in September 1997 in Oslo, Norway, and opened for signature in Ottawa from 2–4 December 1997. The Ottawa treaty process represented a departure from traditional interstate arms control negotiations. Its impetus came not from national governments but rather from a group of nongovernmental organizations and the International Red Cross, which mobilized international public opinion against antipersonnel land mines (APLs) and pressured governments into negotiating the treaty. Further, negotiations were undertaken outside traditional fora such as the UN and the Conference on Disarmament, and pursued under the leadership of states such as Canada and Norway without the involvement of the major powers. The land-mine treaty is concerned with humanitarian objectives rather than with conflict prevention through arms trade control. Its goals are similar to those of the preWorld War I Hague Conventions and the 1980 Convention on Prohibitions and Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May be Deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects (the CCW Convention, also called the Inhumane Weapons Convention). These conventions are based on the principle that the right of the parties in an armed conflict to choose methods of warfare is not unlimited. The CCW convention prohibits the employment of weapons and methods of warfare which cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering. Its protocols cover undetectable fragmenting munitions, booby-traps, incendiary devices, and blinding laser weapons. The campaign to ban APLs actually gained momentum following the 1995 CCW review conference, which highlighted the extent of the land-mine problem. At the time, an estimated 2 million new APLs were being deployed annually, largely for use in civil wars, and had resulted in the accumulation of 100 million APLs in 60 countries. These land-mines killed or maimed approximately 26 000 people each year; 90% of the casualties were civilian, and occurred in the years after conflicts ended. While the Ottawa treaty has been signed by over 120 states, it had not been signed by several major states such as the US, China, Russia, and several states in South Asia and the Middle East. Many of these nonsignatory states have, however, pledged support for international de-mining efforts that are part of the treaty. Therefore, the land-mine treaty and related de-mining efforts promise to reduce civilian casualties caused by antipersonnel landmines.

The Inhumane Weapons Convention and the Landmine Convention A second global conventional arms control initiative in the 1990s is the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction, also known as the Ottawa treaty. Negotiations for the treaty were initiated

Confidence-Building and Conventional Arms Control in Europe European arms control has involved two parallel processes – a confidence-building aspect involving the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe

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(CSCE), renamed the Organization on Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in 1995, and structural conventional arms control negotiations concerned with military balances. CSCE talks between NATO, the Warsaw Pact, and neutral European states began in 1972 in the wake of improved East–West relations. These led to politically binding agreements on military confidencebuilding measures, which are incorporated in the Helsinki Final Act of 1975, the 1986 Stockholm Declarations, and the 1990, 1992, and 1994 Vienna Documents. These CBMs include advance notification of and size restrictions on military exercises. These require a 21-day notification for exercises involving over 25 000 troops in the Helsinki Final Act, lengthened to a 42-day notification for smaller exercises involving 9000 troops or 250 tanks in the 1992 Vienna Document; and a two-year advance notice for exercises involving over 40 000 troops. Another significant CBM among European states is the 1992 ‘Open Skies’ treaty permitting mutually agreed upon aerial reconnaissance to ensure transparency on military deployments and movements. Structural arms control in Europe was attempted through talks between NATO and the Warsaw Pact on Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions (MBFR), held at Vienna from 1973–89. MBFR failed to result in agreement because NATO favored parity between the two blocs, under which the Warsaw Pact would have had to make larger force reductions, while the Warsaw Pact favored equal percentage reductions on both sides, which would have preserved Warsaw Pact superiority during almost all phases of the reductions. In 1989, MBFR talks were replaced by CFE negotiations. Despite its lack of results, MBFR produced a few positive spinoffs. The shared working experience between delegations and expertise acquired on arms control issues in many countries facilitated the rapid conclusion of the CFE negotiations that began in 1989; Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s willingness to accept unequal reductions also facilitated progress at the CFE talks. Twenty-two European states (NATO and former Warsaw Pact states) signed the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty in November 1990. The treaty called for parity in conventional forces between NATO and the then Warsaw Pact, with each side’s total conventional forces limited to 20 000 tanks, 30 000 armored combat vehicles (ACVs), 20 000 artillery pieces, 6800 combat aircraft, and 2000 helicopters. Sublimits were applied on the concentration of forces in designated geographic zones, and no more than two-thirds of the total forces permitted to each bloc could be employed in a single country. Within each bloc, states negotiated national force size ceilings that would facilitate the bloc’s compliance with aggregate CFE limits. A follow up to the CFE treaty, a politically binding CFE-1A agreement, was signed in July 1992 by 29 states.

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It set troop and personnel limits on all participating states, including 250 000 for US forces in Europe, 1 450 000 for the Russian Federation, 345 000 for Germany, 450 000 for Ukraine, 530 000 for Turkey, 325 000 for France, and 260 000 for the UK. Virtually all these ceilings were larger than actual deployments in 1992. By the late 1990s, after former Warsaw Treaty states joined NATO, the bloc limits of the CFE treaty lost their relevance. Therefore, under a 1999 agreement, 30 CFErelevant states agreed to replace bloc limits with national limits. In addition, NATO sought to conduct exercises and deploy forces in times of crisis on the new NATO members’ territory. To permit this, the adapted treaty allowed countries to temporarily deploy forces that exceed treaty limits. Russia suspended its participation in the CFE treaty in 2007 for reasons concerning strategic arms rather than conventional forces – it strongly opposed US missile defense deployments in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Regional Arms Control Outside Europe Lessons from European arms control have important implications for regions where arms control successes remain unattained. The East–West conflict in Europe allowed a simple yardstick of military force size to define the relative power of states in the region. Based on this measure, it was possible to devise structural arms control agreements creating stable and nonthreatening military balances. Yet because many different conflicts – ethnic, religious, territorial – exist in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia, CFE-like arms control which regulates military force sizes may not be best suited for these regions. Arms control eventually has to be tailored to the needs of each region to be successful. It should also be noted that many arms control successes concerning East–West issues – INF (1987), CFE (1990), START I (1991), and START II (1993) – were attained towards, or after, the end of the Cold War, at a time of greater trust and reduced tension between the two sides. In contrast, arms control negotiations during the Cold War – MBFR (1973–89), SALT II (1972–79), and START I (1982–91) – were prolonged due to unfavorable political circumstances and often resulted in no final treaty (MBFR) or an unratified treaty (SALT II). Similar trends should be expected in regional arms control. When tensions are high, arms control may not be easily attained; when tensions are lower, arms control successes are likely to follow. While the implementation of CBMs has been slow in the Middle East and South Asia, significant CBMs are being undertaken in Latin America. CFE, OSCE, and the UN Conventional Arms Register provide a model

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for these regional initiatives. The Organization of American States (OAS) adopted a resolution in 1997 seeking a legally binding regional agreement on the advance notification of major arms acquisitions covered by the UN Register. A prior OAS-sponsored meeting led to the Declaration of Santiago in 1995; this declaration called upon states to undertake OSCE-like measures requiring advance notification of military exercises and the exchange of information on defense policies. Latin American CBMs seek to strengthen regional security and allow Latin American governments to maintain and modernize defense forces without triggering suspicions from their neighbors or leading to arms races. Arms control has achieved limited success on WMD issues in areas where tensions remain high, that is, the Middle East, South Asia, and the Korean peninsula. In South Asia, one early CBM between India and Pakistan was a 1988 agreement not to attack each other’s nuclear facilities. India and Pakistan have also undertaken conventional force CBMs, such as a 1991 agreement for advance notice on military exercises and the prevention of air space violations. Despite these CBMs, cross-border firing between Indian and Pakistani armed forces continued, resulting in dozens of casualties each year. Further, CBMs did not prevent India and Pakistan from conducting nuclear tests in May 1998 and fighting a limited war in 1999. India and Pakistan have abided by a 1960 agreement on sharing river waters in the Indus River Basin, though India considered ending this agreement during a tense military standoff with Pakistan in 2002. India and China signed CBMs in the 1990s. The 1993 China–India Treaty on Peace and Tranquility notes that pending an ultimate solution on their disputed boundary, both states will respect and observe the line of actual control. A follow-up treaty in 1996 reaffirms that both countries would not use or threaten to use force against the other or seek unilateral military superiority. It also contains military CBMs such as the advance notification of military exercises and force reductions in border areas.

Unilateral Arms Control Unilateral arms control initiatives are made outside the framework of negotiated international treaties. Examples include conventional force reductions announced by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev (1988) and Russian President Boris Yeltsin (1991–92), and the removal of US tactical nuclear weapons from naval vessels and overseas bases, announced by President Bush in 1991 and completed in 1992. Unilateral initiatives often have ulterior motives; they may involve the retiring of obsolete or economically burdensome weapons, which are widely

publicized as unilateral arms control for propaganda purposes. Yet unilateral proposals also reflect a desire for reciprocity, and when reciprocated, they build confidence and lead to further arms control. For example, a moratorium on nuclear testing by the former Soviet Union in 1990 was reciprocated by the UK in 1991 and the US in 1992. No further nuclear tests were conducted by these states, and this fostered a positive negotiating environment leading to a comprehensive test ban treaty in 1996.

Limitations of Arms Control The historical review of arms control undertaken in this article earlier suggests that arms control has had limited success outside Europe. Progress on non-nuclear issues has been particularly difficult. Arms control does not always lead to positive, security-enhancing outcomes. Arms control involving deep cuts may upset a stable arms balance. Large force reductions or reduced defense spending leave states unable to rearm in time to defend themselves when faced with a breakdown of an arms control accord and a rapid military buildup by adversaries. For example, in the period before World War II, France delayed rearming in response to the German buildup until it was too late. Arms control often fails to control modernization or the development of new technologies that may leave one side at a disadvantage. Arms control is counterproductive when it leads to the development of new technologies that are more destabilizing than the technologies that are restricted under existing arms control agreements. In this regard, naval arms control of the 1920s limited battleships but eventually resulted in the escalating construction of aircraft carriers that are offensive and destabilizing systems. Aircraft carriers enabled the attack on Pearl Harbor and facilitated Japan’s expansion in the Pacific. SALT I limited nuclear delivery systems but caused an arms race in MIRVs, which led to concerns that the United States would face a ‘window of vulnerability’ when confronted with a larger number of Soviet nuclear forces. Critics note that arms control is flawed because it reflects the incorrect notion that military, technical, and legal solutions can fix international security problems. The political aspirations of the owners of arms, and not the military–technical condition of military balances, cause conflict. Arms control as a tool of diplomacy aiming to create a more secure international order should be viewed in its proper perspective: while arms control regulates military force structures and may thus preserve the peace by preventing surprise military attack, only some of the potential causes of interstate conflict are militarily

Arms Control

related and addressed by arms control. Nonmilitary sources of conflict are not influenced by arms control. The conditions under which arms control occurs is also important. Deep cuts applied to initially large forces leave enough remaining forces to provide for national defense in case of the breakdown of arms control. Large cuts on small forces leave states with even smaller militaries that are unable to provide for national security in the event of a breakdown of arms control agreements and rapid rearmament or the development of new technologies by adversaries. Verification mechanisms providing timely warning of a breakout allow states to adequately counter the adverse consequences resulting from a breakdown of arms control.

Conclusions: Assessing Arms Control Arms control has had varying degrees of success in different regions. The issues and actors involved in arms control have somewhat changed over time, but the theoretical basis of arms control remains largely intact. Long-range systems with an inherently global reach – naval forces in the interwar period and strategic nuclear forces in the post World War II period – have been particularly important issues for arms control during the twentieth century. In the post-Cold War era, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction has emerged as the leading international security concern. In contrast to naval and strategic nuclear arms control, proliferation involves not just a few major powers, but a large number of countries, some quite small like Israel. As a result, arms control is becoming increasingly globalized in its scope. Arms control treaties are useful because they have legal standing in international law and, consequently, are more difficult to violate or overturn. Verification mechanisms accompanying arms control agreements provide transparency, deter violations, and eventually reduce misperception between states, allowing for confidencebuilding that leads to further arms reduction. Arms control accords themselves offer a framework for follow-on talks and deeper cuts. In the future, if the value of military power declines, mechanisms such as unilateral force reductions, a slowdown in force modernization and procurement, and deeper confidence-building transparency measures, may acquire greater significance than traditional structural arms control. Judging arms control as a process rather than an outcome provides the best understanding of the issue. Arms control serves to maintain an active diplomatic relationship between states during periods of tension, and provides a forum for dialog on military issues. While arms control successes often follow a thaw in political relations between antagonistic states, these successes in

99

turn foster better political relations between states, which allows for greater CBMs that consolidate and institutionalize political cooperation. Strongly institutionalized arms control endeavors, such as the NPT regime and the CSCE process and CFE treaty, have proved to be invaluable tools in addressing the issues of nonproliferation and European security respectively. In the absence of the NPT, an even larger number of states might have acquired nuclear weapons, making prospects for nonproliferation much harder. The CSCE process and the CFE treaty helped an orderly transition from the Cold War to a more cooperative post-Cold War security regime in Europe. These cases illustrate that despite its limitations, arms control has attained some notable successes. Arms control, while not the only or even the most important means for maintaining national and international security, can under favorable political circumstances be successfully applied towards these objectives.

See also: Arms Trade, Economics of; Conflict Management and Resolution; Economic Costs and Consequences of War; Nuclear Weapons Policies; Peace Agreements

Further Reading Adler, E. (ed.) (1992). The international practice of arms control. London: Johns Hopkins University Press. Goldblat, J. (1994). Arms control: A guide to negotiations and agreements. London: Sage; Oslo: International Peace Research Institute. Gray, C. (1992). House of cards: Why arms control must fail. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Grimmett, R. (2006). Conventional arms transfers to developing nations, 1998–2005. Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service. Levi, M. and O’Hanlon, M. (2004). The future of arms control. Washington, DC: Brookings. Schelling, T. and Halperin, M. (1985). Strategy and arms control. Washington, DC: Pergamon-Brassey’s. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. (2007) SIPRI yearbook: Armaments, disarmament and international security. Stockholm: SIPRI. US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. World military expenditures and arms transfers. Washington, DC: US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (1996). Arms control and disarmament agreements: Texts and histories of the negotiations. Washington, DC: US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.

Relevant Websites http://www.acronym.org.uk – Acronym Institute. http://www.state.gov – Arms Control Bureau, State Department, US Department of State. http://www.basicint.org – British American Security Information Council (BASIC).

100 Arms Control and Disarmament Treaties http://www.carnegieendowment.org/npp – Carnegie Endowment Nonproliferation Project. http://cns.miis.edu – Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS). http://www.fas.org – Federation of American Scientists (FAS).

http://www.stimson.org – Henry L. Stimson Center. http://www.un.org – Peace and Security, United Nations. http://www.acdis.uiuc.edu – Program in Arms Control, Illinois. http://www.sipri.org – Stockholm Institute for Peace Research (SIPRI).

Arms Control and Disarmament Treaties Mitsuru Kurosawa, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Arms Control Negotiations: A Historical Overview Bilateral Nuclear Arms Control and Disarmament Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons Nuclear Test Ban Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones Chemical Weapons

Glossary

Biological Weapons Conventional Weapons Arms Control in International Spheres Conclusion Further Reading

Ballistic Missile A self-propelled weapon delivery vehicle that follows a parabolic trajectory when thrust is terminated. Biological Weapon A device containing living organisms, or infective material derived from them, intended for use in warfare to cause disease or death in humans, animals, or plants. Chemical Weapon A device containing one or more chemical substances, whether gaseous, liquid, or solid, intended for use in warfare to cause direct toxic effects on humans, animals, or plants. Conventional Weapon A device intended to cause destruction in warfare, but lacking mass destruction effects. Cruise Missile A guided weapon delivery vehicle that sustains flight at subsonic or supersonic speeds through aerodynamic lift. Fissile Material Material composed of atoms capable of being split when irradiated by either fast or slow neutrons. Uranium-235 and plutonium-239 are the most common fissile materials.

Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) Ground-launched ballistic missile with a range greater than 5500 km. Missile Defense A weapon system designed to defend against an enemy’s ballistic missile attacks by intercepting incoming missiles with missiles or laser weapons. Nuclear Weapon A device that is capable of releasing nuclear energy in an uncontrolled manner, causing damage by blast, heat, and radioactivity. Strategic Nuclear Weapons ICBMs and SLBMs, usually with a range of more than 5500 km, as well as bombs and missiles carried on aircraft of intercontinental range. Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missile (SLBM) A ballistic missile launched from a submarine, usually with a range in excess of 5500 km. Warhead That part of a weapon that contains the explosives or other material intended to inflict damage. Weapon of Mass Destruction Nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, and biological weapons, and any other weapons which may produce comparable effects.

Arms control and disarmament treaties are international agreements in legally binding form, which provide for the limitation, reduction, or elimination of certain types of weapons, or the prohibition of their development, manufacture, production, testing, possession, stockpile, transfer, receipt, or deployment. Coverage includes nuclear, chemical, biological, and conventional weapons, as well as their

delivery systems. The purpose of this article is to provide a concise description of the international legal environment that has evolved regarding arms control and disarmament, with a particular focus on nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. Table 1 shows a chronological chart of bilateral treaties between the United States and the Soviet Union (Russia), and multilateral treaties.

Arms Control and Disarmament Treaties

101

Table 1 Chronological chart of the treaties (as of 1 December 2007) Treaty

Signature

Entry into force

Null and void

Bilateral treaties between the US and the Soviet Union (Russia) ABM treaty SALT I interim agreement Protocol to ABM treaty Threshold test ban treaty Peaceful nuclear explosion treaty SALT II treaty INF treaty START I treaty Protocol to START I treaty START II treaty Protocol to START II treaty SORT treaty

26 May 1972 26 May 1972 3 July 1974 3 July 1974 28 May 1976 18 June 1979 8 December 1987 31 July 1991 23 May 1992 3 January 1993 26 September 1997 4 May 2002

3 October 1972 3 October 1972 24 May 1976 10 December 1990 10 December 1990

13 June 2002 3 October 1997 13 June 2002

Multilateral treaties Antarctic treaty Partial test ban treaty Outer space treaty Tlatelolco treaty Non-proliferation treaty Seabed treaty Biological weapons convention Rarotonga treaty CFE treaty Chemical weapons convention Bangkok treaty Pelindaba treaty Comprehensive test ban treaty Landmine convention Central Asia NWFZ treaty

1 December 1959 5 August 1963 27 January 1967 14 February 1967 1 July 1968 11 February 1971 10 April 1972 6 August 1985 19 November 1990 13 January 1993 15 December 1995 11 April 1996 24 September 1996 3 December 1997 8 September 2006

23 June 1961 10 October 1963 10 October 1967 22 April 1968 5 March 1970 18 May 1972 26 March 1974 11 December 1986 9 November 1992 29 April 1997 27 March 1997

45 124 98 33 189 92 152 13 30 167 10

1 March 1999

144

Arms Control Negotiations: A Historical Overview Disarmament has been advocated from early modern years, but it was not until the end of the nineteenth century when disarmament was discussed among states. The first Hague Peace Conference of 1899 included disarmament issues among its agenda. The League of Nations emphasized the importance of disarmament for international peace as shown in Article 8 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, its constitutional document, but it did not succeed in producing disarmament treaties. Among major powers, the limitation of naval armament was agreed in the 1922 Washington treaty between the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, Italy, and France, and the 1930 London treaty between the United States, United Kingdom, and Japan. Disarmament negotiations after World War II began within the United Nations and then gradually moved to Geneva.

The United Nations and Disarmament The Charter of the United Nations (UN) entered into force on 24 October 1945, shortly after the end of World

1 June 1988 5 December 1994 5 December 1994

1 June 2003

War II. As the founding treaty of the United Nations, a worldwide organization of states, it did not emphasize on disarmament as the Covenant of the League of Nations did, because armaments were deemed necessary for collective security, and nuclear weapons did not exist when the Charter was adopted. However, the first resolution of its General Assembly in 1946 established the Atomic Energy Commission to deal with nuclear weapons, although the difference of positions of the United States (which argued for international control first) and the Soviet Union (which argued for elimination of nuclear weapons first) produced no agreement. The United Nations Security Council established a Commission for Conventional Weapons in 1947. In 1952, this commission was merged with the Atomic Energy Commission to form the Disarmament Commission, which was composed of the members of the Security Council and Canada, and negotiated comprehensive measures of disarmament. In the late 1950s, the Soviet Union became dissatisfied with the membership and the Commission stopped its work. After active negotiations in the early days of the United Nations, the Commission has played a role in deliberation rather than negotiation on disarmament, following its revival in 1978. The UN General Assembly has held three special sessions devoted to disarmament in 1978,

102 Arms Control and Disarmament Treaties

1982, and 1988. The UN General Assembly also adopts many resolutions on disarmament each year. The Geneva Forum Outside of the United Nations, the Ten-Nation Disarmament Committee consisting of five Western and five Eastern states began its work in 1960 in Geneva, and the Committee evolved into the Eighteen-Nation Committee on Disarmament by adding eight nonaligned nations as members in 1962. The Committee again changed its name to the Conference of the Committee on Disarmament, with 26 members in 1969 and 31 members in 1975. This Geneva Forum was a primary negotiating mechanism in the 1960s and 1970s, producing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Seabed Treaty, and the Biological Weapons Convention. At the first special session of the UN General Assembly devoted to disarmament, the Conference was again enlarged to 40, including France and China, and renamed the Committee on Disarmament. It changed its name to the Conference on Disarmament in 1984 and, in 2007, had 65 members. This is the only multilateral negotiating body; it negotiated chemical weapons and a nuclear test ban into treaties in the 1990s. Since then, the Conference on Disarmament has not held any negotiations because of its inability to agree on a common negotiation agenda. Bilateral Negotiations Bilateral negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union began at the end of the 1960s when a rough parity in strategic nuclear power was established between the two superpowers. Negotiations in the 1970s and 1980s aimed at ensuring strategic stability by limiting the nuclear delivery systems of each side, and in particular, their strategic defensive capability. Since the end of the

45 000

USSR/Russia

40 000

United States

Cold War, however, the main focus has shifted to the reduction of nuclear warheads between the United States and the Russian Federation and both sides have agreed on substantial cuts. Regional Negotiations Disarmament measures can be taken region by region depending on the particular circumstances of the area. In Europe, negotiations on conventional weapons have been conducted since the 1970s and parties succeeded in making a treaty after the end of the Cold War. The creation of a nuclear-weapon-free zone is also a regional measure of this nature and negotiations have taken place in various areas including Latin America, the South Pacific, Africa, Southeast Asia, and Central Asia.

Bilateral Nuclear Arms Control and Disarmament Four years after the first US nuclear test in 1945, the Soviet Union joined the nuclear club. With the serious confrontation of the Cold War, the two countries continued the nuclear arms race quantitatively and qualitatively until the early 1990s when they entered the post-Cold War era. The maximum number of nuclear weapons possessed by the United States and the Soviet Union were 32 500 and 45 000, respectively, and the maximum numbers of their strategic nuclear weapons were 13 000 and 11 000. Figure 1 shows the relative quantities of their nuclear weapons from 1945 to the present day. Table 2 represents the number of nuclear weapons held by the five nuclear weapon states. The arms control negotiations that began at the end of the 1960s purported not to reduce nuclear weapons but to stabilize their strategic relations, especially in crisis, by limiting their delivery systems.

35 000 30 000 25 000 20 000 15 000 10 000 5000 0 1945 50

55

60

65

70

75

80

85

90

Figure 1 Number of the deployed nuclear weapons – USSR/Russia and United States.

95 2000 06

Arms Control and Disarmament Treaties

103

Table 2 Global nuclear stockpiles, 1945–2006 (quantities for the five declared nuclear powers, year by year) Year

USA

1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003

6 11 32 110 235 369 640 1005 1436 2063 3057 4618 6444 9822 15 468 20 434 24 126 27 387 29 459 31 056 31 982 32 040 31 233 29 224 27 342 26 662 26 956 27 912 28 999 28 965 27 826 25 579 25 722 24 826 24 605 24 304 23 464 23 708 24 099 24 357 24 237 24 401 24 344 23 586 22 380 21 004 17 287 14 747 13 076 12 555 12 144 11 009 10 950 10 871 10 824 10 577 10 527 10 475 10 421

SU/R

1 5 25 50 120 150 200 426 660 869 1060 1605 2471 3322 4238 5221 6129 7089 8339 9399 10 538 11 643 13 092 14 478 15 915 17 385 19 055 21 205 23 044 25 393 27 935 30 062 32 049 33 952 35 804 37 431 39 197 45 000 43 000 41 000 39 000 37 000 35 000 33 000 31 000 29 000 27 000 25 000 24 000 23 000 22 000 21 000 20 000 19 000 18 000

UK

1 5 10 15 20 22 25 30 50 205 280 310 310 270 270 280 308 280 220 220 275 325 350 350 350 350 350 350 350 335 320 270 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 250 300 300 260 260 185 185 200 200 200

FR

4 32 36 36 36 36 36 45 70 116 145 188 212 228 235 235 250 274 274 279 280 360 355 420 410 410 505 540 540 525 510 500 450 450 450 450 470 350 350 350

CH

Total

1 5 20 25 35 50 75 100 130 150 170 185 190 200 220 235 280 330 360 380 415 425 425 415 430 435 430 435 435 435 400 400 400 400 400 400 400 400 400 400

6 11 32 110 236 374 665 1055 1557 2218 3267 5059 7124 10 713 16 553 22 069 26 647 30 914 33 977 36 592 38 458 39 455 39 903 38 974 38 274 38 696 40 413 42 810 45 455 46 990 47 604 47 536 49 544 51 024 53 360 55 246 56 467 58 629 60 882 62 753 64 519 70 481 68 479 65 726 62 525 59 239 53 562 49 022 45 336 42 715 40 344 37 159 36 060 34 981 33 859 32 632 31 477 30 425 29 371 (Continued )

104 Arms Control and Disarmament Treaties Table 2 (Continued) Year

USA

SU/R

UK

FR

CH

Total

2004 2005 2006

10 358 10 295 10 104

18 000 17 000 16 000

200 200 200

350 350 350

400 400 200

29 308 28 245 26 854

Source: Natural Resources Defense Council. USA: United States of America, SU/R: Soviet Union/Russia, UK: United Kingdom, FR: France, CH: China.

During the 1970s and early 1980s, the two superpowers were competing militarily, politically, and ideologically, although they agreed on some arms control measures. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the world experienced radical change with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the dismantlement of the Warsaw Treaty Organization (WTO) in 1993, resulting in the disappearance of the confrontation between East and West. Nuclear reduction finally became a reality in the nuclear disarmament negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union, now the Russian Federation. SALT I Treaties SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks), whose initiation was agreed to by the United States and the Soviet Union in July 1968, was the first attempt to limit the strategic nuclear forces of the two superpowers. The main reason for the initiation of this series of negotiations was the emergence of a rough parity of strategic forces and detente between the two nations. In addition, the conclusion of the NPT required the United States and Soviet Union to negotiate nuclear disarmament, and the development of satellites made it possible to verify compliance. On 26 May 1972, they signed the ABM treaty (treaty between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the limitation of antiballistic missile systems) and the SALT I Interim Agreement (interim agreement between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on certain measures with respect to the limitation of strategic offensive arms). The SALT I Interim Agreement, which was valid for only 5 years, purported to freeze at the existing levels the number of ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles), SLBMs (submarinelaunched ballistic missiles), and modern ballistic missile submarines. The ABM treaty strictly restricted the deployment of ABM systems. The US withdrew from the ABM treaty under the Bush administration in 2002, in order to develop and deploy missile defense systems. SALT II Treaty The second phase of SALT began in November 1972, and the parties agreed to the Protocol to the ABM

treaty, which reduced the ABM deployment areas from two to one, to either the national capital or ICBM bases, at the selection of each party. Regarding offensive weapons, after a long negotiation, the SALT II treaty (treaty between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the limitation of strategic offensive arms) was signed on 18 June 1979. The treaty limited the aggregate number of ICBM launchers, SLBM launchers, and heavy bombers to 2400, which was about the existing level, and set subceilings for ICBMs with MIRVs (multiple independently targettable reentry vehicles) at 820, for MIRVed ICBMs and MIRVed SLBMs at 1200, and for MIRVed ICBMs and SLBMs and heavy bombers with cruise missiles at 1320. These subceilings were much higher than the existing levels, permitting certain improvement of strategic force capability. The SALT II treaty has not taken effect because the United States could not ratify it when it met with strong opposition due to perceived disadvantages and the occurrence of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

INF Treaty The INF treaty (treaty between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the elimination of their intermediate-range and shorterrange missiles) was signed on 8 December 1987, and became effective on 1 June 1988. Negotiations began in 1981, but were interrupted in 1983 until the emergence of Mikhail Gorbachev and the accompanying political change in the Soviet Union, which made it possible to reach an agreement. The treaty provided for the total elimination, within 3 years, of intermediate-range missiles such as the SS-20 and Pershing II, and shorter range missiles. This is the first treaty that asked for the total elimination of a category of weapons and had a strict verification system, including six types of on-site inspections. This total elimination was successfully accomplished within the 3-year period; however, it covered only land-based missiles and ordered the elimination of just the missile delivery vehicles themselves, not the nuclear warheads. Despite these limitations, the complete implementation of the treaty was one of the catalysts for the end of the Cold War.

Arms Control and Disarmament Treaties

START I Treaty START (strategic arms reduction talks), which began in 1982, but were interrupted between 1983 and 1985, produced the START I treaty (treaty between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the reduction and limitation of strategic offensive arms) on 31 July 1991. The treaty provides for the reduction of the aggregate number of delivery systems of ICBMs, SLBMs, and bombers to 1600, and for the aggregate number of warheads to 6000. It limits the aggregate number of warheads of ICBMs and SLBMs to 4900, and reduces the number of heavy ICBMs by half. The verification system includes 12 kinds of on-site inspections. Originally the treaty was bilateral, but before it could take effect, the Soviet Union dissolved. Therefore, as Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan acquired independence, the nuclear weapons deployed on their territories had to be taken into account. In May 1992, the five states signed the protocol to the START I treaty to apply the treaty to Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, and these three states agreed to join the NPT (treaty on the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons) as non-nuclear-weapon states. The START I treaty took effect on 5 December 1994 and was completely implemented by December 2001. The main purpose was to reduce nuclear weapons for a more secure world after the end of the Cold War. START II Treaty After the signature of the START I treaty in September and October 1992, the United States and Russia announced their intention to unilaterally withdraw most tactical nuclear weapons deployed in foreign countries and at sea. Regarding strategic arms, on 3 January 1993, they reached an agreement on the START II treaty (treaty between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on further reduction and limitation of strategic offensive arms) for further reductions. Under the START II treaty, they each agreed to reduce the aggregate number of the warheads attributed to ICBMs, SLBMs, and bombers to between 3000 and 3500 by 1 January 2003. In addition, they agreed to eliminate MIRVed ICBMs and heavy ICBMs, and reduce the number of warheads on SLBMs to between 1700 and 1750. However, with the deterioration of US–Russia relationship in the second half of the 1990s, the treaty has not been enforced. SORT Treaty The SORT treaty (treaty between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on strategic offensive reductions) was signed in Moscow on 24 May 2002 by Presidents George W Bush and Vladimir Putin and

105

entered into force on 1 June 2003. Each of them agreed to reduce and limit their strategic nuclear warheads to 1700–2200 by 31 December 2012, meaning a reduction by two-thirds from the START I level of 6000. Reflecting the desire of the Bush administration to keep flexibility in this field, the number and time schedule of the reduction was what Bush was planning to do unilaterally anyway. The treaty shall remain in force until 31 December 2012, and each party shall determine for itself the composition and structure of its strategic offensive arms. No verification provision is included in the treaty, there is no obligation to destroy delivery systems as well as nuclear warheads, and easier conditions for withdrawal are stipulated compared with other arms control treaties. As the START I treaty and the SORT treaty expire soon, negotiations on the follow-on treaty are necessary.

Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons Following the United States and the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom conducted its first nuclear test in 1952, becoming the third nuclear-weapon state (NWS). In the late 1950s, the increase in the number of states possessing nuclear weapons was a concern of many governments because the knowledge of the means of using atomic energy had expanded and the United States had begun deploying nuclear weapons in West Germany. In 1958, Ireland submitted their concern of nuclear proliferation to the UN General Assembly, stating that the increase of states possessing nuclear weapons would increase the possibility of their use. The Development of the NPT France and China conducted their first nuclear tests in 1960 and 1964 respectively, and the United States and the Soviet Union realized that they shared a common interest in preventing other states from possessing nuclear weapons. The NPT (treaty on the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons) was signed on 1 July 1968, after 3 years of negotiation at the Geneva Eighteen-Nation Committee on Disarmament. The treaty, as a basic structure, distinguishes NWSs that include the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, and China, from non-nuclear-weapon states (NNWSs) which include all other nations. Under the treaty, the NWSs undertake not to transfer nuclear weapons, and the NNWSs undertake not to receive, manufacture, or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons. In addition, the NNWSs have to accept safeguards by the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) to verify that nuclear energy is not diverted from peaceful uses to nuclear weapons. Many NNWSs criticized the concept of nonproliferation as discriminatory, and asked the NWSs to proceed to nuclear disarmament. In order to create a balance of the

106 Arms Control and Disarmament Treaties Table 3 Estimated number of nuclear weapons (for de facto nuclear-weapons states: as of 2007) Israel India Pakistan North Korea

60–85 50–60 40–50 About 10

Source: Natural Resources Defense Council.

obligations between the NWSs and the NNWSs, the right to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes is reconfirmed, and the obligation to pursue negotiations on nuclear disarmament is provided for in the treaty. States not party to the NPT include India, Israel, and Pakistan. In addition, North Korea withdrew from the treaty in 2003. Table 3 shows the estimated number of nuclear weapons possessed by each of these states.

extension. These two conferences were held simultaneously in April and May 1995. As a result of this conference, the parties decided to extend the treaty indefinitely and agreed on two other decisions. ‘Principles and objectives on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament’ listed substantive measures to be taken toward the control and reduction of nuclear weapons, and ‘Strengthening the review process for the treaty’ gave more frequent opportunities for review. The ‘NPT Review Conference’ in 2000 succeeded in adopting a final document, which included 13 steps for nuclear disarmament including an unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear-weapon states to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals. In 2005, however, the review conference failed to agree on any substantive measure.

Nuclear Test Ban New Developments since the End of the Cold War With the end of the Cold War, the bipolar system of the world was dissolved and the two superpowers began withdrawing their nuclear weapons and military personnel from abroad. China and France acceded to the NPT, and South Africa, which had once possessed six nuclear weapons, became a party to the NPT. Argentina and Brazil, once thought to be competing for nuclear weapon development, accepted full-scope IAEA safeguards and joined the NPT. Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan also became parties to the NPT as NNWSs. On the other hand, after the Gulf War in 1991 it was found that Iraq, which is a party to the NPT, had been conducting nuclear weapon development clandestinely. North Korea, which is also a party to the treaty, aroused suspicions about its nuclear activities by refusing the request of a special inspection by the IAEA in 1993. North Korea later withdrew from the NPT in 2003. In addition, with the dismantlement of the Soviet Union, the control over nuclear weapons and fissile material became a worry from the viewpoint of proliferation, with fears of possible smuggling or theft by terrorist groups. The initial response to these concerns has been to tighten export control over nuclear-related materials, and to strengthen the IAEA safeguards to cover undeclared nuclear activities.

The NPT Review Conferences Under the terms of the NPT, a conference to review the operation of the treaty is required to be held every 5 years, and a special conference was required to be held 25 years after the treaty’s entry into force to decide on a possible extension of the treaty and the terms for any

Nuclear tests are indispensable for nuclear development, especially for the development of new types of nuclear warheads. During the Cold War era, the NWSs conducted many nuclear tests for qualitatively improving their nuclear systems while continuing the nuclear arms race. Nuclear tests are said to be necessary to ensure the reliability and safety of nuclear weapons. The United States conducted more than 1000 tests and the Soviet Union more than 700. All together, the five NWSs have conducted more than 2000 tests. In early years, tests were usually conducted in the atmosphere or under water, but due to concerns over the environment, and as a result of technical progress, the NWSs were able to shift tests underground. The US thermonuclear test at Bikini Atoll in 1954 caused a Japanese death and motivated world opinion to campaign for the banning of nuclear tests. Since then, a nuclear test ban has been given top priority in the disarmament campaign, because it has been a symbol of nuclear development. It was not until the end of the Cold War that international society succeeded in adopting the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. In spite of this treaty, India and Pakistan conducted nuclear tests in 1998. Table 4 represents the number of nuclear tests conducted by the seven states each year from 1945. The Partial Test Ban Treaty The Partial Test Ban Treaty (treaty banning nuclear tests in the atmosphere, in outer space and under water) was signed on 5 August 1963, and became effective on 10 October 1963, originally among the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union, and later acceded to by many NNWSs. After many tests had been conducted in the atmosphere, it was agreed to shift tests underground, mainly for environmental reasons.

Arms Control and Disarmament Treaties

107

Table 4 Nuclear testing since 1945 (number of tests for seven states, year by year) Year

USA

1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004

1 2 0 3 0 0 16 10 11 6 18 18 32 77 0 0 10 96 47 45 38 48 42 56 46 39 24 27 24 22 22 20 20 19 15 14 16 18 18 18 17 14 14 15 11 8 7 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

SU/R

1 0 2 0 5 10 6 9 16 34 0 0 59 79 0 9 14 18 17 17 19 16 23 24 17 21 19 21 24 31 31 24 21 19 25 27 10 0 23 16 7 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

UK

1 2 0 0 6 7 5 0 0 0 2 0 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 2 1 3 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

FR

3 2 1 3 3 4 7 3 5 0 8 5 4 6 9 2 5 9 11 10 12 12 10 9 8 8 8 8 8 9 6 6 0 0 0 5 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

CH

1 1 3 2 1 2 1 1 2 1 1 1 4 1 3 1 1 0 1 2 2 0 0 1 1 0 2 0 2 1 2 2 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

IND

1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 0

PAK

2 0 0 0 0 0 0

Total 1 2 0 3 1 0 18 11 18 16 24 33 55 116 0 3 71 178 50 60 58 76 64 79 67 64 53 57 48 55 44 51 54 66 58 54 50 49 55 57 36 23 47 40 28 18 14 8 1 2 7 3 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 (Continued )

108 Arms Control and Disarmament Treaties Table 4 (Continued) Year

USA

SU/R

UK

2005 2006 2007

0 0 0

0 0 0

0 0 0

1030

715

45

FR

CH

IND

PAK

Total

0 0 0

0 0 0

0 0 0

0 0 0

0 0 0

210

45

4

2

2051

Sources: Natural Resources Defense Council. USA: United States of America, SU/R: Soviet Union/Russia, UK: United Kingdom, FR: France, CH: China, IND: India, PAK: Pakistan.

Another reason for the treaty is that tests in these circumstances could be detected without on-site inspections, which was one of the stumbling blocks during the negotiation. The treaty did not prevent nuclear weapon development, because the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union could continue their nuclear weapon development through underground tests. France and China did not join the treaty because their technology had not developed enough to restrict the tests only to underground. The treaty also helped to prevent proliferation. The Threshold Test Ban Treaty In the process toward limiting underground tests, the United States and the Soviet Union signed the Threshold Test Ban Treaty (treaty between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the limitation of underground nuclear weapon tests) on 3 July 1974, and the Peaceful Nuclear Explosion Treaty (treaty between the United States of America and the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics on underground nuclear explosions for peaceful purposes) on 28 May 1976. Under these Treaties, the parties have undertaken the prohibition of military and peaceful underground nuclear tests having a yield exceeding 150 kilotons. The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty With the end of the Cold War, the United States and Russia had declared a moratorium on testing together with France and the United Kingdom. Negotiations for a comprehensive nuclear test ban began at the Geneva Conference on Disarmament in January 1994, and the parties at 1995 NPT Conference asked for the completion of the negotiation on a treaty to ban all nuclear tests no later than 1996. The Geneva Conference concluded its work in August 1996, but India strongly opposed the draft treaty, primarily because it failed to include provisions for the eventual nuclear disarmament of the NWSs and because it desired to keep open its nuclear option. Due to the necessity of achieving consensus for the

Conference to adopt the treaty, India’s refusal to support the treaty effectively prevented the treaty’s adoption at the Geneva Conference. It was finally adopted at the United Nations General Assembly on 10 September and opened for signature on 24 September 1996. The CTBT (Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty) prohibits any nuclear weapon test explosion or any other nuclear explosion, including tests underground. The treaty establishes the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization in Vienna to implement its provisions and a verification regime to be established under the treaty includes an international monitoring system and on-site inspections. The international monitoring system comprised facilities for seismological monitoring, radionuclide monitoring, hydroacoustic monitoring, and infrasound monitoring. Due to strong arguments by China, Pakistan, Russia, and the United Kingdom, the condition for the enforcement of the treaty is very stringent, requiring all of the 44 designated states, including the five nuclear-weapon states, and India, Israel, Pakistan, and North Korea, to ratify it. The US Senate refused to ratify the treaty in 1999 and its enforcement in the near future seems very difficult.

Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones A Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone (NWFZ) is defined as an area where a total absence of nuclear weapons is maintained by an agreement among two or more states. It is not only supplementary to nonproliferation, but also ensures the nondeployment of nuclear weapons, and asks NWSs not to use nuclear weapons against the zonal states. The first proposal on an NWFZ came from a Polish Foreign Minister regarding Central Europe in the late 1950s and an NWFZ was proposed in other areas as well. In particular, proposals for NWFZs in the Middle East and South Asia, where de facto nuclear-weapon states such as Israel, India, and Pakistan are included, have been on the agenda at the UN General Assembly since the middle 1970s, but it will be very hard to accomplish these goals without progress in the peace processes of each area. Only the five territories described in the following have succeeded in establishing NWFZs.

Arms Control and Disarmament Treaties

The Tlatelolco Treaty The Tlatelolco treaty (treaty for the prohibition of nuclear weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean), was signed on 14 February 1967 and became effective on 22 April 1968. This was the first treaty establishing an NWFZ, achieved in large part due to the effect of the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. The treaty prohibits any activity connected with nuclear weapons, including their deployment. In order to ensure compliance of the treaty, OPANAL (Agency for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America) was established. After the end of the Cold War, the treaty became almost complete as Argentina, Brazil, and Chile acceded to the treaty, and all states in the region have been parties since 2002. The Additional Protocol II, under which NWSs agree not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against the Contracting Parties of the treaty, was ratified by all five NWSs by 1979. This undertaking of negative security assurances is one of the eminent characteristics of a NWFZ, as distinguished from the concept of nonproliferation. The Rarotonga Treaty The Rarotonga Treaty (South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty) established the second NWFZ. It was adopted by the South Pacific Forum and signed on 6 August 1985 and entered into force on 11 December 1986. The main motivation of the states in the region for establishing an NWFZ was to make France stop testing. France had been conducting nuclear tests in this region since 1966, and Australia and New Zealand had asked the International Court of Justice to proclaim the illegality of the nuclear tests in 1983. Shortly thereafter, France shifted to underground testing. The treaty prohibits any nuclear-weapon related activities and also includes the dumping of nuclear waste. Under Protocol 2, the NWSs agree not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against the treaty parties. Under Protocol 3, the NWSs agree not to test. France had conducted nuclear tests until January 1996, several months before the CTBT was adopted. France and the United Kingdom ratified them in 1996 and 1997 respectively, but the US had not ratified them till 2007. Russia (in 1988) and China (in 1989) had already ratified them.

109

adopted the Declaration on the Denuclearization of Africa in 1964. After South Africa acceded to the NPT as a non-nuclear-weapon state in 1991, and announced that it had once had six nuclear bombs and destroyed them, the Group of Experts designated by the United Nations and the OAU began drafting a treaty. The treaty prohibits any activity connected with nuclear weapons and, in addition, provides for the declaration, dismantlement, destruction, or conversion of nuclear explosive devices. It established the African Commission on Nuclear Energy to ensure compliance with the undertakings of the treaty. The treaty has not yet entered into force. The Bangkok Treaty The Bangkok Treaty (treaty on the Southeast AsiaNWFZ) was signed by ten Southeast Asian Nations at the summit meeting of the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) on 15 December 1995 and entered into force on 27 March 1997. In November 1971, the Declaration on the Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality (ZOPFAN) was signed, and the establishment of the NWFZ is its essential component. With the end of the Cold War, nuclear weapons deployed by the United States and the Soviet Union were withdrawn. The treaty prohibits any activity relating to nuclear weapons and establishes the Commission for the Southeast Asia NWFZ to oversee the implementation of the treaty and ensure compliance. The treaty applies not only to the territories but also to the continental shelves and exclusive economic zones of the states party to the treaty, which is opposed by the United States, China, and other NWSs. The Central Asia NWFZ Treaty In Central Asia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan started their efforts to establish a NWFZ in 1997, and they adopted and initialed a draft treaty on 8 February 2005. It was signed by the five regional states on 8 September 2006. Some of the nuclearweapon states are opposed to a provision of the treaty, which deals with the relationship with other treaties including a bilateral security treaty. Content is almost the same as other nuclear-weapon-free treaties.

The Pelindaba Treaty The Pelindaba Treaty (treaty on an AfricanNWFZ), which was adopted by the OAU (Organization of African Unity) in June 1995 and signed in Cairo on 11 April 1996, was the outcome of more than 30 years of effort by African states. In 1960, France conducted its first nuclear test in the Sahara desert in Africa, and the OAU

Chemical Weapons The Chemical Weapons Convention (convention on the prohibition of the development, production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons and on their destruction) was negotiated on and adopted by the Geneva

110 Arms Control and Disarmament Treaties

Conference on Disarmament in 1992, signed in Paris on 13 January 1993, and entered into force on 29 April 1997. Chemical weapons had been used during World War I, and the Geneva Gas Protocol (protocol for the prohibition of the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and bacteriological methods of warfare) was signed in June 1925. However, the protocol prohibited only their use, and chemical weapons have been on the agenda for disarmament negotiations since the 1960s. Real negotiations did not begin in this area until the 1990s, following the use of chemical weapons during the Iran–Iraq War in the 1980s. The Chemical Weapons Convention not only prohibits the development, production, stockpiling, and use of chemical weapons, but also provides for their complete destruction within 10 years. This convention thus provides for the real and complete disarmament of chemical weapons. In order to achieve the object and purpose of the convention and to ensure the implementation of its provisions, the convention established the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) at The Hague. Chemical weapons and their related facilities are subject to systematic verification through on-site inspection and monitoring. In addition, each signatory has the right to request an on-site challenge inspection to clarify possible noncompliance of other states.

Biological Weapons The Biological Weapons Convention (convention on the prohibition of the development, production and stockpiling of bacteriological (biological) and toxin weapons and on their destruction) was signed on 10 April 1972 and became effective on 26 March 1975. The use of biological weapons was prohibited by the Geneva Gas Protocol of 1925. In 1969, negotiations on chemical and biological weapons were separated and negotiation on biological weapons was given priority. Biological weapons were thought to be militarily inefficient and ineffective because of their uncontrollability and unpredictability, and easier to negotiate through a convention. Under the convention, each signatory agrees not only to never develop, produce, or stockpile microbial or other biological organs or toxins, but also to destroy them within 9 months. The convention has no international verification system and the efforts to elaborate a new verification protocol in early 2000s were not successful.

Conventional Weapons Although conventional weapons were included in the negotiations of comprehensive disarmament in the 1950s, the priority has been given to nuclear weapons

first, and then to other weapons of mass destruction, that is, chemical and biological weapons. Until the end of the Cold War, there was no agreement on conventional weapons. In Europe, under the CSCE (Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe), the reduction of conventional weapons was agreed and the Landmine Treaty was agreed through the Ottawa Process. The CFE Treaty The CFE Treaty (treaty on conventional arms forces in Europe) was signed in Paris on 19 November 1990, and took effect on 9 November 1992. The treaty was the result of negotiation between the 16 member states of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) and the 6 member states of WTO, held in Vienna beginning in March 1989 as a part of the CSCE process. The treaty sets ceilings on five categories of weapons in the Atlantic-to-the-Urals zone, resulting in the same level of the aggregate numbers of each weapon between the NATO and the WTO. The main purposes of the treaty are to eliminate the capacity for launching surprise attacks and for initiating large-scale offensive action, and to eliminate disparities between the two blocs. For the purpose of ensuring verification of compliance with the provisions of the treaty, each signatory has the right to conduct inspections. The force reduction stipulated in the treaty had almost been completed by 1996. However, the dissolution of the Soviet Union and new security situations in Europe made it necessary to amend some parts of the treaty. As a follow-on, the Agreement on Adaptation of the CFE treaty was adopted in November 1999. The agreement asks for more reduction of conventional weapons, and the balance-of-force symmetry between the NATO and the WTO was replaced by a system of individual state-tostate limits. The Landmine Convention With the increase of regional and internal wars caused by the end of the Cold War, victims of antipersonnel landmines, in particular women and children, rapidly increased and it aroused international concern. With the initiative of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), Canada started the Ottawa Process in October 1996 to negotiate a convention, and the Landmine Convention (convention on the prohibition of the use, stockpiling, production, and transfer of antipersonnel mines and on their destruction) was signed in December 1997 and entered into force on 1 March 1999. The convention prohibits the use, stockpiling, production, and transfer of landmines, and in addition it obligates parties to destroy stockpiles within four years. The United States, the Russian Federation, China, and India are not yet parties to the convention.

Arms Control and Disarmament Treaties

Arms Control in International Spheres

111

Antarctica, outer space, and the seabed are international spheres that are not under the sovereignty or control of any state, and as a result of technological developments, the potential exists for an arms race in these locations if there is no international regulation. Arms control has been necessary in these international spheres and the treaties detailed in the following have been created for that purpose. Regulation by the international community in these international spheres is easier than in national territories because these regions are open to every nation and international public interest can be pursued.

weapons on celestial bodies, or to station such weapons in outer space in any manner. The moon and other celestial bodies shall be used exclusively for peaceful purposes. All stations, installations, equipment, and space vehicles on the moon and other celestial bodies shall be open to representatives of other signatories on the basis of reciprocity. However, the use of military satellites is not prohibited, as some of these are used as a national technical means for verifying the obligation of disarmament. Based on the US research and development of missile defense systems in outer space, China and Russia, in particular, are demanding the negotiation on the prevention of arms race in outer space.

The Antarctic Treaty

The Seabed Treaty

The Antarctic Treaty was signed by 12 original parties in Washington DC on 1 December 1959 as the first arms control treaty after World War II, and it became effective on 23 June 1961. Although some states had claimed sovereignty over areas of Antarctica, they agreed to use Antarctica for peaceful uses only under the treaty, following the scientific cooperation under the International Geophysical Year of 1957–58. Any measure of a military nature, such as the establishment of military bases and fortifications, the carrying out of military maneuvers, as well as the testing of any types of weapons is completely prohibited. The treaty provides for the complete demilitarization of Antarctica. Any nuclear explosions there or the disposal of radioactive waste material is prohibited, even if it is for peaceful purposes. In order to ensure the observance of the treaty’s provisions, each observer designated by the signatory has complete freedom of access at any time to any or all areas of Antarctica, as it is recognized as an area that is open to every state, and all claims of sovereignty are frozen.

The Seabed Treaty (treaty on the prohibition of the emplacement of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction on the seabed and the ocean floor and in the subsoil thereof) was signed on 11 February 1971, and took effect on 18 May 1972. With advances in technology and increased interest in natural resources, the ocean floor became the cause for concern for potential conflicts and arms races. In 1967, the United Nations established the Committee on Peaceful Uses of the Seabed, and seabed-related military and arms control issues were referred to the Geneva Eighteen-Nation Committee on Disarmament as an urgent part of the agenda. The treaty prohibits the implantation or emplacement on the seabed and ocean floor and in the subsoil thereof of any nuclear weapon or any other type of weapons of mass destruction as well as facility for these weapons. In order to ensure compliance, each state has the right to verify through observation the activities of other signatories.

Conclusion The Outer Space Treaty The Outer Space Treaty (treaty on principles governing the activities of states in the exploration and use of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies) was open for signature on 27 January 1967 after the negotiation under the United Nations Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, and took effect on 10 October 1967. The success of the Soviet Union in launching the first satellite, Sputnik, in 1957 motivated the early negotiation. The treaty has two faces: the Charter of Outer Space, stipulating the fundamental principles of activities there, and the Arms Control Treaty, providing for its denuclearization. Each signatory agrees not to place in orbit around the Earth any objects carrying nuclear weapons or any other kind of weapons of mass destruction, to install such

With the end of the Cold War, the two superpowers began to reduce their nuclear weapons, nuclear testing was prohibited, and new NWFZs were established. Accordingly, the military and political value of nuclear weapons has depreciated. However, a lot of effort and time is necessary to reach the ultimate goal of nuclear elimination. Recently, governmental and nongovernmental institutes have presented several programs for achieving the goal of a nuclear-free world, and the International Court of Justice gave an advisory opinion in favor of nuclear disarmament in 1996. In order to realize a nuclear-free world, the substantial restructuring of international society will be necessary, including a stronger international organization to prevent violations of international standards of conduct from occurring. In the case of chemical and biological weapons, the treaties that provide for their complete prohibition and

112 Arms Production, Economics of

elimination need to be universally applied. Conventional weapons are now at the initial stage for regulation and reduction and further efforts are necessary for international peace and security. See also: Arms Control; Arms Production, Economics of; Military Deterrence and Statecraft; Nuclear Weapons Policies; Peace Agreements

Further Reading Athanasopulos, H. (2000). Nuclear disarmament in international law. London: McFarland & Company. Campbell, K., Einhorn, R., and Reiss, M. (eds.) (2004). The nuclear tipping point: Why states reconsider their nuclear choices. New York: Brookings Institution Press. Cirincione, J. (ed.) (2000). Repairing the regime: Preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction. London: Routledge. Cirincione, J., Wolfsthal, J., and Rajkumar, M. (2005). Deadly arsenals: Nuclear, chemical and biological threats, 2nd edn., Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Dhanapala, J. and Rydell, R. (2005). Multilateral diplomacy and the NPT: An insider’s account. Geneva: United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research. Diehl, S. and Moltz, J. (2002). Nuclear weapons and nonproliferation. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. Ferguson, C. and Potter, W. (2005). The four faces of nuclear terrorism. Monterey, CA: CNS, Monterey Institute of International Studies. Goldblat, J. (ed.) (2000). Nuclear disarmament: Obstacles to banishing the bomb. London: I. B. Tauris Publishers. Graham, T., Jr. (2002). Disarmament sketches: Three decades of arms control and international law. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Huntley, W., Mizumoto, K., and Kurosawa, M. (2004). Nuclear disarmament in the twenty-first century. Hiroshima: Hiroshima Peace Institute. Perkovich, G., Mathews, J., Cirincione, J., Gottemoeller, R., and Wolfsthal, J. (2005). Universal compliance: A strategy for nuclear security. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (2007). SIPRI yearbook 2007. Oxford: Oxford University Press. United Nations (2006). United Nations disarmament yearbook 2005. New York: United Nations. Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission (2006). Weapons of terror: Freeing the world of nuclear, biological, and chemical arms. Stockholm: WMD Commission.

Arms Production, Economics of Elisabeth Sko¨ns, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Solna, Sweden John P Dunne, University of the West of England, Bristol, UK ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction Terms and Data The Global Arms Industry: Size and Structure The Characteristics of the Arms Market

Glossary Arms Industry A loose term, commonly used to refer to the industrial segment engaged in arms production. The arms industry is not a defined industrial sector in official statistics but cuts across several of these. A synonym of the defense industry. Arms Procurement Government purchases of military goods and services. Arms Production The production of military goods and services, but not of arms for civilian use such as hunting. Arms-Producing Company A company that is engaged in arms production. Most arms-producing companies have a mixed military and civil output. Conversion The reuse of resources, which previously have been tied to arms production, to the production of

This article is reproduced from the previous edition, volume 1, pp 133–142, Ó 1999, Elsevier Inc., with revisions made by the Editor.

Post-Cold War Developments in Arms Production The Economic Impact of Arms Production Further Reading

civilian goods (plant conversion). In a broader sense, the term is used for any shift of resources from military to civil use. Diversification Increasing the variety of manufactured products; civilian diversification involves an increase in the civilian share of total production, either through the reallocation of available resources (conversion) or through an expansion of total production. Downsizing Reduction of production capacity. Military Industrial Complex (MIC) Coalitions of vested interests within the state and industry, including the armed services, government politicians and officials, and representatives of the arms industry.

Arms Production, Economics of 113

Offsets Compensations by the export country to the import country, in nonmonetary forms. Such compensation can take different forms, including

Arms production is a general term for the production of military goods and services. It is not a defined industrial sector but cuts across many other sectors in the manufacturing industry, such as air- and spacecraft, chemicals, motor vehicles, transport equipment, and weapons and ammunition. While arms production most often takes place within companies which have both military and civilian production, it has some unique characteristics, that distinguish it from other types of production. First, it is the production of the means of violence, which has led to it being under a higher degree of state control and regulation than other types of production. Second, although to some extent the arms industry operates under the same economic conditions as the industrial sectors of which it is part, the fact that the home government is the sole or main purchaser of many products results in a monopsonistic market and specific stateindustry relations that have given the arms industry rather different characteristics from those in commercial production.

countertrade, subcontracting, capital investment, and technology transfers.

After the end of the Cold War and initiated by a tenyear long decline in military expenditure, the arms industry went through a major restructuring process focused, at least originally, on downsizing and diversification. The arms industry started burgeoning again after 11 September 2001. With the massive increases in US military expenditure in response to the September 11 terrorist attacks on US cities, the restructuring process has shifted to the sectors that benefited from the spending increases, especially those producing the capabilities required for the new type of war fighting, such as electronics and information technology. Post-September 11 developments have also reinforced the trends toward outsourcing of military services and the emergence of a private security industry. The purpose of this article is to summarize the available knowledge about arms production and the arms industry. This includes a rough illustration of the size and structure of the global arms industry, a description of the characteristics of the arms market, a survey of the main developments in arms production during the post-Cold War period, and an assessment of the economic impact of arms production. The article begins with an explanation of the basic terms used and the status of data in this field.

Introduction Arms production has gone through many phases during history. While the use and manufacture of some kind of equipment for violent acts has taken place almost as long as human beings have existed, a more organized form of arms production was born in the context of the military revolution 1560–1660. This was the result of the emergence of modern states with control over their own territories, the emergence of standing armies, and the commercialization of war, arms production, and arms sales. A major transformation of arms production took place during the Cold War. The main elements in this transformation were rapid technological development, resulting in radar, jet aircraft, and ballistic missiles; qualitatively larger investment in research and development (R&D) and production to fund armaments programs; and therefore also closer state–industry relations. Together with the decision to maintain large permanent military establishments in peace time, these developments gave rise to a large arms industry (outlined in the section ‘The global arms industry: size and structure’) with a permanent nature and a set of unique characteristics, as described in the section ‘The characteristics of the arms market’.

Terms and Data Explanation of Terms There exists no generally agreed definition of arms production. Efforts to develop definitions that encompass all facets of this field have proved to be difficult. In a general sense, arms production can be defined as the production of military goods and services. Military goods are usually defined to include not only weapon systems but also all other products that have been developed and produced specifically for military use, but excluding items such as food, electricity, ordinary computers, and construction activities. Military services are more problematic to define. Activities such as research and development, testing, and evaluation (RDT&E) of weapon systems, and the marketing, sales, maintenance, servicing, and repairs of such systems, should ideally be included in the definition of arms production, but in practice this is often not the case. These type of activities are often carried out by private companies and are assuming an increasing importance for the armed forces. In addition, there is a broad range of other types of services provided by the private

114 Arms Production, Economics of

sector to the military sector, which are not directly linked to weapon systems but rather to military functions. Such services are expanding rapidly as a result of outsourcing of military functions to the private sector. Whether these type of services should be regarded as military services, and if so, which ones, is a matter of contention. One important difficulty in defining arms production is to decide on the scope of the definition as regards the production process and the supply chain, that is, whether production of subsystems, components, and parts should be included. Most often, the term ‘arms production’ is used to mean only the production of final weapon systems. An arms-producing company can be defined in different ways. In this article, it is defined as a company that is engaged in arms production, regardless of the proportion of military sales in the total sales of the company. Few companies produce exclusively for the military market. Most companies have a mixed military and civil production, but most of them have divisions or units that are specialized in military production. Similarly, the term ‘arms industry’ is sometimes used to refer to the sum of arms-producing companies, while at other times it refers only to the arms-producing parts of these companies. The difference can be great, since arms production can take up a small part of a company’s total sales and employment. In this article the term ‘arms industry’ is used to refer only to the arms-producing activities of companies. The defense industrial base (DIB) or the defense technology and industrial base (DTIB) is a broader concept than the arms industry. It encompasses the entire national resources required for providing and maintaining the national requirements of military equipment. There are many different definitions of the DIB. A general definition is as follows: The defense technology and industrial base is defined as the combination of people, institutions, technological know-how, and facilities used to design, develop, manufacture, and maintain the weapons and supporting defense equipment needed to meet national security objectives. It consists of three broad elements—R&D, production and maintenance. (Office of Technology Assessment, 1992)

In addition to the traditional arms industry and DIB, a large private business sector is emerging, which provides services to the military and other government sectors as well as the private sector. There are a number of definitions of this industry, some of which is sometimes called the private security industry, but as yet, there is no consensus on the terms, scope, and definition. In general, it should be noted that all these terms are used in a rather fluid way, especially in empirical studies, because of the difficulties of applying any of

those definitions properly in the real world and finding the appropriate data. Data on Arms Production Data on arms production are not shown separately in the official industrial statistics, since the arms industry is not treated as an industrial sector of its own but cuts across several industrial sectors, such as aircraft and spacecraft, chemicals, motor vehicles, transport equipment, and weapons and ammunition. Therefore, the available data are produced in special projects and are based on different types of surveys of the industry, conducted by governments, industry associations, and research institutes. These are usually national or international aggregations of data reported by individual companies. Company practices of releasing data on their defense production vary widely. Some companies provide rather detailed information in their annual or quarterly reports, while others either do not compile separate statistics for military production or keep such data secret. It is often difficult even for the companies themselves to identify separate revenues, profits, and employment in the military business segment of the company because of the fact that most arms-producing companies also produce for the civil market and resources flow between their civil and military production processes. Data collections for several countries are provided by research organizations. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) maintains a database on the major arms-producing companies in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and developing countries (apart from China for lack of data). Financial and employment data for the 100 companies with the largest arms sales are published in the SIPRI yearbooks. These data are based primarily on company annual reports and company responses to questionnaires and also on information in official documents, military journals, and newspapers. The Bonn International Conversion Centre (BICC) collects data on global arms industry employment that are published in the BICC conversion surveys. Aggregate data at the national level of the output and/ or employment in arms production are provided by a few governments, although not always on a regular basis. Some countries have national defense industry associations, which also provide such data for their member companies. The problem with such data is that they are usually rough approximations and are calculated in different ways in different countries. Some data refer exclusively to the production of final weapon systems, while others also include the production of parts and maintenance and repairs of military equipment, and some countries include all types of equipment procured by the armed services. Some estimates include also the production by subcontractors and suppliers of parts and

Arms Production, Economics of 115

raw material to the prime contractors. Therefore, data on national arms production are difficult to interpret and must be treated with caution.

The Global Arms Industry: Size and Structure Global Arms Production The capacity to develop and produce major weapon systems is highly concentrated in a few countries. While a number of countries also have some small-scale

manufacturing capability for small arms and light weapons, few have a significant DIB and so most depend on imports for their acquisition of arms, at least for major weapon systems. A general impression of the structure of the global arms industry is given in Table 1, which presents estimates of the value of national arms production, employment in arms production, and arms exports in 1995. Twenty major arms producing countries accounted for more than 90% of global arms production, with the United States by far the biggest arms-producing country, with estimated arms production of $90 billion. The US

Table 1 The global arms industry (countries are ranked by the value of their arms production; figures in US dollars are at current prices and exchange rates) Arms production Intervals 1995 (in $ billions) >75 50–75 25–50 15–25 10–15 5–10

2.5–5

1–2.5

Country

Arms productiona 1995 (in $ billions)

USA

90

2200

2700

UKd France

18 18

330 310

200 240

Germanye Japan Russia Italyf Canada South Korea Israelf China Poland Sweden Netherlandsg Spain India Switzerland Australiaf South Africah Ukraine Total 20 World total

9 9 7–9 4 4 3–5 3 NA 2 2 1–2 1.5 1.5 1–1.5 1–1.5 1 NA 180–186 200–205

120 100 1700 40 35 60 50 3500 90 30 15 35 190 18 10 75 600 9620 10 620

80 80 780 26 25 45 30 2100 50 25 10 20 170 7 10 33 180 6849 7479

Employment in arms productionb 1995 (in $ thousands)

Employment in arms productionb 2003 (in $ thousands)

Arms exportsc 1995 (in $ millions)

Arms exportsc 2004 (in $ millions)

15 266

18 555

7455 3800

9454 8851

1385 0 (1996) 3900 755 325 (1996) 45 1369 NA NA 465 641 130 30 119 29 235 180 NA NA

1402 0 5780 596 (2002) 484 420 2600 NA (2002) 80 992 775 504 (2003) 94 323 (2001) 51 (2003) 410 (2003) 500 NA 44 200– 53 300

a Data on the value of arms production are based on official statistics, using either data on arms production or data on domestic procurement plus arms exports and minus arms imports, unless otherwise stated. b Data on employment include indirect employment (employees in the production of materials and parts). c Data on arms exports are based on statistics reported by governments and defence industry associations. These figures are for actual deliveries, unless otherwise stated. d The figures for arms exports for the UK are for the value of deliveries of defence equipment and additional aerospace equipment and services, as provided in UK Defence Statistics 2004, Defense Analytical Services Agency, UK Ministry of Defence. They may include some nondefence items. e The figure for arms exports for Germany in 1995 is for military equipment, while the figure for 2004 is for ‘weapons of war’. Both figures are known to be based on a narrow definition of arms. Furthermore, the definition was more narrow in 2004 than in 1995 (which can be seen in the data for the overlapping years of the two series, 1997–2001, when the latter type of figure was only half of the former type). f The figure for the value of arms production for this country is an estimate based on arms sales for only the major arms-producing companies, rather than for all of them. g The figures for arms exports for the Netherlands are for granted export licenses, not deliveries. h The figure for arms exports for South Africa is for granted export permits, not deliveries. Sources: Data on arms production: SIPRI Arms Industry Files; data on employment: BICC Conversion Survey 2005. Bonn International Centre for Conversion. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005; data on arms exports: the SIPRI Yearbook 2006, pp. 472–473, and data provided on the SIPRI website at URL.

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accounted for roughly half of global arms production, followed by the United Kingdom and France, each with roughly 9%, and Germany, Japan, and Russia, with shares of 3–7%. Although similar data on arms production are not available for later years, it is clear that the US dominance has increased significantly since 1995. US Department of Defense (DOD) outlays on arms procurement and RDT&E have increased from $90 billion in FY1995 to $148 billion in FY2005 and $160 billion in FY2006. Simultaneously, US arms exports have increased by over $3 billion between 1995 and 2004 (Table 1). Thus, the value of US arms production is likely to have gone up to at least $150 billion in 2005. Other countries have not increased their arms production on this scale. Although arms exports of several countries went up between 1995 and 2004 (Table 1), this still accounts for a very small share of total arms production in most countries – Russia, Israel, and the Ukraine being the exceptions. In Europe, arms procurement expenditure remained constant or increased only slightly.

The Top 100 Arms-Producing Companies The global size and pattern of the arms industry can also be illustrated by the volume of arms production of the 100 largest arms-producing companies in the world and their geographical distribution. Table 2 provides data on the top 100 arms-producing companies in the OECD and developing countries (apart from China for lack of data) in 2004, according to SIPRI data. The value of the combined arms sales of the top 100 companies in 2004 was $268 billion. This represents a significant increase over 1995, when the top 100 arms sales amounted to $154 billion. The top 100 companies account for a major share of global arms production. In 1995 they accounted for about three-quarters of the world total. Although no estimate is available for the global total for 2004, it is likely that the share of the top 100 in the global total had increased somewhat by 2004 because of the concentration process that has taken place during the post-Cold War period.

Table 2 Top 100 arms-producing companies in the OECD and developing countries:a arms salesb and regional/national shares, 2004 (figures are in US dollars, at current prices and exchange rates) Number of companies

Region/country

Arms sales (in $ billions)

Share of total sales (%)

41 40 1 40 11 8 1 3 6 4 2 2 1 1 1 9 6 2 1 10 4 3 1 1 1 100

North America USA Canada Europe UK France Trans-Europeanc Italy Germany Russiad Sweden Spain Switzerland Norway Finland Other OECD Japan Korea, Southd Australia Other non-OECD Israel India Singapore South Africa Brazil Total

170.3 169.8 0.5 82.1 32.4 19.8 9.5 6.6 5.2 3.1 2.3 1.7 0.7 0.4 0.4 8.2 6.5 1.3 0.4 7.8 3.5 2.7 0.9 0.5 0.4 268.3

63.5 63.3 0.2 30.6 12.1 7.4 3.5 2.5 1.9 1.2 0.9 0.6 0.2 0.1 0.1 3.1 2.4 0.5 0.2 2.9 1.3 1.0 0.3 0.2 0.1 100.0

a

China is not included because of lack of data. Arms sales include both sales for domestic procurement and export sales. The company classified as trans-European is EADS, which is based in three countries – France, Germany, and Spain – and registered in the Netherlands. d Data for Russian and South Korean companies are uncertain. OECD ¼ Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. Source: SIPRI Yearbook 2006, table 9.1, p. 388. b c

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The data for the top 100 companies also show a strong dominance of US companies. Forty US companies, accounted for 63.3% of the combined top 100 arms sales in 2004, while 40 European companies, including Russia, accounted for 29.3%. Nine companies in other OECD countries accounted for 3.1% and 14 companies in nonOECD countries for 4.1%.

The Characteristics of the Arms Market The arms industry has very specific characteristics. It is usually a monopsonistic market in which the national government is the main customer and regulates exports. This means its size, structure, and trade are all determined by government policy. As Dunne states, the general characteristics of arms production are as follows: 1. An emphasis on the performance of high technology weaponry rather than on cost. 2. The bearing of risks by governments who often finance R&D and in some cases provide investment in capital and infrastructure. 3. Elaborate rules and regulations on contracts as a result of the lack of a competitive market and to assure public accountability. 4. Close relations between the contractors, the procurement executive, and the military. 5. Outside of the US many companies will be national monopolies or close to it. These characteristics create a market that tends to favor firms that specialize in defense work, as they know their way around the red tape and have the contacts within the military and the procurement executive. They focus on becoming experts at getting money out of government, rather than being successful in commercial markets. The companies seek involvement in the development programs for technologically advanced weapon systems as the best means of obtaining the subsequent production contracts. This can lead to ‘buy ins’, where firms understate risk or cost to win initial contracts, making up the losses later. In addition, past programs have seen ‘gold plating’ where the military continually ask for extras or continuous technological improvements over the contract period. This allows renegotiation of contracts or additional payments, usually to the advantage of the contractor. The granting of large R&D contracts with risk borne by government, together with specific types of production contracts with guaranteed cost coverage, has created a tendency toward high profitability in spite of low efficiency in production. As a result of the structure of the market, there are barriers to both entry and exit which led to the Cold War DIB showing remarkable stability in terms of its composition of main contractors. These barriers – market,

technological, and procedural – mean that not only has it been difficult for companies to enter into the defense sector to produce weapon systems or upgrade from subcontractor status, but also that it is difficult for the defense companies to leave the industry. The emphasis on performance and the large scale of R&D programs are associated with a trend of rising costs of R&D, which in turn has made it increasingly difficult for single companies or even single countries to develop new advanced weapon systems. This has created a pressure in the arms industry toward concentration into fewer and larger companies and toward international collaboration in arms production. The links between these large contractors, the state, and the military has been described as a military industrial complex (MIC), reflecting the interrelation between the groups with a vested interest in arms production irrespective of rational considerations of national security. In addition, while most manufacturing industries went multinational, the arms industry remained national and smaller countries, which could not afford the large fixed costs, imported major weapon systems. With the fall in demand following the end of the Cold War, the ability of even the major countries to maintain a domestic DIB was called into question. Governments had to decide whether to allow mergers and acquisitions which would reduce competition and, in particular, whether to allow mergers and acquisitions which involved foreign partners. They were also in a situation where the change in the security environment made it harder to justify previous levels of support for the industry and ‘competitive procurement policies’ aimed at value-for-money were introduced in a number of countries.

Post-Cold War Developments in Arms Production During the post-Cold War period, global arms production has undergone profound changes in most parts of the world (Table 3). These changes are driven by four main factors. First, the rapid development in military technology, which pushes up the R&D content in advanced weapon systems and makes these increasingly difficult to finance on a national basis; second, a changing relationship between military and civil technology, with civil technology in many areas taking the lead and becoming increasingly important in the production of military equipment; third, changes in the level of demand for military goods and services worldwide; and fourth, qualitative changes in demand due to changed military doctrines and ways of warfare. The cost growth in advanced military equipment is a long-term trend continuing from the Cold War. It has accelerated greatly through the development of new

118 Arms Production, Economics of Table 3 Developments in the arms industry during the post-Cold War period Driving forces

Developments in the arms industry

military technologies, as a result of the ‘revolution in military affairs’ (RMA), involving a range of sophisticated technology, often summarized as C4ISTAR (command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance), needed for the new concept of network-centric warfare, more recently called network-centric operations. During the Cold War military technology tended to be ahead of civil technology, but gradually developments in civil technology caught up and superseded military technology in many areas, particularly in electronics and information technology. Today there is much less reference to the ‘spin-off’ of military technology to the civil sector and instead an increased focus on ‘spin-in’ of civil technology into military equipment. The demand for military goods and services went through two main phases during the post-Cold War period. During the first phase, covering roughly the tenyear period of 1989–98, there was a continuous and significant decline in world military spending (roughly one-third in real terms) and with it, a fall in the demand for military goods and services from the arms industry. The fall was greatest in Central and Eastern Europe, where military spending in 1998 was only one-tenth of its 1989 level, primarily because of the sharp reductions in the former Soviet states. There was also a significant reduction in military expenditure in North America – by one-third – while reductions were more moderate in Western Europe, a fall of 14% in real terms. The most profound change took place in Russia, which inherited most of the Soviet arms industry after the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, with a 78% cut in arms production between 1991 and 1998. Along with these reductions in domestic demand in the main centers of arms production, there was also a simultaneous decline in the international arms market. During the second half of the 1990s, the fall in demand bottomed out, both domestically in the arms-producing countries and in their export markets. Part of the reason for this was that a growing mismatch emerged between ongoing procurement programs and planned funding of these, in particular in the United States. Few procurement programs for Cold War-type warfare had been cancelled so

Increasing R&D content in advanced weapon systems Changing relations between military and civil technology Changes in the level of demand Demand for new types of military goods and services Defence industrial policy Exiting Diversification and conversion Specialization on the military market International cooperation, mergers and acquisitions Arms exports Privatization and outsourcing of military services

they still absorbed substantial funding, while new military requirements emerged with the transformation of the armed forces resulting from the RMA. This mismatch between what the military services wanted and the available funding, changed overnight after the Al-Qaeda sponsored terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on 11 September 2001. The US response to these attacks had major implications for the US arms industry, and indirectly for the European arms industry. The shock generated by the attacks resulted in the release of massive supplementary budget allocations under the heading Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), to cover the costs of military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as for homeland security. Between September 2001 and February 2006, the supplementary appropriations for Department of Defense (DOD) activities in response to 9/11 amounted to $338 billion and resulted in a 47% real increase in US military expenditure over four years to $507 billion in 2005. The industry has benefited greatly from this development, as shown by the fact that US DOD prime contract awards for procurement (including supplies, RDT&E and other services) to private industry have increased from $70 billion in FY1996 to $163 billion in FY 2005. This sharp rise in military expenditure after 9/11 has been limited to the United States. In Europe, there was no corresponding increase in demand after 9/11, although the decline in military spending and arms procurement did level off. While there has been an increase in demand in China and Russia also, the magnitudes and rate of their increases are much lower than those in the USA. Russia increased the military output of its arms industry by 129% between 1995 and 2005, but this still leaves the overall level of Russian arms production at less than half of its 1991 level and future projections point to another contraction in the future. Recent assessments of Chinese defense-industrial capabilities indicate that China’s long-term modernization of its defense industrial base is beginning to produce significant qualitative improvements. However, no data are available on the value of Chinese arms production or on the impact of current developments on the size of the industry. While employment in the Chinese arms industry is declining

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(Table 1), this is most likely the result of rationalization and increased efficiency and not declining output. The end of the Cold War and the ensuing changes in the security environment also produced a qualitative change in the types of equipment required. With the end of the Cold War, the future war scenario was no longer a traditional large-scale war between East and West, in delimited theaters of war. Instead, in some countries the focus shifted to new roles for the armed forces in crisis management and peacekeeping missions to countries in armed conflict in the developing world, which changed both the nature and the structure of the required armed forces and the type of weapon systems required. In the United States, the main qualitative shift in demand was from deterrence strategies involving nuclear technologies to a strong emphasis on war-fighting capabilities. This shift has been reinforced in the post-9/11 period and the military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, which have reinforced the role of RMA technologies for warfighting. The use of new technologies in these battlefields also served as demonstration of their utility, which generated further demand. The strategic options available to arms-producing companies to adjust to the changing demands included (1) reducing their dependency on arms sales, either by full or partial exiting from arms production or by diversification to increase their civil production and (2) strengthening their position on the arms market, by increased military diversification or specialization, by different forms of cooperation with other companies, or by increasing their arms exports, whether through new sales and marketing strategies or by accessing new markets. In the countries where the arms industry was largely state-owned, a privatization process took place, to facilitate restructuring. Some of these strategies could be achieved by organic growth in civil or military production, but in most cases they also involved divestitures of existing units or acquisitions of other companies or parts thereof. Furthermore, in many cases, growth through acquisition could be achieved only through crossborder purchases. However, companies’ choices were constrained by government policy toward their national defense industrial bases and by the nature of the financial systems within which they operated. During the post-9/11 period, the adjustment process in the US arms industry were linked to the changes in demand produced by the military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, giving a boost to new military technologies and the outsourcing of military services, and impacting on both the pattern of acquisitions and the composition of the US arms industry.

even bankruptcies. According to SIPRI data, by 2003, 18 of the companies that had been among the top 100 armsproducing companies in 1990 had left the arms industry. Another 25 companies had become integrated into other companies, through mergers and acquisitions. Out of the top 100 in 1990 only 53 companies survived as independent arms-producing companies until 2003 (while the fate of the remaining four is unclear). The companies that diversified into civil production developed new commercial activities either through organic growth of new businesses or by acquiring existing businesses. This strategy was more successful where the firm could build synergies between the military and civil parts of their activities, which was easier for firms with a relatively low dependency on arms sales. Some companies, for example, Daimler-Benz (Germany), made acquisitions of smaller companies to develop the conglomerate into a broad-based technology company and so reduced their dependency on arms production. Another example of successful diversification was that of Racal (UK), which built, and then divested of the Vodafone mobile phone business. The remaining armsproducing unit of Racal was subsequently sold to Thomson-CSF (France) to form the multinational Thales. However, there are more examples of efforts at civil diversification that had limited success. In principle, the conversion of plants producing military products to those producing civil ones was also an option to achieve civil diversification, but there are very few examples of a successful conversion strategy in this narrow sense in this period. Among the 53 survivors in the SIPRI data set, 15 companies had been able to successfully diversify their production so that their civil sales increased while their arms sales decreased, and another 25 companies had increased both their civil and arms sales. However, this was a much smaller number than in 1998, when there was a similar number of survivors but a much higher number of diversifiers – 33 out of 57. While these figures show a high degree of diversification, they tend to understate the degree of conversion overall, as companies that successfully moved out of arms production became less visible – they left the top 100 and so do not count as ‘survivors’– and gradual policy changes generally do not make headlines. In 1998 also there was a much smaller number that had increased their arms sales. This changed after 1998 as the demand turned upwards again as a result of the concentration process in the US arms industry that took place in the years immediately before 1998.

Exiting, Diversification, and Conversion

Military Specialization

A significant number of companies have exited from arms production, in most cases by selling off their arms production units and, in a few cases, through plant closures or

The trend toward military specialization has been most marked in the United States and the United Kingdom. The diversification efforts of US companies came to an

120 Arms Production, Economics of

abrupt end following a decision by the US DOD in 1993 to stimulate mergers and acquisitions. At a dinner for arms industry executives, that has become known as the ‘last supper’, the then-Deputy Secretary of Defense, William J. Perry, announced the DOD decision that companies would be eligible to be reimbursed for parts of their costs of mergers and acquisitions, if it could be shown that these would result in future savings and result in reduced costs to the DOD. This sparked off a wave of mergers and acquisitions in the US arms industry. The remaining US arms producers no longer based their business plans on a broad-based and diversified product range but on specialization in defense products. This was reinforced by Wall Street transactions, which encouraged companies to concentrate on what the stock market called ‘pure play’ and ‘core competencies’. The policy ended when the DOD decided it had gone far enough and blocked the merger of Lockheed Martin with Northrop Grumman in early 1997. This left four major US contractors in 1998 – Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon – which are now four of the top five companies in the SIPRI top 100 for 2004. In Europe, with its much smaller national markets, the arms industry was already highly concentrated. The main case of a major merger on the national level in Europe during the post-Cold War period, was the formation of BAE Systems (UK) in 1999 through the acquisition by British Aerospace of the defense division of GEC. However, in general, further concentration of the European arms industry would have to involve cross-border mergers, which raised political issues. Furthermore, in several European countries, notably France, Italy, Portugal, and Spain, there was a high degree of state ownership of companies at the end of the Cold War. This made the kind of financially driven merger boom that took place in the USA more difficult in Europe. Nonetheless, the driving forces in Europe were similar and led to an increase in concentration. International Cooperation, Mergers, and Acquisitions International cooperation has always been common in the arms industry. Companies can use international armaments collaboration, joint ventures, and strategic alliances to achieve benefits of size without losing independence. All of these techniques have been adopted by arms-producing companies during the post-Cold War period, in particular in Europe, where cross-border acquisitions have been difficult to achieve. Joint ventures are partnerships, often in the form of a jointly owned company, where two or more companies share profit, loss, and control. They are an option for companies that want to combine without having to merge. During the post-Cold War period, formation of joint ventures increased significantly in Europe. Major intra-European examples of cross-border joint ventures

include Eurocopter, formed in 1992 to merge French and German helicopter activities; Astrium, formed in 2000 to combine the space activities of France, Germany, and the UK, now wholly owned by European Aeronautics, Defence and Space Company (EADS); and MBDA, formed in 2001 to combine the missile activities of France, Germany, Italy, and the UK. These large joint venture companies, owned by the parent companies of the combined activities, are today among the major arms-producing companies not only in Europe but also internationally. The main transatlantic example is French–US Thales-Raytheon Systems, formed in 2001, and described as the first transatlantic alliance between two global arms-producing companies. Cross-border mergers and acquisitions are the most radical forms of international integration and were rare during the Cold War when the production of armaments was a sector characterized by strict national protection. During the post-Cold War period this has begun to change, in particular within Europe. Two major examples of intra-European mergers are the creation of French– German–Spanish EADS in 2000 and the acquisition of Racal Electronics in the UK in the same year by the leading French defense electronics company Thales. There have also been a number of US acquisitions in Europe, the most important of which are Bofors Weapon Systems (Sweden), FiatAvio (Italy), QinetiQ (UK), and Steyr Fahrgezeug (Austria). Efforts by European companies to acquire US companies and establish subsidiaries in the USA have not been very successful due to the strict US rules facing foreign-owned companies. The main exceptions are British companies, which have been given special treatment. As a result, British companies, and in particular BAE Systems have made a number of acquisitions in the US arms industry. However, at the prime contractor level there has been no major transatlantic merger similar to the creation of EADS in Europe. Cross-border acquisitions have been successful in accessing foreign markets. For example, Thales has become the second largest defense contractor in the UK, and BAE Systems now have more sales to the US DOD than to the British Ministry of Defence. What is emerging is a web of cross-border ownership and collaboration relationships between companies, primarily within Europe, but also across the Atlantic and with other countries. In the transatlantic dimension, joint ventures and teaming arrangements for bidding on arms procurement contracts still serve as second-best solutions to access each others’ markets. At the European level, BAE Systems and EADS form the two poles around which most other European defense and aerospace companies have regrouped since the late 1990s. By 2005 this had resulted in a significant degree of European integration. However, while this represents a significant change in comparison with the Cold War arms industry, it does not represent a pan-European arms industry. Furthermore, European

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integration has been concentrated to the aerospace and electronics sectors, while there has been only limited integration in other sectors, such as shipbuilding and land armaments (Sko¨ns, 2005). Arms Exports Another means of replacing cuts in domestic demand was through efforts to increase arms exports. Companies tried to capture a larger slice of a rapidly declining export market, and governments, mindful of the need to keep costs down by maintaining or increasing the scale of production of domestic arms producers, supported and encouraged the search for orders abroad. This has resulted in some long-term changes in the global arms market. Arms exports became heavily subsidized, both directly and indirectly; government involvement in support of major export contracts increased; and there was a strong increase in offset arrangements in arms export contracts. An offset is an agreement between a supplier and a buyer that imposes obligations on the seller to compensate the buyer for the costs of the purchase. They can be either direct or indirect. Direct offsets involve the goods and services in the sale, while indirect offsets involve any other goods and services. The most common types of offsets are subcontracting, licensed production or co-production in the importing country, technology transfers to, and capital investment in the importing country, and counter-trade. Arms trade offsets normally amount to more than 100% of the arms deal. This means that the value of the compensation exceeds the full value of the arms sales contract. Apart from export sales of finished goods, companies are also internationalizing their supply chains. The growth of offsets deals has encouraged this and given importing countries the opportunity to develop niche markets, by being part of the supply chain of a major international producer. It is, however, unclear whether the importing countries unambiguously benefit from offsets (Brauer and Dunne, 2004). These changes have led to increased competition among arms producers but failed to prevent the inevitable consolidation within the industry. Privatization and Outsourcing Another significant development during the post-Cold War period is increased privatization, both of previously state-owned arms-producing companies and of a number of functions previously performed by the armed forces and defense ministries. Outsourcing of military functions to private companies increased dramatically and while most pronounced in the United States is increasingly adopted also by European governments (Holmqvist, 2005; Wulf, 2005). The industry emerged as a result of a number of factors, including excess supply of military

personnel due to downsizing, the changing nature of warfare, and a shift in government policies towards greater acceptance of outsourcing of military functions to the private sector and has estimated annual sales of about $100 billion (Singer, 2003: 78–81). While some of the contracts are awarded to traditional arms-producing companies, a large part of these contracts go to private security companies. The industry was given a strong boost during the military operations in Iraq, when the military has made extensive use of private companies for support roles that previously would have been the responsibility of the armed forces. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have also produced a large market for post-war reconstruction work. In combination with the rapid growth of the homeland security market in the United States and elsewhere, these developments have reinforced two trends: the entry of a new group of civil companies that are increasingly involved in arms production, and an increasing periphery of private security companies with government contracts and homeland security business. The increasing privatization of military services and the new and vast amount of post-conflict reconstruction work could be producing a group of influential, profitchasing companies that have a vested interest in armed conflict, similar to what arms-producing companies have in the production of weapons and increasing demand for them. Outcome There are three main outcomes of the developments in the global arms industry during the post-Cold War period: (1) a strong US dominance in global arms production, (2) an immense growth in the size of the biggest armsproducing companies, and (3) an increased concentration in the group of the top 100 companies. US companies account for 63% of the top 100 companies in the world apart from China, according to SIPRI data (Table 1). The United States also has a lead in military technology and is the major military spender in the world, accounting for 48% of world military spending in 2005. The increased size of the largest arms-producing companies is best illustrated by the increase in their respective arms sales. For example, the arms sales of the three largest companies tripled between 1990 and 2004, from a range of $7.5–9 billion to a range of $26.0–27.5 billion (Table 4). This means that the three largest companies in 2004 each had arms sales of the same magnitude as the entire gross domestic product of countries such as Guatemala and Bulgaria (while their total sales was even larger). As a result of the merger and acquisition activity during the post-Cold War period, there has been a clear change in the structure of the industry. Table 5 shows

122 Arms Production, Economics of Table 4 The top 20 arms-producing companies in 2004 Rank

Country

Country

Arms sales (in $ billions)

Share of arms sales in total sales (%)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Top 20 Top 100

Boeing Lockheed Martin Northrop Grumman BAE Systems Raytheon General Dynamics EADS Thales United Technologies L-3 Communications Finmeccanica Science Applications (SAIC) Computer Sciences Corporation Rolls Royce DCN Halliburton General Electric Honeywell International Mitsubishi Heavy Industries ITT Industries

USA USA USA UK USA USA Europe France USA USA Italy USA USA UK France USA USA USA Japan USA

27.5 26.4 26.0 19.8 17.2 15.2 9.5 9.0 6.7 6.0 5.6 4.7 4.3 3.3 3.2 3.1 3.0 2.8 2.5 2.4 198.2 268.3

52 74 87 80 85 79 24 70 18 87 52 65 31 30 100 15 2 11 10 36

Note: The table includes only parent companies. Thus, it does not include subsidiaries and joint venture companies. Source: SIPRI Yearbook 2006, Table 9A.1.

Table 5 Concentration of the arms industry, 1990–2003 (figures are percentage shares of the arms sales of the SIPRI top 100 arms-producing companies)

Top 5 Top 10 Top 15 Top 20

1990

1995

2000

2003

22 37 48 57

28 42 53 61

41 57 65 70

44 61 69 74

Source: Dunne and Surry, 2006, Table 9.3.

the changes in concentration of the top 100 arms-producing companies for the period 1990–2003. At the end of the Cold War the international arms industry was not very concentrated, with the top five companies accounting for 22% of the total arms sales of the SIPRI top 100. By 2003 their share of the top 100 had increased to 44%. This large increase in the share of the top companies is continued further down the list of companies, as shown for the top 10, 15, and 20. In all cases, the big change occurred between 1995 and 2000. Although by 2003 the five largest arms-producing firms accounted for 44% of total top 100 arms sales, this is still a very low degree of concentration compared to other high-technology markets. The market for major weapon systems would probably have become more highly concentrated, like those for civil airliners or pharmaceuticals, if national governments had not inhibited the growth of multinational firms to protect their defense industrial base.

However, there is also a strong element of continuity. While market forces have been allowed to work more freely in the military sector during the post-Cold War period, this process is still to a great extent government controlled, particularly for the larger producers. For smaller producer countries, maintaining control over their arms industry has become more difficult, not just because of increased foreign ownership and privatization but also because of greater dependence of smaller companies on the larger systems integrators. This has forced them to adjust their policies to facilitate the integration of their companies into larger international military industrial networks.

The Economic Impact of Arms Production Taking a global perspective, the arms industry accounts for a small share of world output and employment. In 1995, global arms production, estimated at $200-205 billion, corresponded to 0.7% of global gross domestic product (GDP). Global employment in arms production, estimated at 10.9 million people in 1995, including indirect employment, corresponded to 0.2% of the world’s population and 0.4% of the global labor force in that year. When measured as a share of national output in the main arms-producing countries, the arms industry is relatively small. To get some idea of its size, some figures for the 20 major arms-producing countries in the world in 1995 are presented in Table 6. In most of the countries, arms

Arms Production, Economics of 123 Table 6 The economic importance of arms production, data for 1995 Country

Share of GDP (%)

Share of total employment (%)

Share of total exports (%)

USA France UK Japan Germany Russia Italy Canada South Korea Israel China Ukraine Poland Sweden Netherlands Spain India Australia Turkey South Africa

1.3 1.2 1.3 0.2 0.4 1.1 0.4 0.7 0.8 3.5 NA NA 1.7 0.9 0.4 0.3 0.4 0.4 1.2 0.7

1.8 1.1 1.1 0.2 0.3 NA 0.2 0.3 0.3 2.5 0.6 NA 1.0 0.8 0.2 0.3 NA 0.1 NA 1.4

2.0 1.4 1.4 – 0.3 3.8 0.3 0.2 0.7 6.5 NA 1.6 NA 0.6 0.3 0.7 0.1 0.04 1.1 0.9

Sources: SIPRI Arms Industry Files; BICC Conversion Survey 1997.

production accounts for around 1% or less of GDP, national employment, and total exports, and this is unlikely to have changed in more recent years. Despite this small size, the industry clearly has a high profile, and it is often argued that it has significant economic and industrial effects, mainly through its high R&D intensity and the high-tech nature of production of most advanced weapons. Whether this is a positive or negative impact is an issue of debate that is linked with the general debate over the economic effects of military spending. A large literature has addressed the issue, with empirical studies that use a number of different theoretical perspectives. In neoclassical supply-side models, economic growth is derived from the aggregate production function, that is, the input of labor, capital, and technology. Military spending is assumed to have a direct impact on growth, or an indirect one via its impact on technology. In Keynesian demand-side models, economic growth is derived from the aggregate demand function, that is, the output of consumption, investment, military expenditure, and balance of trade. The neoclassical models tend to find a negative effect of defense expenditure on growth, due to the competition for resources with civil investment, while Keynesian models find a small positive impact of defense spending on growth due to the multiplier effect of defense spending. Models that combine the Keynesian and aggregate production function approaches, find that the negative demand-side impact tend to outweigh the slightly positive supply-side effect (Dunne, 1996). Other studies have eschewed the use of formal theoretical models, with some case study analyses focusing on qualitative as much as quantitative analysis and others upon meso-

and microeconomic analyses of arms-producing enterprises, sectors, and geographical areas. A major channel by which military spending is hypothesized to have a positive impact on the economy is through the transfer of technological innovation from the military sector to the civil one, or technological spinoff. It has been argued that the high level of technology in military production stimulates the modernization of the overall industrial complex in developing countries, though others suggest the linkages to the civil economy in such economies are likely to be small. In addition, while it may have been the case that military innovations were taken up by the civil sector, for example in the case of transistors, more recent rapid development in commercial technologies, especially in electronics, has led to what has been called ‘spin-in’, with civil technologies increasingly used in arms production (Dunne and Surry, 2006). Overall, there is no real evidence that military spending plays a significant positive role in economic development. See also: Arms Control; Arms Control and Disarmament Treaties; Arms Production, Economics of; Collective Security; Economics of War and Peace, Overview; Military-Industrial Complex, Organization and History; Nuclear Weapons Policies; Verification Regimes

Further Reading Bonn International Centre for Conversion, BICC. (Annual). Conversion Survey. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

124 Arms Trade, Economics of Brauer, J. and Dunne, P. (eds.) (2004). Arms trade and development: Theory, policy, and cases in arms trade offsets. New York: Routledge. Cooper, J. (2006). Developments in the Russian arms industry. In SIPRI Yearbook 2006, pp. 431–448. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dunne, P. (1996). Economic effects of military spending in LDCs: A survey. In Gleditsch, N. P., Cappelen, A., Bjerkholt, O., Smith, R., and Dunne, P. (eds.) The peace dividend, Ch. 23, pp. 439–464. Amsterdam: North Holland. Dunne, J. P. (2006). The defence industry sector – what future? Paper for Cambridge Econometrics and the Commission of the European Communities (European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions). http://www.emcc.eurofound.eu.int/ content/source/eu06018a.html?p1=sectorfutures&p2=null (accessed on 19 July 2007). Dunne, J. P. and Surry, E. (2006). Arms Production. In SIPRI Yearbook 2006, Ch. 9, pp. 387–418. Oxford: Oxford University Press. http:// www.sipri.org/contents/milap/milex/publications/ recent_publications.html Holmqvist, C. (2005). SIPRI Policy Paper, no. 9: Private security companies: The case for regulation. Stockholm: SIPRI. Krause, K. (1992). Arms and the state: Patterns of military production and trade. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Markusen, A. R. and Costigan, S. S. (eds.) (1999). Arming the future: A defense industry for the 21st century. New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press.

US Congress, Office of Technology Assessment (1992). Building future security: Strategies for restructuring the defense technology and industrial base. Washington, DC: OTA, US GPO. Singer, P. W. (2004). Corporate warriors: The rise of the privatized military industry. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Sko¨ns, E. (1993). Western Europe: Internationalization of the arms industry. In Wulf, H. (ed.) Arms industry limited, pp. 160–190. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sko¨ns, E. (2005). ‘Omstruktureringen av vesteuropeisk forsvarsindustri: markedskrafternas logikk’ (‘Restructuring of the West European defence industry: the logic of market forces’). In Matlary, J. H. and Osterud, O. (eds.) Mot et avnasjonalisert forsvar? (Towards a denationalized defence?), pp. 245–280. Oslo: Abstrakt Forlag. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI (Annual). SIPRI Yearbook: Armaments, disarmament and international security. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sta˚lenheim, P., Fruchart, D., Omitoogun, W., and Perdomo, C. (2006). SIPRI Yearbook 2006: Military expenditure. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Weidacher, R. (2002). Available government and industry data on the arms industry. SIPRI Yearbook 2002, pp. 366–372. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wulf, H. (ed.) (1993). Arms Industry Limited. SIPRI. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wulf, H. (2005). Internationalizing and privatizing war and peace. Basingstoke: Palgrave and Macmillan.

Arms Trade, Economics of Frederic S Pearson, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, USA Marie O Lounsbery, Nova Southeastern University, Davie, FL, USA John Sislin, The National Academies, Washington, DC, USA ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction Economic and Security Considerations Historical Evolution Change and Continuity in the Economics of Arms Transfers

Glossary Arms Race An action and reaction pattern whereby adversaries arm against each other competitively. Black Market The covert sale of weapons by smugglers and dealers. CoCom (Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls) A loose arrangement of Western governments formed in 1949 to prevent the transfer of military-useful (dual-use) technology from the West to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Commercial Sale The sale of arms by a private dealer or manufacturer. Concessional Sale An arms sale subsidized by credit arrangements below prevailing bank interest rates.

Conflict, War, and the Economics of Arms Transfers Prospects for Controlling the Arms Trade Further Reading

Concessional Terms of Sale Subsidies, discounts, loan arrangements, and other inducements to make arms more affordable to prospective buyers. Coproduction Intergovernmental or interindustry agreement to produce a weapon or share production technology jointly in more than one country. Countertrade Agreements to purchase products from an arms customer to help relieve the costs of the weapon purchase. Deterrence The threat of force or other penalties in order to dissuade an adversary from taking action against one’s interests. Foreign Military Sales Program The system of US governmental sponsorship and review of major

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commercial weapon sales, in which the government helps identify and service customers, negotiates the terms of sale, arranges with the company for production, and collects the funds. Government Sale The sale of arms by or through a government; can include sales from government stocks or government purchases from arms manufacturers, which are then sold to foreign buyers. Gray Market Government-approved arms sales that skirt the letter of the law, such as covert sales to groups or to circumvent embargoes. Insurgency Violent antigovernment uprising by rebel organizations. Missile Technology Control Regime Established in 1987, it is an informal and voluntary association consisting of 34 countries in the first decade of the 2000s. These countries share the goals of nonproliferationof unmanned delivery systems capable of delivering weapons of mass destruction, and seek to

Introduction Arms transfers refer to the supply of weapons, spare parts, ammunition, and technical/logistical items or training associated with these systems, by gift, sale, or subsidy. Transfers can be made between governments, private firms and governments, governments and nongovernmental groups such as militia forces, and amongst such groups themselves. The term ‘arms trade’ refers to a subset of arms transfers, and is characterized by the sale, export, or import of arms and related equipment as distinct from other types of military shipments such as aid and gifts. Arms sales take place between suppliers and recipients, who may be governments, foreign factions or groups, companies, or individuals. The largest sales are often between governments and can run into billions of dollars, as for example the US sale of advanced fighter aircraft to Pakistan and advanced missiles and munitions to Israel. Sales can be legal or illicit – on the black or gray market. Conventional arms are categorized into two types: major conventional arms and small or light weapons. Major conventional arms traditionally include such categories as tanks, heavy artillery, aircraft, and naval vessels. Smaller or ‘light’ weapons include more easily portable arms such as rifles, grenades, mines, light artillery (e.g., mortars), and shoulder-mounted missiles. ‘Dual use’ items, with both civilian and military applications, such as trucks, computers, transport aircraft, small vessels, machetes, and other potentially lethal items pose a definitional problem for those accounting for arms sales. Excluded from this discussion of ‘conventional arms’ are

coordinate national export licensing efforts aimed at preventing their proliferation. Munitions Explosive shells, bombs, or missile warheads either as individual weapons or ammunition for weapon systems such as artillery devices. Offsets Agreements to help arms purchasers relieve the cost of the weapons by arranging for such measures as partial production in the customer state and other technological sharing. Retrofitting The process of mounting equipment and weapon components from various sources on a weapon platform such as a plane or ship. Third Tier Arms-producing states that entered the weapons trade later than the major powers and tended to specialize in certain types of weapons for specific fighting conditions or types of customers. Transparency Procedures to track and publicly report agreements to transfer weapons and weapon deliveries.

weapons of ‘mass destruction’ (WMD) which include nuclear, chemical, and biological arms, though obviously delivery systems for these weapons – aircraft, ships, tanks, artillery, and missiles – are generally classified as conventional arms. The global arms trade is a billion-dollar affair. The value of major conventional arms exports decreased in the late 1980s, but since 2002 has been trending upward and in 2005 stood at over $20 billion. The estimated value of legal sales of small arms is $4 billion per year, with an additional $1 billion or more in estimated illicit sales, often involving cross-border smuggling or sales in arms bazaars. The overall network of arms supply, including used or second-hand weapons that make their way by complex channels from war to war, is difficult to track down, although the search for ‘transparency’ in the distribution of arms has increased significantly since the early 1990s. One reason for this increased emphasis is the fear of weapons acquired by global extremist or terrorist organizations. The history by which the armstransfer system has developed, today’s export and import patterns and interests, the technological and policy changes anticipated for the new century, and the prospects for managing or controlling the arms trade in relation to conflict resolution will be discussed further on.

Economic and Security Considerations During the Cold War, American–Soviet competition led to worldwide arms sales driven primarily by security

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concerns, but also having an economic motive in the form of enlarged markets that could raise revenues and drive down the per unit cost of arms production. Other arms suppliers, such as Britain, France, West Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, and Italy, shared these economic incentives and took advantage of an insecure world to export arms primarily for economic gain. Since the end of the Cold War, however, the security competition fueling arms sales has shifted somewhat. No longer does the East– West competition fuel arms transfers to client states; also diminished is the US and Russian ability to clamp down on arms available to clients. Now the international arms market is more open and varied. Security concerns remain, with a focus on counterterrorism strategies and ways of deterring or defeating hostile regional powers and political movements such as militant Islam. Economic incentives have come to the fore with the decline of superpower competition, but security concerns remain important especially in contemplating control of arms transfers. Arms trade is driven by both supply-side and demandside considerations. The supply-side concerns the imperatives of arms manufacturing – finding sufficient markets to keep weapons manufacturers going. In addition supplies sometimes flood the market, as when states collapse and their arsenals are open for pillaging. This happened to Albania at the end of the Cold War, as Albanian weapons came to fuel the Kosovo independence struggle across the border against Serbia, leading to outside intervention and peacekeeping operations by NATO. Major conventional weapons also flooded the market after the end of the Cold War, when NATO and former Warsaw Pact military hardware ‘cascaded’ to developing countries. Demand-side considerations involve civil wars and conflicts that generate the need to replenish exhausted supplies and the search for new arms technologies to defeat the enemy. The decades long Sri Lankan civil war has seen such internal ‘arms races’ as one side or the other seeks new advantages in obtaining aircraft or surface-to-air missiles or naval vessels, usually with the result of continuing stalemate. One of the pressing security questions of the post-Cold War period concerns the effects of arms shipments in either escalating or de-escalating conflict situations. While arms shipments have always affected violence levels, the prominence of certain ethnopolitical conflicts since 1990 has reminded arms-supplying states of the pitfalls and dangers of unrestrained supply. Crises have highlighted the importance of arms infusions in spurring ethnic fighting and even genocidal attacks, as in Rwanda where genocide was fueled with a combination of conventional weapons and primitive implements such as machetes. Ethnopolitical violence and insurgency broke out in Iraq after the US invasion of 2003 when existing arms in the country were not confiscated. Additionally,

arms shipments seem to complicate the mediation and peacekeeping missions of the UN, NATO, and regional organizations, as weapons fall into the hands of hostile governmental, militia, or rebel forces. Yet it is also argued that groups and nations have an inherent right of self-defense against attacks, and that by establishing balances of power through armament, fighting can be ended or averted. Groups engaged in ‘righteous causes’ or ‘national liberation’ value arms as a means of legitimization and resistance. Therefore, the premium for peacekeeping or peace enforcement is on controlling armament, even disarming the warring sides if possible, while the premium for security planners, political leaders, and arms dealers often is on maintaining the supply of weapons. The growing economic incentives in arms sales conflict with inclinations toward arms control. It appears that one of the key factors in determining whether arms control is possible and effective in stopping wars is the degree of major power pressure for an end to fighting that accompanies arms diplomacy. Cross-border fighting has diminished somewhat since the last years of the Cold War, while violence within countries has become more visible, if not necessarily more frequent than before. The precise effects of armament in driving or retarding these domestic conflicts are still to be traced. It appears extremely difficult to clamp down completely on the flow of smaller arms that are most relevant to many civil wars; embargoes can be leaky and determined fighters can be resourceful in acquiring arms from battlefield capture, raids on police stations or armories, purchase from corrupt officials, or through international clandestine connections and smuggling. Wars and violence can be carried on for extended periods with relatively light weaponry. However, at some point in combat increased sophistication can be demanded; it became clear in the fighting between Israel and the Hizbollah militia in Lebanon in 2006 that longer range rockets and missiles are another form of more sophisticated weaponry sought by insurgents and supplied by interested states. As the combatants establish control over greater swaths of territory and move closer to political sovereignty they appear to seek heavier weapons. Insurgents also convert weapons from one use to another, as in Hizbollah’s use of antitank shells to destroy houses where Israeli soldiers sought refuge. Since arms supplies can exacerbate severe conflict situations, it would be theoretically desirable to reach conventional arms-control agreements, just as it has been desirable to move toward nuclear nonproliferation; yet many factors play a role in weakening control agreements. Aside from the ‘sovereign right to arm’, such control is complicated by the dual nature of the arms trade, that is, the fact that both security and commercial interests are at stake. Both these interests are further complicated by concerns over technological

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development, since arms are a reflection of technology and technology signals security, economic maturity, and commercial capabilities. Keeping up with the latest technologies, many of which are reflected in weaponry, can itself become a security concern. The threatening environment perceived in both the international and regional political arenas is often enough to generate concern about being left behind in weapons potential. Developing states that have undertaken significant conventional industrial arms programs – states such as India, Pakistan, China, Israel, Iran, South Africa, Brazil, and Argentina – generally have been involved in regional conflicts and also have at least experimented with nuclear and other forms of advanced technology, though several states including Brazil, Argentina, and South Africa have rejected nuclear weaponry. Nuclear technology can extend to both military and domestic (power generation) uses, and thus it is difficult to sort out completely the effects of security, commercial, and technological motives; all three are interwoven in the arms production and export business. One of the key economic factors in the arms-supply equation is the need to keep domestic arms-production facilities operating, for example, to generate enough revenue to reinvest in research and development. For big powers with ambitious military establishments, the domestic arms market can be sufficiently large to absorb enough new weapons to provide a strong basis for continued production and technological updates. For smaller powers, however, such as the Czech Republic and Sweden, and even for powers such as Russia that lack alternative export products, enlarging arms sales to wider export markets becomes a necessity to maintain such capabilities for their own forces. Global powers such as the United States and Russia, which together have supplied between 50% and 70% of global arms shipments, traditionally have been the most likely to emphasize security interests, often imposing formal restrictions or distinctions about where, to whom, and in what form various types of arms or related supplies could be transferred or re-transferred (i.e., shipped by the recipient to third parties). Other major powers, such as Britain, France, and Germany, have tended to be somewhat less oriented to a security calculus, and interested more in bolstering trade revenues, though they too have imposed bans or conditions if the recipients seemed likely to cause regional instability or harm to vital regional interests. Even as Washington and Moscow experienced less mutual security concern after the Cold War they retained their economic and military interests in producing and exporting arms and in controlling certain risky exports. The United States especially remained worried about terrorism and nuclear weapons falling into the ‘wrong hands’, and became willing to help pay salaries to

Russian nuclear scientists in order to prevent them going ‘out for hire’. While this slowed nuclear proliferation, other scientists, such as those in Pakistan, reportedly did sell or distribute nuclear weapons know-how abroad to states such as North Korea. The expected post-Cold War ‘peace dividend’ of drastically reduced defense production and military spending hardly materialized. Between 1996 and 2005, world military expenditures increased by 34%. Although many major arms-producing states registered a decrease in spending, 15 countries, led by the United States with its costly Iraqi and Afghan war involvements, came to account for 84% of the total world military expenditure. The global arms trade peaked at over $60 billion in 1984, and began a consistent gradual decline thereafter due to the easing of the Cold War tension in Europe and the settlement of several long-running local wars in the Third World. The market stabilized at over $20 billion in major weapons and a total of approximately $40 billion annually in total sales of all types of arms during the 1990s. One must add to that the $1 billion or more annually in illicit, covert, and second-hand military sales which fuel many additional local wars today. Trends in the early 2000s suggest a potential resurgence of the arms trade with the financial value of arms exports at $53.3 billion in 2004 (though still lower than peak Cold War levels), according to SIPRI. Thus, diminished though still considerable market demand has affected the incentives, patterns, and forms of arms transfers and policies, generally boosting competition and driving less competitive arms companies and arms-producing states either out of the arms business or toward drastic new strategies. Among such strategies were consolidations, mergers, joint ventures, and the production of ‘dual use’ equipment for both civilian and military purposes. In one joint venture, for example, among ‘second tier’ suppliers, Turkey and Indonesia have worked towards an agreement that would upgrade the F-16 aircraft for the Indonesian Air Force. In the United States, the Pentagon contracted for a single new jet fighter in 1996, instead of several as in the past; the new plane would have to satisfy the needs of the army, navy, marines, and air force. In addition to creating design complications, this stiffened competition among industrial firms; indeed by denying McDonnell-Douglas the bid to compete for this contract, the Pentagon in effect encouraged the merger of McDonnell-Douglas with Boeing – creating the world’s largest aerospace firm – since Boeing itself needed McDonnell’s fighter jet design experience. Mergers, acquisitions, consolidations, and restructuring of industrial arms producers, sometimes with companies abandoning the market and selling out, became the order of the day in North America and Europe. Governments were more willing to risk the loss of certain production lines as long as basic capabilities could be

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maintained. Even these cost reduction and government budget-balancing efforts, however, increased rather than obviated the pursuit of arms-export markets. Any revenues derived overseas presumably would be that much less required of domestic taxpayers or corporate investors. Clearly, bureaucratic interests among military services and local Congressional ‘pork barrel’ in military contracts also play into weapons procurement and marketing, but it is far more compelling in congressional deliberations to point to a ‘still dangerous world’ with ‘rogue’ leaders such as those in Iran or North Korea, and to cite the potential for threats to oil supplies, shipping, friends and allies, commerce, and tourism. Weapons suited for insurgency wars would be developed, as in so-called ‘bunker buster’ bombs to destroy underground installations, and additional armor on fighting vehicles, with a premium on battlefield surveillance, laser guided munitions, and drone or unmanned reconnaissance. Deterrence potential would be extended to key regional clients such as Saudi Arabia and the Gulf oil kingdoms through arms sales. In addition, new peacekeeping responsibilities for NATO as well as UN forces made it necessary to refine weapons, even if they do not exactly call for new heights of military technology. Amid all these technological refinements are the unsettling facts that military solutions to political problems are very difficult to achieve. Thus, we are left with a complicated and vague arms distribution and arms-control environment. Arms suppliers generally recognize risks and potential untoward consequences of indiscriminate foreign supply. They are nervous about the potential for ‘black’ and ‘gray’ markets in which private dealers, merchants, and crime or terrorist syndicates acquire and distribute potent weapons – even simple ones such as bombs, rockets, and shoulder-fired missiles. Surplus arms flow from one violent conflict to another, as in the aftermath of the Iran–Iraq and Afghan wars of the 1980s and across the more recent conflicts in Africa. Public interest groups have campaigned against aspects of the weapons trade and have scored some successes in new treaties, citing the lingering threats to civilians from such leftover war legacies as land mines and cluster bombs. However, while the threats of excesses are understood, the temptation to continue the supply continues, mainly for economic gain, sometimes for ethnic solidarity as groups in one country supply those in a neighboring state, but also because the force of arms is easier to comprehend politically and for security purposes than the potential of diplomacy.

Historical Evolution Since World War II, the international arms-transfer system has evolved from grant shipments of mainly outdated surplus equipment to the sale and strategic supply of

relatively sophisticated weapon systems. Indeed during the 1960s, increasing emphasis was put on lucrative military sales, first by the US Defense Department (in part to recover research and development costs) and then by European defense ministries. The superpowers geared up for indirect competition in the Third World through supplies to favored strategic allies and clients. At the same time, for reasons of prestige and competition, these clients also came to demand and expect ‘top of the line equipment’ similar to that used by the major powers. The latest arms generally were supplied only to the closest allies in NATO and the Warsaw Pact, but exceptions were made for key regional clients such as Iran under the Shah, Israel, Egypt, Syria, and Vietnam. Lesser equipment was sometimes upgraded, or advanced systems slightly modified or downgraded for export in order to satisfy consumer demand while guarding the latest technological secrets. Weapon downgrades also proved useful in reassuring the recipient’s enemy about upsetting the balance of power – for example, reassuring Israel about Saudi arms or China concerning Taiwan’s latest American acquisitions. Occasionally arms shipments were banned to certain states in conflict, as in the ‘tripartite’, US–UK–French restrictions on arms supplied to the Arabs and Israel beginning in 1950, similar US–UK restrictions on arms to India and Pakistan in the 1960s, and a long-term UN-imposed embargo of South Africa during its racially discriminatory apartheid days. Informally, Washington also has had a recurring policy of refusing to introduce advanced highly sophisticated weapons into the Americas, though Europeans have from time to time done so and the United States increasingly has been tempted. Because of their past wartime practices, Germany and Japan also had constitutional provisions limiting the extent of their arms distribution to warprone regions. With ready alternate suppliers, such as those in the Soviet Bloc and France, however, the effects of sanctions and restrictions were diluted. Embargoed states also tended quickly to mount their own armsproduction efforts and seek a more diverse set of suppliers in order to avert sanctions, as in the case of India and Israel in the 1960s, and South Africa and Chile (after the embargo of the Pinochet government) in the 1970s. Booming oil income during the 1970s and later periods, particularly in the Middle East, spurred vast competitive arms-sales efforts, often taking the form of elaborate arms ‘fairs’ where new products were shown off and promoted. Aside from commercial gain, the superpowers saw their arms competition as a surrogate for direct military confrontation. Arms supposedly provided both protection for favored regimes and potential control over arms recipients, through the dependence of these regimes on spare parts and training. Hence the nearly unlimited American conventional military transfer deals with the Shah of Iran were rationalized as a way to

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preclude his interest in developing nuclear weapons while propping him up as a regional ‘policeman’ favorable to US interests. Relatively little attention was paid to recipients’ use of arms against domestic opponents, an issue that would come back to haunt Americans in Iran. At one point in the 1973 Arab–Israeli fighting, then US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was quoted (Klinghofer, 1985) as saying that Washington would resupply Israel (there had been some calculated delay) because the United States could not afford to see American arms defeated by Soviet arms. The reputation for arms superiority had begun to rival arms suppliers’ interests in the arms clients themselves, a trend that continued with the seemingly stunning successes of advanced American equipment in the 1990–91 confrontation with Iraq. Although Russia continues to be an important player in the international arms trade, in the years immediately following the end of the Cold War, the United States generally led the arms market in total sales. According to the data presented in Figure 1, the United States was clearly dominant in arms-transfer agreements from 1997 through 2004. Figure 2 focuses specifically on small arms exports. The United States led all other nations with $1.2 billion in small arms exports for the year 2004, according to the Small Arms Survey. The first Bush administration began the post-Cold War era with a new policy that would allow for arms transfers to an increased number of customers, especially in the developing world. The Gulf War had provided a stage for the promotion of American arms, and as a result, they were in heavy demand. There would be significant political repercussions to some of these sales, such as the shipment of

advanced aircraft to Taiwan and new arms to South Korea; the former policy would raise Chinese objections and further stimulate a significant increase of Chinese sales of even nuclear-capable equipment to customers such as Iran and Pakistan. While China’s arms sales appear to be driven mainly by needs for hard currency, Beijing’s participation in the five-power arms-supplier agreement and in stabilizing the effects of arms shipments were undermined by such disputes. The growing array of arms exporters, which in the 1980s included developing countries, could not be sustained given the diminished global demand. Small or developing ‘third tier’ supplier countries tended to export weapons for a certain ‘niche’ in the market, for example, Brazil’s specialty weapons such as desert fighting vehicles – built on the experience of auto assembly plants – and small aircraft. Once Iraq became engaged in conflict with the United States in 1990, it was unable to pay for contracted equipment purchases from suppliers such as Brazil. Such market disruptions are painful for major arms suppliers such as Britain or Germany, but can totally undermine less established third-tier producers. As the East Bloc disintegrated at the end of the 1980s, former East Bloc arms-manufacturing states (e.g., the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Ukraine) entered the global market with hopes of bolstering their exports. Initial Czech promises to convert from military to consumer goods production quickly evaporated in the face of economic crisis. As Russia and its former allies sought armstransfer business, Washington alternated between attempts to gain international arms transfer-control agreements and coordination on the one hand and competing in sales promotions to retain market dominance on the other.

Millions 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0

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2002 China

2003 Germany

2004 Italy

Figure 1 Conventional arms-transfer agreements to developing nations in millions of constant 2004 US dollars. Data from Congressional Research Service via Grimmett, R. F. (2005). Conventional arms transfers to developing nations, 1997–2004. RL33051. Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress.

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Figure 2 Major exporters of legal small arms (in millions of 1999 US dollars). Data from Small Arms Survey 2001. Figures range from $100 to $150 million. þUnited States figures are presented for 1998.

In the wake of the Gulf War the Bush administration explored a supplier consultation agreement among the five major arms-producing states, the ‘P-5’ talks involving the United States, Russia, China, Britain, and France. However, actual coordination and mutual restraint remained elusive in specific cases. UN-authorized arms embargoes meant to dampen the Bosnian fighting proved relatively leaky, as certain factions had the advantage of local supplies while others received help through nearby countries such as Romania and more distant interested powers such as Iran. The Clinton administration followed its predecessor’s lead with an explicitly ‘Economics First’ arms trade policy, aimed at active commercial sales promotions designed to bolster trade balances and assist the arms industry’s survival and transformation. By arguing that increased sales of conventional arms to developing countries were not a pressing strategic issue, since no coalition of states armed with conventional weapons could overwhelm the West, the US government began an active promotional program to facilitate international sales while at the same time cutting governmental defense expenditures. In its ‘Blueprint for Change’, the Clinton administration sought simultaneously to enhance US industrial (export) competitiveness and national security by integrating the ‘Defense Industrial Base’ into the commercial economy, increasing Department of Defense (DOD) reliance on commercial business practices, technologies, and facilities. This was an attempt to circumvent the separate Pentagon-based specifications and standards prevailing previously, and make the entire system more commercially exploitable. Arms transfers would be promoted both in the form of finished products (entire weapon systems), but more particularly as shared technological agreements with foreign and especially allied states and firms so that US designs could be ‘co-produced’ overseas.

The events of 11 September 2001 changed the landscape somewhat, as arms exports were increasingly referred to in US policy in the context of counterterrorism efforts and concerns about weapons proliferation shifted towards WMD. During 2001–05, the US accounted for some 30% of total global deliveries of arms (small and major) – just barely in second place behind Russia, thanks to the latter’s strong sales to China and India. The US continued to pursue both security and economic motives for exports. Evidence for a shift towards security can be seen in controversial sales to Taiwan and India to balance against China, sales to traditional rivals India and Pakistan to build stronger relationships with the US, sales to countries involved in conflict (e.g., Israel, Taiwan), and despite Washington’s increased advocacy of spreading democracy, sales of arms to countries, including some in the Middle East, which were less than democratic or had less than stellar human rights records.

Change and Continuity in the Economics of Arms Transfers As a result of the ideological transformation in the international system following the Cold War, while the pattern of dominant exporters generally has been maintained, the nature of the arms trade has been at least partially transformed. By the late 1990s, with the market still relatively shrunken but beginning to recover, the United States and Russia had regained the position of joint leaders in arms transfers, with the United States generally ahead, especially in terms of arms deliveries. Periodic or short-term shifts can be discerned in the patterns. During the 2000–03 period, for example, although the United States continued to account for the vast majority of arms deliveries (51.3% of a total 148 183 in deliveries, up from 46.63% for the 1996–99 period); the United Kingdom surpassed Russia as the second largest supplier with 14.3% of total arms deliveries during this period. South and East Asia came to rival the Middle East as the main venue for governmental arms shipments, as is evident in Figure 3. With the decline in major power tensions, developing states grew to account for 78% of all arms imports ($522 billion out of a total of $669 billion) over the last decade of the Cold War. Indeed, the stage had been set for the Gulf War of 1990–91 in the massive supplies Saddam Hussein’s Iraq had received throughout the 1980s as it fought Iran (which likewise received considerable Western armament). Indeed less developed countries (LDCs) increased their prominence as arms recipients, even as on the supply-side developed states exported about 90% of weapons as calculated by the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. During the 2000–03 period, the

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Millions 100 80 60 40 20 0 ia an a ce ic O er Am th a or ic N er Am pe tin ro La Eu rn te pe es ro W Eu n er st st Ea Ea

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Figure 3 Arms imports by region, 1995–99 in millions of constant 1999 US dollars. Data from US State Department (2001). World military expenditures and arms transfers, 1999–2000 (October). Washington, DC: US State Department.

total value of all arms-transfer agreements (about $126.9 billion) was lower than the worldwide value during the 1996–99 period ($133.7 billion), a decrease of 5.1%. During this period, developing-world nations accounted for 60.4% of all arms-transfer agreements made worldwide, down from 67.3% for the 1996–99 period. (Grimmett report) Thus, during and after the Cold War the international arms economy differed sharply from the rest of the international economy, which centered mostly on trade among developed states themselves. The leading arms-importing states tend to vary year to year, though many remain in the top 10 or 15 importers through time. Figure 4 illustrates the top ten major arms importers for the 2000–05 period. The information was compiled by the SIPRI database utilizing the categories of items provided by the United Nations. As with arms exporters, market and political trends also have affected arms buyers. On the one hand, weapons are more plentifully available worldwide. States that previously purchased from the Soviet Union, particularly prime clients with security problems, such as India and Syria, now face the necessity of purchasing from various suppliers. Iran Taiwan Israel UK South Korea Egypt Turkey Greece India China 0

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16

Figure 4 Arms deliveries to Major Conventional Weapons, 2000–05, Top 10 recipients (in millions of dollars at constant 1990 prices). Data from SIPRI Arms Transfers Database.

Many such states still purchase from the former East Bloc states because of low prices and weapon familiarity. Although potential dependency and restrictions on spare parts and ammunition remain, buyers with the financial ability to shop among sellers have found that they often no longer have to provide assurances about the use of the weapons. If customers are willing to settle for somewhat less advanced technologies and greater uncertainties about spare parts and technical support, they can gain quite an arsenal. On the other hand, these arms, while plentiful, are more difficult for many to afford despite cheaper prices from some suppliers. Previous concessional terms for sales all but disappeared with the end of strategic arms transfers in the Cold War bipolar system. Suppliers are more likely to demand either cash payment or commercial (bank) credit rates. States no longer can depend on their strategic importance as a motivation for a superpower to provide arms via grants or at discounted rates, although China may still do so in response to other powers’ policies and the US may do so for especially favored clients such as Israel. Without subsidies, many less developed states’ budgets are insufficient to support major weapons purchases even at cut-rate prices. States unable to afford to purchase arms outright are finding themselves with fewer diplomatic and strategic options, though they may enter the ‘gray markets’ of covert or used equipment supplies. China is a pivotal state in this arms-trade equation, since it is at once a lower cost source of reliable military equipment and at the same time a primary importer of relatively high technology equipment, especially from its former political nemesis, Russia. Indeed, Russian sales to China in the mid-1990s, along with those to Iran, were largely responsible for Moscow’s re-emergence as a leading weapons dealer. China had been waiting since the days of its difficult battles with Vietnam in the 1970s to modernize its antiquated arsenal with compatible equipment. At the same time, the leadership of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army evidently obtained significant subsidies to support the costs of this modernization through arms exports to the Middle East and South Asia. As discussed earlier, in line with the increased interdependence of the international economy and in an attempt to reach the market more effectively, Western arms industries have increased their transnational collaboration. Figure 5 shows the dramatic increase in the number of joint ventures, strategic alliances, and mergers and acquisitions. While Western Europe has become a major source of international collaboration, other armsproducing nations are following suit, including those of the developing world. Although the arms industry, especially in the United States, remains somewhat more nationalistic than other economic sectors due in part to the perceived strategic value of arms production, the primacy of technological competitiveness in a

132 Arms Trade, Economics of

60 Joint Ventures 50 40

Strategic Alliances Mergers and Acquisitions

30 20 10 0 3 –9 91 19

0 –9 86 19

5 –8 81 19

0 –8 76 19

5 –7 71 19

0 –7 66 19

5 –6 61 19

Figure 5 The globalization of the defense industry, 1961–93. Data from DBP Globalization Database via Bitzinger (1994).

post-Cold War setting has meant more cross-national collaboration and fewer restrictions on the sharing of technology or the transfer of weapons to various regions. The kinds of complications this presents for customers is illustrated in the complex Saudi Arabian acquisition of armored vehicles, begun in 1991 and continuing through 1995, originating in a contract with a Swiss firm, subcontracted for production to a US General Motors subsidiary in Canada, and related to a separate version produced in Britain, thus involving the priorities and specifications of two different Saudi customers (National Guard and Land Forces) and four different supplier governments. As a result of significant mergers and acquisitions, such as the 2005 merger between BAE Systems in the UK and United Defense in the USA, the arms industry has become increasingly concentrated. By 2003, the top five companies accounted for 44% of major arms sales, according to SIPRI. Higher weapon costs, a burden to arms purchasers, and stagnant demand also represent a lingering problem for arms-manufacturing states and firms, especially in Europe. Since the 1980s it has been clear that no single European state can maintain production over the full range of advanced military technology in land, sea, and air equipment. Indeed, Clinton administration officials argued that even the United States could be forced into a cut-rate price battle with Europe and Russia to sell off excess defense goods, and that a national export policy alone is not sufficient to save industries. To reach efficient economies of scale, international joint ventures in production became commonplace, with the principle of juste retour (fair return) utilized to allocate shares of work and proceeds from sales, usually in proportion to the financial commitment made by the participating industrial partners and governments. The effect has been to perpetuate what many see as excess production capabilities, even though total global arms production has been falling.

Even in the face of global overcapacity in many sectors of the arms industry, because of government contracting and research costs, price cutting has remained rare and largely confined to the former East Bloc. Collaborative production also has been shown to increase the overall costs of research and production in particular projects, thus prompting price inflation. Among other factors affecting arms prices at any given time are the effects of wars, embargoes, and boycotts, budgetary stringency, acquisition cycles (military forces must be able to ‘digest’ or prepare to use the equipment), and governmental changes. All of these factors introduce uncertainty in the minds of suppliers and recipients concerning the availability and ‘terms of trade’ for arms, related equipment, supplies, and technical assistance. Such costs and uncertainties are likely to affect the future competition among arms suppliers. It remains to be seen, for example, whether Europe, China, and Russia will choose to compete in full force against US advances in expensive stealth, optical, computer, satellite, and electronic weapons technologies. Indeed, some analysts predict a near US monopoly of advanced weapons production during the early twenty-first century. China’s entry into space exploration, however, seems to signal a potential major push in the direction of weaponsapplicable high technology. If Europe also competes, the pressure will increase to do so on a unified European Union (EU) basis. However, the infrastructure for a European defense industry, especially a Euroconstitution and common defense policy and procurement, is not yet in place. It is also likely, especially with NATO’s expansion, that US firms will be encouraged to develop these new technologies jointly with European partners in order to forestall full-scale competition among arms producers. Clearly, the trend in international weapons production and sales has been toward cross-national collaboration

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engineered mainly by the companies themselves, and less frequently as time has gone on, by governments. Since Russian and Chinese firms are late entering this mix, they will be hard pressed to attract Western partners willing to share high-technology approaches and invest significant capital. Conceivably, Russia and China could find common arms-production ground for joint ventures of their own in the lower cost end of the market. In a variety of ways, from the sale of government weapons factories and establishments, to corporate-led mergers, acquisitions, and co-production agreements, the international arms business has become both more privatized and more concentrated in fewer centers of production, even as governments retain their interest in fostering technology, production capacity, defense procurement, and weapon planning. As noted, nongovernmental arms transfers, those from companies and groups also appear to be gaining precedence and visibility. Alongside the shift from government sales to greater company involvement, the arms being transferred are undergoing change in the post-Cold War marketplace. Increasingly, arms transfers consist not simply of finished equipment, but of components available for assembly abroad and of licenses to continue production in the recipient country or countries. Customers want greater flexibility to mount various components on weapon ‘platforms’ such as tanks, planes, or ships. They also want the employment and economic benefits of manufacturing the weapons they purchase, or of guaranteed ‘counter-trade’, that is, commitments that weapons-supplying states will purchase their exports in return. As arms-manufacturing firms have come to greater prominence in structuring the arms-transfer system, the United States and other major power governments have encouraged them and offered incentives to develop dual use products, as in advanced radar and computers, for example. Such products, of course, are more difficult to keep track of and restrict in their potential availability to foreign states and groups, a trend that worries some armscontrol advocates and defense planners. Theoretically, militarily useful technology can be identified and restricted as to distribution, but there is a greater probability of items proliferating through lack of oversight, as they fall into more hands, and as more advanced civilian technology becomes incorporated into military products in a process known as ‘spin-on’ (a reversal of earlier disappointments with ‘spin-off’, i.e., the expectation that military developments would become commercially useful in consumer products). Given the costs and risks associated with developing expensive new major military products, it also has been suggested that computer models of products will be developed, along with a few prototypes for testing, but that actual mass production and deployment of major weapon systems might be delayed until actual

battlefield needs develop. If so, this would put greater premiums on updates of existing systems and designs, along with technology and licenses for export purposes, since the most advanced concepts would not exist in finished form. Thus, the sale of various forms of military technology, rather than fixed weapon systems themselves, appears to be a high priority for the future. Less developed states demand greater know-how in acquiring and producing (usually assembling, sometimes redesigning and ‘retrofitting’) arms. It will remain difficult for minor powers to afford the technology to produce complete major weapons such as jet aircraft and tanks, since so many different forms of technology – materials design, electronics, munitions, engines, and so on – go into such systems. Yet they will at least want to be able to make use of these technologies, and push for ‘spin-ons’ of their own. Technology transfers, increasingly in private business deals outside official governmental channels, will continue to attract government interest and control attempts. The United States has expressed hopes of confining commercially useful advanced technology sharing to a relatively small ‘‘circle of friends’’ (presumably in Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and Asia) who would agree not to release it more widely. However, it remains unclear how effective such a transfer regime might be in restricting technology on offer to developing states such as Iran, or acquired by rival powers such as China or Russia, and in maintaining the basic hierarchy and dominance of developed states. Some have argued that the trend toward international corporate collaboration will inevitably erode these hierarchies. Even as major and third tier suppliers struggle with the motivation to export and yet control exports, more developing states have shown prowess in devising effective weaponry of their own. Iran and North Korea, for example, have diligently worked to develop their own missiles, which they then have distributed to other friendly states and client groups abroad to increase both political and regional influence and export revenues. Similar to emerging cross-national networks for collaborative weapons production and distribution are the emerging covert networks for illicit arms distribution.

Conflict, War, and the Economics of Arms Transfers While arms can be collected for prestige and deterrent purposes, the ‘payoff’ of arms acquisition is basically use in war. Only in this way do weapons become a ‘consumable’ product. Yet the bulk of major equipment obtained by governments may never be used in battle, and indeed may be too sophisticated and costly to risk in battle. Saddam Hussein dispatched many of his advanced jet

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fighters for safekeeping in rival Iran when US-led coalition forces attacked him in 1991. The relationship of armament and warfare is complicated and something of a two-way street; it is difficult to predict whether arms acquisitions and buildups precede or follow war outbreaks. Despite the ‘conventional wisdom’ that armament leads to warfare, acquisition of newer and more advanced arms may have little to do with the probability of war initiation, either domestic or foreign. Arms are sought for a variety of domestic and foreign security reasons, as well as for technology, prestige, and bargaining influence. Advanced weapon systems may be desired mainly for reputation and to satisfy military/ bureaucratic interests, while simpler arms are more exclusively relevant to battlefield needs. Nevertheless, arms acquisitions can be a catalyst for war-making by emboldening already aggressive leaders or frightening their opponents. As noted earlier, arms acquired over a long period by Iraq allowed for its subsequent attack on Kuwait in 1990, and went little noticed by the international community. Historically, it has been shown that arms races between rivals tend to precede wars, but that not all such races end in war. In given wars, the pattern of arms acquisition tends to show peaks and valleys. Often the fighting is preceded by gradual arms buildups on one or both sides over a period of years, but these buildups seldom coincide with the exact outbreak of fighting itself. If fighting is prolonged, one or more supply replenishments may be needed, and the arrival of new arms shipments often follows major offensives, as depleted supplies are replaced. These replenishments generally appear to prolong and intensify the combat. Especially in civil wars, as much as 40% of a force’s armaments may be acquired through capture, raids, and battlefield pickup. Major ongoing wars have attracted huge weapon influxes, as in the case of the Iran–Iraq and the Afghanistan fighting of the 1980s. Supplies of both major and light weapons are stepped up; since the sources of light arms are far more numerous than the relatively few producers of heavy equipment, supplies may come from inside a country or through foreign connections. As these wars play themselves out, arms tend to be sold off and redistributed to the next war theater; in the case of Afghanistan, for example, much equipment found its way subsequently into the erupting civil conflicts of South Asia – India–Pakistan skirmishing, Pakistan’s Sind province upheavals, Kashmir uprisings, northern Indian states and ethnic fighting, and Sri Lanka. Those militants who formed the terror organization al Qaeda were sustained and armed initially by the input of US equipment in resisting the Soviets in Afghanistan. Thus, we find that arms cascade from war to war, as local groups gain incentive to sell them off for profit or to provide aid to friends abroad, and that a country’s prior political strategies can

come back to haunt them as their own armament is turned against them. The conventional wisdom has maintained that governments provide arms to other governments in order to maintain ‘stability’ in key states, which often translates to maintaining the status quo regime in power, as Washington did for example for more than three decades in Zaire – now the Democratic Republic of the Congo – in Africa. Yet such ‘stability’ policies often fail, as in the downfall of the Shah’s government in Iran, one of the best-armed Third World states, in 1979. Sometimes the security threat is not well-defined, so that when arms are sold to Indonesia, for example, they may be designed for external threats but end up being used in domestic campaigns, as in the ultimately abortive but highly destructive attempt to prevent East Timor’s independence. These armed struggles often spawn human rights violations and confront the arms supplier with the dilemma of whether to cut them off and risk overall relations with the recipient regime. Occasionally, as well, a government will provide arms to foreign insurgents in order to help overthrow an existing government, as the United States did during the 1980s to ‘contra’ forces in Nicaragua. The embarrassing and reckless Iran–Contra deal resulted, whereby US arms were funneled, despite an embargo, to Iran in order to foster the release of American hostages in Lebanon and fund arms for the Contras despite a Congressional ban on such supplies. The plot was discovered and the Reagan administration was discredited. Common causes against so-called terrorist organizations could lead to similar manipulations today. For a government such as Russia’s, confronted with breakaway republics and complex multiparty ethnic disputes along its borders, arms supplies to various governmental and nongovernmental factions can be seen as a mechanism of security, influence, and control. Nongovernmental arms transfers, of course, also can fan the flames of war, as when insurgents and rebels are supplied from abroad by either states or other nonstate actors. Arms supplies can be a proxy for direct military intervention, the hope being that a group will succeed in its military campaign and relieve the supplying state of the necessity to take direct action. On the other hand if the recipient group or state fails militarily, pressure can mount on the supplier to intervene and salvage the situation. The spread of war can result. Thus arms supplies to increase stability or assure a desired outcome in a client state or region might have precisely the opposite effect.

Prospects for Controlling the Arms Trade Arms control and disarmament are not new aims. However, approaches and policies to achieve such goals have differed when comparing the Cold War to the

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post-Cold War eras. During the Cold War, conventional arms-control efforts were largely focused on major conventional weapons, on the unilateral or multilateral efforts of major exporting states, and a focus on controlling the spread of weapons and weapon technologies primarily. Since the end of the Cold War, arms-control efforts have shifted somewhat, with a focus on both major arms and small arms. Arms control efforts are undertaken by a broader group of actors; some efforts are multinational and played out in the United Nations, others are regional, and many nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have joined the efforts to push for arms control. In addition, today’s arms-control efforts have broadened. Efforts remain underway not only to prevent the spread of arms, but also promote within war-torn countries the disarmament and demobilization of soldiers, the elimination of leftover weapons such as land mines, and the reintegration of combatants into society. As the discussion in this section will reveal, management of weapons flows, like weapon sales themselves, depends on both supply-side and demand-side factors. For example, given the continued and increased push for arms exports, and the multifaceted nature of arms supplies – from governmental and nongovernmental sources – the possibility of controlling conventional arms proliferation might be viewed with considerable skepticism. Indeed the arms-supply system has been described as one whose rhetoric speaks of control and whose reality is chaos. Arms cascade through regions under the push of weapon marketers and brokers and the pull of military and militia needs. It is very difficult to predict or control in whose hands they end up. While optimists point to the relatively small number of major arms customers and the rise of democracies in many parts of the world (with their supposed potential for precluding violence and peacefully resolving disputes among themselves), much of the arms transfers in recent years have gone to less than fully democratic regimes. Indeed depending upon how one counts ‘democracies’, it has been estimated that up to 84% of US government-togovernment weapon sales agreements during the first half of the 1990s went to undemocratic regimes. Furthermore, the widespread availability of weapons among various societal groups and nations can foster insecurities and militaristic policies, and skew budgets away from social programs, all of which can undermine the principles of democratic rule as well as peace. Thus, given these effects and the potential for increased global and regional terrorism, the need for conventional arms control remains strong in the post-Cold War era. Ironically, even as weapons remain plentiful, the ability of arms recipients to ensure autonomy through arms imports is reduced by changes in the international arms market. Recipients have maneuvered to maintain their options and avoid overdependence on specific foreign

arms suppliers. However, the end of the Cold War has diminished their options to play major powers off against each other. The number of suppliers per recipient seemed to peak during the late 1980s, and has diminished somewhat thereafter, indicating a rise of dependency on fewer suppliers. Thus, while arms may reverberate through the system for years, finding their way from region to region and war to war, the supply of new high-technology equipment at the top of the pyramid can still be restrictive. This provides an avenue for potential arms-control agreements. Arms-transfer controls can only work if major suppliers agree on the provisions and work seriously toward their implementation, if recipients are included in the negotiations and provided some semblance of reliable security, and if new means of reducing weapons concealment, retransfer, and smuggling can be devised. Given the erosion of strategic restraint on arms agreements, the commercialization and privatization of the arms-supply system, and continuing production overcapacities, the prospects for such coordination are not bright. Restrictions would have to apply to two characteristics of arms transfers: ‘vertical proliferation’, that is, the transfer of specific and often new and advanced arms technologies to regions that do not now have them; and ‘horizontal proliferation’, that is, the spread of weapons to specific states or groups. Little progress has been made so far in either of these areas. Very few existing agreements have been implemented to restrict technology transfers, though there has been an attempt to carry over old Western Cold War rules against strategic exports into the post-Cold War setting. Exporters have consulted especially on limiting the availability of missiles above certain ranges (the Missile Technology Control Regime) or particularly harmful forms of weaponry, such as expanding bullets and land mines. Despite such efforts, the American Director of Central Intelligence reported in 1996 that ‘‘the industrialized states in Europe and South America’’ along with other developing states and private dealers, ‘‘supply ballistic missile technology – and in some cases entire missile systems – to developing countries around the world.’’ America’s own sales of advanced jet fighters, able to deliver weapons of mass destruction, tend to undermine Washington’s credibility in objecting to missile transfers by other states. A transitional arms-control effort, the ‘P-5’ talks named after the permanent five members of the United Nations security council, was initiated in 1991, with a focus on restraining the supply of arms to the Middle East by China, France, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the USSR/Russia. Multiple rounds of meetings were held in 1991 and 1992. However, difficulties emerged in agreeing on transparency measures and reporting requirements, and in 1992 the United States decided to sell Taiwan F-16 fighter aircraft, which prompted China to walk out of the arrangement.

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In 1993, member states of the West’s ‘CoCoM’ export control regime, which had been formed to safeguard military technology transfers during the Cold War, sought to reorient the regime to the new global order in which the East–West focus seemed inappropriate. They declared an end to CoCoM and established in its place what was first called the ‘New Forum’ and later the Wassenaar Arrangement on Export Controls for Conventional Arms and Dual-Use Goods and Technologies or the ‘Wassenaar Arrangement’ (after the Netherlands town where discussions took place). As stated in its initial elements, the Arrangement was ‘‘established in order to contribute to regional and international security and stability, by promoting transparency and greater responsibility in transfers of conventional arms and dual-use goods and technologies, thus preventing destabilizing accumulations. Participating States will seek, through their national policies, to ensure that transfers of these items do not contribute to the development or enhancement of military capabilities which undermine these goals, and are not diverted to support such capabilities.’’ While the stated intent is laudable, the criteria for evaluating the success of these pledges were not very precise.

A second effort at transparency bore fruit in 1993 with the operational establishment of the published United Nations Register of Conventional Arms. According to the United Nations: ‘‘On 6 December 1991, the General Assembly adopted resolution 46/36 L entitled ‘Transparency in armaments’, which requested the Secretary-General to establish and maintain at United Nations Headquarters in New York a universal and non-discriminatory Register of Conventional Arms, to include data on international arms transfers as well as information provided by Member States on military holdings, procurement through national production and relevant policies.’’ The Register comprises seven categories of major conventional arms, namely, battle tanks, armored combat vehicles, large-caliber artillery systems, combat aircraft, attack helicopters, warships (including submarines) as well as missiles and missile-launchers. It has been published annually since 1992. Thus far, a total of 169 Member States (both arms suppliers and recipients), have reported to the Register one or more times. The Register captures the great bulk of the global arms trade in the categories of conventional weapons covered by it. Table 1 provides an example of the UN Register of

Table 1 British American Security Information Council Basic Reports, 28 October 1996. Number 54. ISSN 0966-9175. Summary of supplier submissions to the UN Register for Conventional Arms for 1995

Argentina Belgium Canada China Czech Rep. Finland France Germany Israel Italy Kazakhstan Netherlands Poland Rep. of Korea Romania Russian Fed. Slovakia South Africa Switzerland Ukraine United Kingdom United States Total

Battle tanks

Armored combat vehicles

Large-caliber artillery systems

Combat aircraft

Attack helicopters

Warships

Missiles and missile launchers

0 0 0 51 0 0 25 0 0 0 0 0 72 0

0 118 294 20 62 31 0 335 0 0 0 0 0 47

18 0 0 0 70 0 0 15 0 18 0 0 0 0

0 1 0 1 21 0 3 0 3 0 6 0 0 3

0 0 0 0 0 0 6 20 0 0 0 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 6 0 0 0 1 0 0

0 0 0 18 0 0 11 0 20 0 0 0 0 0

0 0

81 451

1 210

0 46

0 0

0 1

0 0

6 0

57 43

6 0

0 0

0 0

0 0

0 0

0 64 12

10 8 137

0 0 55

0 4 12

0 0 1

0 0 1

0 159 0

416

1089

152

128

25

0

3033

646

2783

545

228

52

9

3241

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Conventional Arms for 1995. Generally, the number of countries reporting to the UN registry has increased from 95 in 1992 to 116 in 2004, according to the UN Department of Disarmament Affairs. One key goal of the Register process is to prevent, or at least expose, the ‘‘excessive and destabilizing’’ accumulation of arms, a task that, as seen previously, is subject to definitional and practical problems. Clearly, no enforcement or restriction mechanisms are built into the registration process, as the emphasis was laid on encouraging universality of reporting. This allows some calculus of arms preparations and replenishments; it can spark diplomatic questioning among governments as to hostile intent or threat perception. Questions can be raised about the whereabouts of weapons or implication of deals known through other sources to have occurred. In essence the Register is an aid in arms-control tracking and verification. Public disclosure of arms deals, through the UN Register, the Wassenaar Arrangements, and other forums, led to demands for setting standards of conduct in the arms trade. Recognizing that such trade will continue at least in some forms as long as economic incentives allow, many arms control advocates, including a number in the US Congress, have implemented a nonbinding but global code of conduct for at least portions of that trade. Early in 1996 Britain’s Labour Party, recalling UK sales to Iraq during the 1980s, called for the EU to adopt a code barring sales to regimes that ‘‘would use them for repressive purposes or to threaten to invade neighboring countries.’’ By April 1997, the EU was attempting to combat illegal weapons exports through a common policy focused on the difficulty in tracking the movements of conventional arms. The US Congress passed a code of conduct on international arms sales in 1999, and in 2001 representatives of more than 100 nations agreed at the UN on the ‘Program of Action to Prevent, Combat, and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons’, with a follow-on conference in 2006 to review progress under the agreement. The program can be seen as a small arms counterpart to the UN’s Register of major conventional arms. States agreed to take a series of measures to prevent, combat and eradicate the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons at the national level (e.g., putting in place adequate laws for controlling small arms production and transfer), at the regional level (e.g., to coordinate action between countries on combating the illicit trade), and at the global level (e.g., to encourage disarmament and demobilization, particularly in postconflict situations.) The 2001 Code called for states to authorize transfers of small arms in line with ‘‘existing responsibilities of States under relevant international law.’’ Unfortunately, however, there is no consensus on what international law requires concerning arms transfers, and the sale of weapons by governments has been

relatively untouched. As noted by concerned interest groups, ‘‘the lack of specific and strong export criteria increases the likelihood that countries will sell weapons to places where they would be used to fuel conflict or threaten civilians.’’ Advocates such as Costa Rica’s Nobel Laureate Oscar Arias have proposed additional corresponding codes of conduct for arms-purchasing nations. Because of political debates inside major power capitals, and the pressure of citizen groups, the emphasis for codes of conduct is on potential use of arms in warfare and human rights abuses. However, the questions of legitimate self-defense, of gaining common definitions of human rights (economic vs. political vs. social rights), and of commercial sales interests are imported into these debates. Codes therefore lack enforcement mechanisms, and might or might not gain the status of international law. They are bound to have escape clauses that would be put into contention in specific cases. Nevertheless, the development of accepted norms and standards leading to greater legal standing and authority is imperative to build the basis of commercial and security law and accepted regulations in this domain. Supplementing the efforts to control arms at the global level are regional agreements to scale back or restrict technological and quantitative arms races. One such effort has taken place in Southeast Asia, where, in line with the 2001 UN Program of Action, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Chiefs of Police (ASEANAPOL) adopted a program that committed member states to: information; • Exchange Harmonize market system of ammunition, • weapons, andthe their components; border and customs intelligence in coopera• Exchange tion with EUROPOL and INTERPOL; law enforcement capacity-building by coop• Enhance eration and training; institutional capacity such as the establish• Develop ment of a regional database of information on illicit weapons and procedures for destruction of surplus weapons and cooperation with non-ASEAN states. Other measures adopted in the region include institutional control mechanisms; collection and destruction; and efforts to reduce demand. Such measures are meant to combat the growing availability of weapons, both large and small, which facilitate terrorism and threaten the ability of governments to control their territories, including such farflung island territories as the Philippines and Indonesia. According to US Congressional testimony in 2003, roughly half of the illegal small arms circulating in the region are left over from the Cambodian civil war, with another large portion recycled from the 1980s war in Afghanistan. In addition, factories in southern China

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spread new arms into Southeast Asia through several greatly expanded trade routes. In addition to multilateral undertakings to control arms, worries about technological proliferation are sometimes sufficient to produce unilateral arms-trade restrictions. In 1996 the US Congress effectively blocked several potentially lucrative US sales out of concern about the introduction of advanced weapon technologies into a nearby region not traditionally subject to arms races. For example, the reported sale of 15 Harpoon antiship cruise missiles to Brazil, a deal worth approximately $36 million, was canceled after key congressional leaders questioned the introduction of higher technology. The administration had been ready to proceed with the sale on the premise that Argentina already had the technology and that democracies in the region were more trustworthy than the former authoritarian regimes. However, the State Department tended to question the latter premise, which the Defense Department defended. Thus intragovernmental battles between economic interests and security and diplomatic agencies sometimes can lead to arms sale cancelations. The use of arms embargoes and sanctions designed to cut off funds for arms purchases gained momentum during the early 1990s, but with uneven and sometimes disappointing results in stifling violent conflict. Used sporadically and with indifferent results during the Cold War, when opposing major power camps offered alternative suppliers, embargoes and sanctions of various types were declared in the 1990s in situations of crossborder threats (Iraq), internal wars (Somalia, Liberia, Rwanda, Sudan, and the former Yugoslavia), human rights violations (Haiti), and noncompliance with antiterrorism norms (Libya). The United States also sought international bans against Iran, but compliance was confined mainly to NATO allies, while Russia, for economic and geopolitical reasons, constituted a major defector. In general, the targets of embargoes did not abandon objectionable policies; arms deliveries may have been delayed or detoured but were not precluded, and the pacifying effects of the arms bans were sporadic at best. Nevertheless, some encouraging signs emerged, as in progress by the EU in creating a standardized list of items that should fall under embargoes of varying degrees of comprehensiveness and intensity, and in reported effects of funding cut-offs to warring Sri Lankan factions in the wake of the 2001 terrorism disaster in New York City. Without broad supply cooperation and the additional effect of freezing economic assets it is very difficult to isolate or ‘quarantine’ a given internal dispute, particularly as factions may have friends across nearby borders and alternate or covert channels of funding arms purchases. A state such as Croatia, for example, was able to play a key role, probably with the knowledge if not the blessing of Washington, in routing weapons to the

Bosnian government despite an official UN embargo. Many onlookers became sympathetic to the notion that the Muslim-dominated Bosnian government should be allowed to catch up to the better armed Bosnian Serbs (also an interest of Croatia’s), but not that Bosnia should be so emboldened as to go on a binge of ‘ethnic cleansing’ of its own. Such precise balances are indeed difficult to achieve, and put arms suppliers among ‘strange bedfellows’; in Bosnia’s case Iran’s growing role in the arms pipeline became alarming, and NATO itself felt compelled to send in troops. Unless arms purchasers also agree on the necessity for restraint, supplier controls will be controversial and generally less than fully effective. Such controls can appear to customers as thinly veiled attempts by the well-armed to impose hegemony on the weak, especially if the advanced states do not themselves pledge to uphold the purchaser’s security, renounce and abandon certain advanced weapon technologies, or make available those that can be most commercially rewarding in the civilian sector. While it is now difficult to play major powers off against each other, customers generally can find at least one arms supplier willing to sell, although they might have to settle for a somewhat lower level of technology. Economic desperation on the part of key suppliers can loosen the rein on technology transfers. Thus, in one sense a supplierimposed restrictive system is subject to being undermined, while in another the proliferation of technologies can be somewhat slowed. One lower level but quite lethal technology about which many suppliers and recipients generally have agreed involves land mines. Significant progress was made during the 1990s, largely under Canadian aegis, in raising consciousness and harmonizing viewpoints on the long-term persistent dangers of dispersed ‘anti-personnel’ weapons in killing and maiming innocent civilians. Still, the US, along with other top military powers including Russia and China, failed to sign the international convention against the manufacture and use of land mines (the Ottawa Treaty) in 1997. American military leaders remained opposed to a complete ban on the availability of such weapons, arguing that potential battlefields, such as those in Korea, could only be defended with the use of mines. Seeking a moderate position in international negotiations, the Clinton Administration supported the notion of some sort of ban on development and deployment of the least detectable mines and substitution of self-disarming types along with mine clearance and victim assistance. Going beyond land mines themselves, the general category of small and light weapons drew increased international attention as their effect in civil and ethnopolitical wars became increasingly evident in the post-Cold War period. Although some see them as a hedge against government tyranny, the widespread availability of such weapons tends to increase the number of actors and degree

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of factional fighting in domestic conflicts, tends to facilitate acts of terrorism, increases casualties and vendettas, complicates peacemaking and peacekeeping efforts, and generally impedes the rule of law. These concerns culminated in the first meeting of the United Nations Panel of Governmental Experts on Small Arms in 1996. The difficulties of finding common ground in managing the flow of rifles, mortars, grenades, rocket launchers, and miniature missiles became evident in these initial efforts, which themselves were kept extraordinarily secret. The panel’s charge included three issues: (1) studying types of small arms and light weapons being used in conflicts in which the UN is playing a role; (2) factors in the ‘excessive and destabilizing transfer’ of such weapons, including illicit production and trade; (3) ways and means of preventing or reducing such destabilizing transfers and accumulations of arms, in particular in relation to conflict management. Disagreements emerged, however, as to the exact definitions of ‘small’ and ‘light’, for example, whether to include pistols and explosives; ‘destabilizing transfers’ also appeared difficult to define. Some on the panel opposed looking deeply into supposed ‘causes’ of violent conflicts, and appropriate arms-control measures promised to be controversial. Experts from certain countries pressed only for exposing the problem rather than campaigning for solutions, while hard-pressed Latin and Asian countries, concerned about such phenomena as ‘narcoterrorism’, tended to favor immediate emphasis on the illicit and clandestine arms trade. As arms-control efforts apply to ever-smaller arms and to disarming insurgents, a process dubbed as ‘micro-disarmament’, more nongovernmental organizations campaigned to be allowed into the discussions – groups as diverse as the American National Rifle Association and global human rights organizations. Those who looked for feasible options to promote control of smaller arms have offered the following suggestions: (1) improved policing and border security, designed to get arms off the streets of larger cities and out of the countryside of states throughout the world, allowing people to go about their daily lives with less disruption; (2) production, export, and import controls, which would pose legislative barriers to the manufacture and possession of certain types of arms, a tactic quite successful in some countries; (3) incentives to turn in weapons – having been tried in US cities, Haiti, Panama, and Nicaragua with some limited success; (4) factfinding and capacity-building assistance, through the UN or regional organizations, to states struggling against arms proliferation; (5) extending the UN Register system (see Table 1) to smaller arms, which some fear would undermine the already less than universal participation in that system; (6) embargoes (see ahead); (7) forced disarmament of factions and fighters, particularly during peacekeeping missions, which some see as a contradiction in terms and training; (8) bans on certain types of weapons, for example, mines and blinding lasers, the arguments for which gain

power as the brutal nature of the armament becomes more apparent; (9) ‘conditionalities’ which tie the payment of foreign aid to progress in arms control or disarmament – a variant of this is a ‘peace tax’ on weapons sales and manufacture – neither of which seems feasible very soon, given policy dilemmas on the foreign assistance question; and (10) multilateral consultative mechanisms such as the Panel of Experts meetings and renewed conventional arms transfer (CAT) talks, originally seen during Jimmy Carter’s administration, among major weapon governmental suppliers, an approach that seems to gain urgency after particular wars or crises. Finally, future initiatives have been suggested to magnify these measures, such as limits or bans on varying forms of lobbying by arms manufacturers. See also: Arms Control; Cold War; Military–Industrial Complex, Contemporary Significance; Military–Industrial Complex, Organization and History

Further Reading Amnesty International and TransArms (2006). Dead on time – Arms transportation, brokering and the threat to human rights. http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGACT300082006 (accessed December 2007). Anders, H. and Cattaneo, S. (2005). Regulating arms brokering: Taking stock and moving forward the United Nations process. Brussels: Groupe de recherche et d’information sur la paix et la se´curite´ (GRIP). http://www.iansa.org/issues/documents/brokering-reportgrip0905.pdf(accessed December 2007). Anderton, C. H. (1995). Economics of arms trade. In Hartley, K. and Sandler, T. (eds.) Handbook of defense economics, vol. 1, pp. 523–561. Amsterdam: North Holland. Arms Trade News (passim, 1996). Washington, DC: Council for a Livable World Education Fund. Bitzinger, R. A. (1994). The Globalization of the Arms Industry: The next proliferation challenge. International Security 19(2), 170–198. Brauer, J. and Dunne, J. P., (eds.) (2002). Arming the south: The economics of military expenditure, arms production and arms trade in developing countries. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Brauer, J. and Dunne, J. P., (eds.) (2004). Arms trade and economic development: Theory, policy, and cases in arms trade offsets. New York: Routledge. Brzoska, M. (2004). The economics of arms imports after the end of the Cold War. Defence and Peace Economics 15(2), 111–123. Brzoska, M. and Pearson, F. (1994). Developments in the global supply of arms: Opportunity and motivation. Annals, American Association of Political and Social Sciences 583, 58–72. Brzoska, M. and Pearson, F. (1995). Arms and warfare: Escalation, deescalation, negotiation. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press. Catrina, C. (1988). Arms transfers and dependence. New York: Taylor and Francis/UNIDIR. Costigan, S. S. and Markusen, A. R. (eds.) (1999). Arming the future: A defense industry for the 21st century. New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press. Cupitt, R. T. (1993). The political economy of arms exports in postcommunist societies: The cases of Poland and the CSFR. Communist and Post-Communist Studies 26, 87–103. Defense News (passim). Springfield, VA: Army Times Publishing Co. Dyer, S. L. (1996). UN register data compilation. Basic reports (October). Washington, DC: British American Security Information Council. Factsheet (1996). Washington, DC: Peace Action Education Fund, November. Geneva Graduate Institute for International Studies (passim). Small arms survey. New York: Oxford University Press.

140 Assassinations, Political Goldring, N. J. (1996). UN Experts’ panel on small arms faces obstacles. Basic reports (October). Washington, DC: British American Security Information Council. Grimmett, R. F. (2005). Conventional arms transfers to developing nations, 1997–2004. RL33051. Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress. Hull, A. and Markov, D. (1996). The changing nature of the international arms market. Alexandria, VA: Institute for Defense Analysis. Kapstein, E. B. (ed.) (1992). Global arms production: Policy dilemmas for the 1990s. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Kapstein, E. B. (1994). America’s arms-trade monopoly: Lagging sales will starve lesser suppliers. Foreign Affairs 73, 13–19. Keller, W. W. (1995). Arm in arm: The political economy of the global arms trade. New York: Basic Books. Keller, W. W. and Nolan, J. E. (2001). Mortgaging security for economic gain: US arms policy in an insecure world. International Studies Perspectives 2(2), 177–193. Klinghofer, A. J. and Apter, J. (1985). Israel and the Soviet Union: Alienation or reconciliation? Boulder, CO: Westview. Kolodziej, E. and Pearson, F. (1989). The political economy of making and marketing arms: A test for the systemic imperatives of order and welfare. Occasional papers 8904. St Louis: Center for International Studies, University of Missouri-St. Louis. Krause, K. (1992). Arms and the state: Patterns of military production and trade. New York: Cambridge University Press. Laurance, E. and Meek, S. (1996). The new field of micro-disarmament: Addressing the proliferation and buildup of small arms and light weapons. Brief 7 (September). Bonn: Bonn International Center for Conversion. Lewis, J. A. (2005). Multilateral arms transfer restraint: The limits of cooperation. Arms Control Today 35(9), (October). Levine, P. and Smith, R. (eds.) (2003). Arms trade, security and conflict. New York: Routledge. Lumpe, L. (ed.) (2000). Running guns: The global black market in small arms. London: Zed Books. Neuman, S. G. (1984). International stratification and Third World military industries. International Organization 38, 167–197.

Neuman, S. G. (1995). The arms trade, military assistance, and recent wars: Change and continuity. The Annals of the American Academy 541, 47–73. Pearson, F. S. (1981). US arms transfer policy: The feasibility of restraint. Arms Control 2, 24–65. Pearson, F. S. (1983). The question of control in British defence sales policy. International Affairs 59, 223–228. Pearson, F. S. (1986). ‘Necessary evil’: Perspectives on West German arms transfer policies. Armed Forces and Society 12, 531–533. Pearson, F. S. (1989). The correlates of arms importation. Journal of Peace Research 26(2), 153–163. Pearson, F. S. (1995). The global spread of arms: Political economy of international security. Boulder, CO: Westview. Schroeder, M. and Stohl, R. (2006). Small arms, large problem: The international threat of small arms proliferation and misuse. Arms Control Today 36(5), (June). SIPRI yearbook (passim). Oxford: Oxford University Press/Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Sislin, J. and Pearson, F. (2001). Arms and ethnic conflict. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Smaldone, J. P. (1995). Military Burden, Conflict, and Arms Control in Sub-Saharan Africa: Puzzles, Paradoxes and Prescriptions. Paper presented at the 38th Annual Meeting of the African Studies Association, Orlando, FL. Stalenheim, P., Frucchart, D., Omitoogun, W., and Perdomo, C. (2006). Military Expenditure. In SIPRI yearbook. Oxford: Oxford University Press. The Defense Monitor (passim). Washington, DC: Center for Defense Information. US State Department (2001). World military expenditures and arms transfers, 1999–2000 (October). Washington, DC: US State Department. Volman, D. (1996). The Light Weapons Trade in Africa. Paper presented at the International Studies Association Annual Meeting, San Diego, CA (April).

Assassinations, Political Nachman Ben-Yehuda, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Assassinations and Assassins Theoretical Background for Understanding Political Assassinations Definitions of Assassinations in the Literature Toward a Constructionist Definition of Political Assassinations Impact and Results of Assassinations Terror and Assassination

Glossary Assassinations Killings of individuals for political reasons by individuals and/or illicit or illegal groups.

Classification and Categories of Political Assassination Events Assassinations and Political Justice Some Cross-Cultural Illustrations for Political Assassination Events Morality Debates Further Reading

Constructionism A theory that examines how we construct meanings. Executions Killings of individuals by the state. Terror Indiscriminate killings of individuals or groups.

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The nature and patterns of political assassinations constitute one of the most interesting, challenging, yet frustrating enigmatic riddles for social science research. Unfortunately, the area of political assassinations has lacked clear definitions and systematic research. Typical works in this area can be divided into four categories. Those that: (1) discuss a large number of cases, an encyclopedic type of work; (2) focus in depth on one particular case (e.g., Lincoln, Aldo Moro, Kennedy); (3) focus on a few selected cases in depth; and (4) concentrate on patterns of assassinations in specific cultures. The purpose of this entry is to develop a conceptual and analytical understanding of the very nature of political assassinations.

Assassinations and Assassins The word ‘assassin’ has an Arabic origin, and refers to a particular pattern of killing that was practiced by an Islamic religion cult that called itself the Ismaili. As Rapoport points out, the goal of the early Ismaili was to help purify Islam by terror, and by killing major officials who the Ismaili saw as corrupt and wrongdoers. The Ismailis, however, had no exclusive rights on this form of killing. Rapoport delineates other ancient movements that used assassination as part of their struggle. Wellknown groups are the Thugs, who killed for Kali, or the Sicariis. Both Ford and Rapoport reveal accounts about the practice of political assassinations which can be found in Biblical times, during the Greco-Roman period, in medieval Europe, and in other times, cultures, and places. Nonetheless, and as Ford, Lewis, and Rapoport detail, the order of Assassins is probably the most famous of them all. Following the death of the Islamic prophet, Mohammed, in 632 AD the Caliphate, which institutionalized his charisma, was created. Abu Bakr became the Khalifa. There were those, though, who disagreed, and felt that Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet, had a better and stronger claim than did Abu Bakr. This particular dissenting group became known as the Shiatu Ali (Ali’s party), and later as Shia. That early conflict gave birth to a most important cleavage in Islam. Around the year 760 AD a particular group broke away from Shiism. They called themselves Ismailis, after Ismail, son of Jafar al-Sadiq, great-grandson of Ali and Fatima. At the end of the eleventh century, a secret society of the Ismailite sect was founded in Persia by Hassan-i Sabbah. Hassan-i Sabbah was born, at an unknown date, in the Persian city of Qum, and died in 1124. Hassan traveled extensively in the Middle East, North Africa, and Egypt, winning converts. His goal was to disseminate heterodox doctrine and battle the Seljuq Empire. Hassan and his followers conquered (1090–91) the fortress of Alamut in the Elburz mountains (northern Persia). It

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became the headquarters of Hassan’s sect and he himself became known as the Old Man of the Mountain, or the Grand Master. Hassan apparently felt that Islam could, and should, be purified by assassinating in a systematic way, all of its major officials, defined by him as corrupt. He and his sect have thus developed the ‘art of assassination’. They were quite successful in spreading what Rapoport referred to as ‘fear and trembling’. He chose young, intelligent, and able people, full of enthusiasm and faith. They were trained and taught the principles of Hassan’s interpretation of the faith and then sent on their deadly missions. The groups of these young men were called ‘Fidais’. There are uncorroborated reports (traced to Marco Polo) that Hassan’s young assassins, at Alamut, were led into a so-called ‘‘garden of paradise’’ where they consumed hashish. The purpose of this supposed ritual was to persuade the converts that paradise awaits them, even if they get caught and executed after carrying out their assassination plots. Hence the name Hashishin became synonymous with Hassan’s sect. As Ford, Lewis, and Rapoport point out, there are indeed some good reasons to suspect the validity and truthfulness of the story about the hashish consumption. The Assassins, as they became known to the West by the Crusaders, were quite successful, and gained almost full control of Syria. Furthermore, in the Muslim context the basis of power was personal. When a Sultan, or an Amir, was assassinated (or died), the base of power risked disintegration. Assassinations within this cultural context were a powerful weapon. In the twelfth century the Assassins were led by the last Grand Master, Rukh-al-Din Khurshah. The end of Rukh, and of the Assassins, came under the double assault of the Mongols and of the Mamluk Sultan of Egypt, Baybars. As the fortress of Alamut fell (1256) along with other Assassins’ strongholds later, thousands of Assassins were killed. That was the end of that ruthless organization. The tales about the Assassins were brought to Europe by the Crusaders. The Assassins developed an organized attempt, and policy, that exhibited one of the most important features characterizing political assassinations: a painstakingly and nonrandom selection of a target, coupled with a carefully planned and executed assassination plot. As Rapoport notes, what made this pattern of assassination so very interesting and unique is the fact that the assassins killed unprovoked, in a particularly vile manner, after befriending their victim. The word ‘assassination’ in English, following the Ismaili practice, was focused not on the person attacked so much as on the manner of attack. It was conceptualized to be a premeditated form of killing, committed by stealth or by lying in wait, the opposite of a duel. The victim was not always a prominent person, and the assassin was often hired. Generally, there was no personal relationship between

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assassin and victim. Rapoport conceptualized the Ismaili assassins’ main ‘‘crime,’’ in this context, as one of betraying trust and ignoring natural sentiments created by an intimate relationship. It must be the combination of planning the assassination and the intimate relationship that must have been so bizarre. After all, most typical homicides take place between people who know each other fairly intimately. It is not too difficult to realize that a dazzling variety of phenomena may exist under the names political assassination, assassination, political murder, individual terror, and the like. In fact, one may even claim that the interpretations of the phenomena we refer to as ‘political assassinations’ are so diverse and culturally dependent that we may be in a better analytical position if we do not attempt to define it altogether. Indeed, Kirkham, Levy, and Crotty chose exactly this approach. Unfortunately, without a definition no real or precise empirical and analytical progress can be accomplished.

Theoretical Background for Understanding Political Assassinations Rapoport delineates the three justifications that developed in the West for assassinations. The first was a purely instrumental one, developed by the Greeks and Romans, stipulating that the moral value of an assassination depends entirely on the end(s) achieved. The second, developed by Christian philosophers, stipulates that political assassination is evil in itself, but nonetheless can be justified on the grounds that it can prevent a greater evil. The third was developed solely to justify an assassination that was part of a terrorist campaign. Participation in an assassination was seen as a good thing in itself regardless of the particular results achieved. Some scholars such as Kirkham, Levy, and Crotty associated political assassinations with terrorism and political instability in particular. The value of this approach is that it does not attribute assassinations primarily to ‘crazy’ and ‘irrational’ individuals. It negates, for the most part, what Clarke labeled as the ‘pathological theory of assassination’, namely theorizing that ‘‘assassins are acutely disturbed persons who suffer from such a diminished sense of self that their lives become increasingly isolated, bitter and unbearable.’’ This approach received much support from a few studies that suggested that most of those ‘‘who have assassinated, or attempted to assassinate Presidents of the United States . . . have been mentally disturbed persons who did not kill to advance any rational political plan.’’ However, this position can be easily challenged, both on the grounds of questionable diagnoses and as not accurately characterizing assassins who were sent by groups. Some prominent research of assassinations such as that of Kirkham, Levy, and Crotty, Crotty, and Clarke views

assassinations as a systemic property of specific cultures at particular times. The conditions under which political assassinations flourish hence becomes an important issue for these researchers. It may well be that destabilization and chaos result from many political assassinations, but the reverse is conceivable too. Havens, Leiden, and Schmitt point out that the level of societal institutionalization of the political system is a crucial variable. Stable societies experience fewer political assassinations, and the systemic impact of such events, if they happen, is minimal. Rapoport offers a dissenting position noting that the extraordinarily high number of assassinations of US presidents compared to that of Latin America suggests that the centralization of administrative and symbolic authority in the hands of one person may be a more important condition.

Definitions of Assassinations in the Literature The relevant literature does not provide a crystallized consensus regarding this issue. A major reason for this confusion may be that it is not at all clear whether different researchers were defining the same phenomenon. For example, political assassinations were discussed in the contexts of terror, mass murder, political executions, and the like. And, yet, the issue of defining the phenomenon of political assassinations has kept a small army of scholars busy. It is vitally important to examine and understand the deliberations here because different definitional approaches make different assumptions and create altogether different databases, and consequently give rise to incongruous conclusions. By examining critically the different important definitions of assassinations we stand to gain much better insights and understandings about the complex analytical nature of this phenomenon. As we shall see ahead, the different definitional approaches to political assassinations focus on a range that spans from specific to collective targets, from prominent to any target, from state-sponsored to individual and group killings, and from actual to attempted assassinations. This theoretical mixture provides, no doubt, a good prescription for a decent analytical chaos. Following our critical examination of the different definitions, we will be in a better position to suggest a comprehensive new definition. One frequently quoted definition was suggested by Lerner: ‘‘Assassination refers to those killings or murders, usually directed against individuals in public life, motivated by political rather than by personal relationships . . . Assassination is the deliberate, extralegal killing of an individual for political purposes. . . .’’ Kirkham, Levy, and Crotty, writing some 40 years after Lerner, stated that ‘‘we

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do not undertake to define precisely what is meant by an ‘assassination’, nor do we limit consideration . . . to a particular consistent definition of ‘assassination’. There are at least three separate elements woven into the concept of ‘assassination’ which identify it as a particular kind of murder: (1) a target that is a prominent political figure (2) a political motive for the killing (3) the potential political impact of the death or escape from death, as the case may be . . . .’’ Padover defined assassinations as: ‘‘the trucidation . . . of a political figure without due process of law.’’ Havens, Leiden, and Schmitt suggest that assassination refers to ‘‘the deliberate, extralegal killing of an individual for political purposes.’’ Hurwood chose a broader approach, stating that ‘‘what generally distinguished assassination from ordinary homicide . . . was an assumption that the assassin acted on behalf of others, or out of fanatical devotion to some cause or faith.’’ Crotty broadened this approach even further by defining political assassination as ‘‘the murder of an individual, whether of public prominence or not, in an effort to achieve political gains.’’ Lester avoided the problem of the definition by stating that: ‘‘Assassins fall into three categories: murders by a hired killer who has no personal involvement with the victim, conspiracies for political change, and killings based on personal animosities.’’ Obviously, the emphasis on a ‘‘hired assassin’’ and on categorization evades the core question: what is a political assassination? The broadest definition (and thus less useful) is Ford’s: ‘‘Assassination is the intentional killing of a specified victim, or group of victims, perpetrated for reasons related to his (her, their) public prominence and undertaken with a political purpose in view.’’ Ivianski prefers the term ‘individual terror’. Although he never defines the opposite (‘collective terror’?), the definition he provides is: ‘‘a system of modern revolutionary violence aimed at leading personalities in the government or the Establishment (or any other human targets). The motivation is not necessarily personal but rather ideological or strategic.’’ In 1981 he stated that ‘individual terror’ was different from political assassination in that the former aimed to hit the state or the regime that was represented by the target, and not the target per se. However, already on the first page of his 1977 paper he falls into what may be an unavoidable trap when stating that: ‘‘One act of ‘individual terror’ [is] the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand at Sarajevo . . . ’’ Thus, although Ivianski may give the impression that he discusses a theory which is aimed to explain late nineteenth-century terror (especially Russian and the infamous Narodnaya Volya), he is in fact discussing political assassinations proper as well (also in his later work). If we confine his definition only to nineteenth-century terrorism (which is doubtful), then obviously fewer generalizations can be made. If we do not, then his definition is too broad and lacks specificity.

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Political assassination is not just ‘violence’, it is the use of deadly force. Also, it does not have to be defined as ‘revolutionary’ (e.g., James Earl Ray’s assassination of Martin Luther King on 4 April 1968; Sirhan Sirhan’s 5 June 1968, assassination of Robert F. Kennedy; the killing of fleet admiral Isoruku Yamamoto, planner of the 7 December 1941, Japanese preemptive strike on Pearl Harbor, by a squadron of US P-38 Lightning fighters on 18 April 1943; Yigael Amir’s assassination of Yitzhak Rabin on 4 November 1995). Furthermore, Ivianski fails to take notice of the fact that governments may in fact commit acts of political assassinations (e.g., the assassination of Leon Trotsky on 20 August 1940, outside Mexico City), not to mention individual terror and terrorism in general, and genocide and mass murder. Although Turk is quick to point out that motivation is extremely difficult to establish, he nevertheless defines assassination as: ‘‘a politically motivated killing in which victims are selected because of the expected political impact of their dying.’’ Turk’s definition is particularly useful because it emphasizes the selection of the victim. Rapoport suggested an elaborate and thoughtful definition of an assassin that ‘‘means murderer but more than that, it means an unprovoked murderer who kills in a particularly vile manner. In the common law assassination is murder committed without warning by stealth, surprise, or lying in wait. The assailant has been hired for the occasion, or he undertakes it for political purposes. In any case the victim, usually though not necessarily a prominent person, has not provoked the assault by offering the assassin a personal offense.’’ An attempt to develop a social perspective of assassinations, based on Smelser’s theory of collective behavior, is provided by Wilkinson. This theory, however, is complex and difficult to operationalize and consequently has not become widely used. It is thus evident that defining/characterizing the concept of political assassination has become a Herculean and Sisyphian task. Different definitions focus on a range that goes from a specific target to a collective target, and from a ‘prominent’ political target to any target. Such an analytical mix is not very useful.

Toward a Constructionist Definition of Political Assassinations Attempting to solve the inherent and essential problems involved in conceptualizing political assassinations, Ben-Yehuda developed a social constructionism perspective. Using this particular approach enables the researcher to bypass almost all the problems mentioned earlier and make the important distinction between the act of assassinating and its cultural interpretation. First

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and foremost, it views political assassinations as a form of violent and aggressive human behavior focused on taking somebody else’s life against the wish of that person, akin to other, and perhaps similar, forms of behavior such as murder, killing, blood-revenge, executions and the like. Taking Somebody Else’s Life The biblical injunction ‘Thou Shall Not Murder’ could be interpreted to mean that taking another human being’s life is a universal crime. It is not. As Nettler and Lester point out, such an act is defined differently in different times and/or cultures. It is also defined differently in the same culture. Hence different types of accounts and rhetorical devices are used to make such an act culturally meaningful, that is, ‘explainable’ or ‘justifiable’. These, in turn, depend on the interpretation of the circumstances. Thus, while the act of taking somebody’s life against his or her wish may appear to the lay person as universally forbidden, the interpretation of such acts is culturally dependent and hence, very relative. Consequently, taking somebody’s life is not universally forbidden. Killing other people, in short, is not always interpreted as a negative and stigmatized act; it can certainly be interpreted as positive as in wars. The type of rhetorical device that will be used to describe the death of any particular actor will, first of all, depend on whether we view that death as natural. A natural death would usually mean that the actor has finished what we may consider his/her natural lifespan and dies, without any intentional (e.g., suicidal, criminal), or unintentional (e.g., accidental), help from himself or herself or another person. The rhetorical devices ‘deceased’, ‘passed away’, ‘died in an accident’, or simply ‘died’, would typically be employed in this case. When death is not defined as ‘natural’, other rhetorical devices are invoked. One very basic distinction in this case is whether the potential victim agreed, or even willed and wished, to die. If the answer to this question is positive, then a small pool of rhetorical devices becomes available, for example, ‘suicide’ and its variations (e.g., Japanese culture had at least three different forms of suicide: Hara-kiri, Kamikaze, Kaiten), euthanasia (with consent), and the like. This category, however, is not very relevant to political assassinations. The other possibility is that the potential victim does not agree, or wish, to die. The act of taking the victim’s life against his or her wish thus becomes a typically forceful and violent act. In such a case, another cultural pool of rhetorical devices becomes available to make a culturally meaningful interpretation of the act. When a situation is defined using the rhetoric device of war, then taking other humans’ life is not only excusable, it is mandatory for so-called ‘combat soldiers’. It is

even rewarded by powerful symbols and can, perhaps, be defined as ‘positive deviance’. Hence, under normal combat circumstances, we do not say that a soldier murdered his enemy, or vice versa. Wars, however, do have some rules, and some acts of taking other peoples’ lives, even in a war situation, may in fact be regarded as murder. Killing prisoners of war is indeed considered a war crime, as, for example, the massacre of 86 American prisoners of war near Malmedy on 17 December 1944, by Nazi soldiers from SS Standartenfuhrer (Colonel) Joachim Peiper’s special battle group during the Nazi Ardennes campaign. Peiper himself probably perished when his house in Traves (France) was set ablaze by anonymous people on 14 July 1976. Rhetorical devices such as ‘infanticide’, ‘child homicide’, ‘self-defense’, or ‘blood revenge’ in some societies, as well as ‘genocide’ and ‘lynching’ may also be used to justify and/or explain acts of taking other peoples’ lives, as well as such other ritualistic situations defined as vendettas, human sacrifices, and duels. The famous rhetorical device homicide may itself be classified into criminal and noncriminal. Each of these devices can be further divided into such finer distinctions as murder, voluntary manslaughter, involuntary manslaughter, or criminally negligent homicide. Furthermore, some view abortion as homicide. Hence, cultures provide a variety of rhetorical devices, vocabularies of motives and accounts (some of which are institutionalized in the law) aimed at defining differentially acts of taking other peoples’ lives. There are two sets of variables that may be of help to get us out of the problems of definition. First, the term ‘assassination’ is focused on the specificity of the act. Unlike the impersonal and indiscriminate acts of terrorism, political assassination is selective, discriminate, and has a very specific target. Second, the term ‘assassination’ implies something very different from criminal homicide. The rhetorical device ‘assassination’ is used primarily in noncriminal contexts and is closely affiliated to power, politics, and morality in an explicit way. Hence, while a ‘typical murder’ (as a specific subcategory of criminal homicide) refers to something that is most frequently unplanned and tends to occur between intimates, not strangers, a ‘political assassination’ refers to something that is diametrically opposed: it is planned and typically takes place between strangers. Thus one important element in the characterization of ‘assassination’ is what assassination is not: it is not a ‘typical’ murder. ‘Political assassination’ is a name given to a particular form of taking somebody else’s life against his or her wish. Therefore, we have first to delineate the theoretical parameters that are needed to understand those characteristics that constitute this distinct form of killing.

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Political Assassination Events and Their Interpretation We should distinguish between the act of assassinating, and its interpretation. Kirkham, Levy, and Crotty suggest the use of an important and useful term: assassination events. The term ‘event’ is useful for two reasons. First, it helps to demarcate the act from its cultural interpretation. Second, it helps reveal the important distinction between executions and assassinations. The concept refers to: . . . an act that consists of a plotted, attempted or actual, murder of a prominent political figure (elite) by an individual (assassin) who performs this act in other than a governmental role. This definition draws a distinction between political execution and assassination. An execution may be regarded as a political killing, but it is initiated by the organs of the state, while an assassination can always be characterized as an illegal act . . . (Kirkham et al., 1970, Appendix A).

A ‘political assassination event’ thus refers to the act of taking someone’s life against the wish of that person. The next question obviously is what makes this form of killing unique? How is such an event interpreted culturally in a way that makes sense to members of that culture? The working definition regarding the nature of political assassinations and executions which emerges from the analytical discussion so far (and used empirically in Ben-Yehuda’s 1993 study) is as follows: The characterization of a homicidal event as a political assassination or execution is a social construction. It is a rhetorical device which is used to socially construct and interpret (that is, to make a culturally meaningful account of) the discriminate, deliberate, intentionally planned, and serious attempt(s), whether successful or not, to kill a specific social actor for political reasons having something to do with the political position (or role) of the victim, his symbolic-moral universe, and with the symbolic-moral universe out of which the assassin/s act(s). This universe generates the legitimacy and justifications required for the act, which are usually presented in quasilegal terms. However, decisions to assassinate are typically not the result of a fair legal procedure, based on a ‘due process’.

Let us look closely at this definition. First, political assassination is a name (or term) that we use to interpret (and, for some, to justify) a particular act of killing. This name helps us to make sense of what otherwise is a terrible situation, and to construct a culturally meaningful account. The point is that there is no ‘real’ or ‘objective’ meaning to the term precisely because meaning is negotiable and culturally dependent. The term is socially constructed and interpreted. It means that the

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interpretation of a political assassination event is not objectively given but culturally constructed. What for one person (or group) is a bona fide political assassination may be interpreted as a simple murder for another person (or group). For example, the assassination of Baron Walter Edward Guinness Moyne, British minister resident in the Middle East, on 6 November, 1944, in Cairo by two members of Lehi (a prestate Jewish Israeli underground group) was defined by the British as an act of simple murder. However, the very same act was defined by Lehi as a legitimized and justified act of ‘‘individual terror.’’ Using the term ‘rhetorical device’ in the definition enables us to keep some distance from the event itself and yet give room for a real and indigenous cultural interpretation. This term also helps us transcend the many different and divergent definitions of political assassinations and suggest a more unified approach. Second, political assassinations are not ‘crimes of passion’. They constitute attempts to kill that are very carefully planned. This is why the definition emphasizes the deliberate and the intentional. Third, political assassinations are target-specific. It is the specificity of the target that distinguishes political assassinations from other acts of indiscriminate terrorism. Fourth, the definition emphasizes that the attempt to assassinate must be serious. It is not important whether the attempt was successful or not (that is, whether the specific target died or not). The ‘seriousness’ of the attempt can be translated into four distinct types (more on this later): preplanned, planned, unsuccessful, and successful. Fifth, the ‘reasons’ for which the potential victim is targeted are political, and associated with the political role, or position, of the victim. For example, the assassinations of both Egyptian President Anwar Sadat (6 October 1981) and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (4 November 1995) for their leading roles in the Israeli–Arab peace process. This definition does not assume that the victim must be a prominent target. The elements of power and morality enter this definition through the front door because this part of the definition emphasizes that political assassination events are the expression of power in the form of lethal force, whose use is justified on the basis of political– moral reasoning. Sixth, the symbolic-moral universe out of which the assassin acts, and of which the victim is part, is a crucial element in the interpretation. The elements of power and morality place assassination events squarely within the area of politics and deviance. Seventh, while the justifications for political assassinations tend to be presented by the assassins in quasilegal rhetorical devices, decisions to assassinate are typically not the result of a procedure that is based on a ‘due process’. The victim typically does not stand a fair chance to defend him- or herself properly. This definition does not make a distinction whether the assassin was hired or not, and it does not stipulate the

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existence of specified technical methods (or procedures) of killing (e.g., whether the assassin befriends his future victim). Finally, the definition neither makes assumptions about the relationships between assassin and victim nor that the assassination be (or not) the result of a situational provocation. It is often (but not always) in the interest of the assassin to publicize, explain, and justify the act because in this way the function of demarcating the boundaries of symbolic-moral universes is accomplished.

The Issue of Legitimacy ‘‘Assassination, no matter how narrowly or broadly defined, belong among a larger class of politically aggressive and violent behavior,’’ Kirkham et al. say. It involves the use of power and its legitimation. This legitimation is either anchored in a different symbolic-moral universe than that of a state or country, usually opposing or disagreeing with it in a most fundamental way (e.g., the assassinations of Lincoln, Gandhi, Sadat, Rabin); or in a secret process activated by specific organizations (or individuals) of a state (e.g., a secret intelligence service, for example the executions of Trotsky or Yamamoto); or its equivalent (in terms of legitimizing the act). Thus, Hurwood points out that only the king had the authority to give the legitimacy (and the order) for a political execution. Hence, when the Israeli secret service set out to execute members of Black September (following the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics), the authorization for those acts came from the Prime Minister. According to the Los Angeles Times (12 April 1989) it also appears that in the United States decisions to commit political executions involve the highest echelons of the military and political elite. A country, a state, sometimes even a society, has, or generates, the legitimacy to use power. A country may legitimize the use of deadly force in war, death penalty, or define other situations where taking actor/s’ life is considered legitimate, even mandatory. Such legitimacy, however,

can be generated also by much smaller and integrated ideological groups. The existence, or nonexistence, of legitimacy (and who grants it) refers to a few related questions: 1. Whether a state or a country, through its official organs, approves a particular act of killing. 2. How is the decision arrived at: secretly or through an open public and fair due process (e.g., where a proper defense is presented and the potential victim has a chance of presenting his/her case in a persuasive way). 3. Whether the potential assassin accepts the right of that state, or country, to give such a legitimacy. Relating the variables of the specificity of the target to the legitimation to use deadly force enables us to draw a classificatory scheme, as shown in Table 1. Table 1 cross-tabulates two distinct analytical levels: a state and an individual. No need for an intervening level variable is called for because the two levels are sufficient to explain the different possible outcomes. On the left side of the table two questions are answered: (1) whether the country/state approves, or does not approve, the assassination/killing; and (2) whether the potential assassin/killer accepts, or does not accept, the legitimacy of the country/state to grant such authorization. The differences between terrorism and political assassinations are evident. Terrorism usually aims at a general and collective target. Political assassination is highly discriminative. It seeks the death of a particular actor, and does not aim at the collective, or at an indiscriminate target. The table indicates that political assassinations and political executions are similar. The major difference between the two is the issue of who legitimizes and authorizes assassinations and why. State-Sponsored Killings A distinction is made in the table between terror and statesponsored terror. Both are directed against a nonspecific target. However, while terror is typically directed from the periphery, state-sponsored terrorism is directed from

Table 1 Specificity of target and legitimation to use deadly force Target Legitimation to use deadly force

Specific

General

State approves secretly, potential killer accepts State approves openly, potential killer accepts State approves, potential killer does not accept State does not approve potential killer accepts

Political execution Death penalty (No case) Regular homicide (criminal and non-criminal) Political assassination

State sponsored terror; genocide War (No case) Multiple murders; mass murders; serial murders Terror

State does not approve potential killer does not accept

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the state’s center. There are many differences in justifications, scope, and pervasiveness between such groups as late nineteenth-century Russian revolutionaries, Narodnaya Volya (and its tactics of terror), and Stalin’s mass terror, or the mass terror (including the use of ‘death squads’) aimed by the Guatemalan government against the Ixil. Likewise, Amnesty International Report for 1978 points out that in the 1970s, at least 15 000 ‘disappeared’ in Argentina, and death/assassination squads operated in El Salvador. The 1 August 1988, issue of Time magazine, and the 1983 Amnesty International’s ‘Political Killings by Governments’ point out more such killings. The Iranian government, following the Islamic revolution there in 1979, executed tens of thousands it viewed as its opponents. Saddam Hussein’s Iraq also executed large numbers of such people. The Syrian massacre of Muslims in Hama is another illustration. Much worse and horrendous statesponsored terror and genocide campaigns were carried out by Nazi Germany against Jews, gypsies, and others, by Pol Pot’s regime in Cambodia (Kampuchea) against millions of Cambodians, and more recently in Bosnia and Serbia, as well as in Africa, and in Mao’s China. In a similar fashion, the column under ‘specific’ target makes a distinction between a political execution, which is a political assassination sponsored by a state (e.g., Stalin’s ordered assassination of Trotsky in 1940, or his ‘assassination squad’, which was active during the late 1930s in Europe), and a political assassination, which is not. Both are not dissimilar, but there are some important analytical and methodological differences between the two. First, a major difference is the fact that states (totalitarian or democracies) have a very different basis of legitimacy than individuals, or groups. The amount, and type, of power that they can generate and use is very different too. Second, while political assassinations are typically directed from the periphery, political executions are directed from the center. There are some substantial methodological differences too. The process of decision making in each case is very different; the methods of killing vary. It is relatively easier to identify and validate cases of political assassinations than those of political executions. States are typically very secret and evasive about their involvement in cases of political executions. The Israeli–Palestinian conflict has brought to focus the issue of state-sponsored executions in a powerful way. Much more so than the 1976 US Presidential executive order forbidding the USA from such executions. While the accurate Israeli history of reasons for and mechanisms for specific decisions to execute are still classified and shrouded in mystery, some ideas have become clear. Following the massacre of Israeli athletes during the 1972 Munich Olympic games, and what Israel viewed as the lack of European resolve to face and combat terror, a decision was made to locate those Palestinians who either planned or were going to commit acts of lethal terror, and execute them. It actually became one of Israel’s

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main policy tactics against terror. Following the Munich Olympics, Israeli agents managed to execute a number of Palestinians operatives and planners. This policy came to peak during the second Intifada (post-September 2000) when Israeli military forces (including the Air Force) targeted specific Palestinians and executed them as a main policy. Against increased criticisms of this policy, Israel maintained that it viewed these targeted executions as surgical strikes that were more effective antiterror activities than using indiscriminate fire power causing high levels of collateral damages. Of course, the accuracy of these executions was not full and innocent bystanders were hit. Israel’s response to that was that it tried to increase the accuracy of its hits as well as stating that as long as terrorists were hiding within civilian population, there was a risk to that population. Explanations for Murder and Assassinations Are explanations invoked for the micro, individual level, of murder (e.g., why murderers kill) applicable to political assassinations and executions? In principle, such comparisons are not, prima facie, useful. There are, however, some cases where this comparison is suggestive. A revengeful political assassination may, in some general philosophical aspect, remind us of blood revenge. In both cases, there is a planned act of killing. However, while political assassination events are target specific, blood revenge is specific only on the family level, that is, the choice of a specific target is less important than hitting the specific collective. One other comparison may be with ‘hired killers’ (for nonpolitical reasons), or with organized crime-sponsored murders. The cold-blood planning of the killing of a specific target resembles political assassination. Indeed, some may even identify similar ‘political’ aspects in both cases. However, the similarities end here. Political assassination events are initiated by, and from, an ideological point of view. The conflict there is between opposing symbolic-moral universes struggling to change something meaningful and of significance in society. Hired killers for criminal purposes have no political ideology. The act is done for a fee, and typically there is no group that may give legitimacy to the act. Even if such a ‘group’ exists (e.g., organized crime), its goal is not to achieve any kind of political–ideological social change. On the contrary, hired killers are typically employed to ‘solve’ local problems (e.g., of area) that are usually focused on such down-to-earth problems as monetary interests, intimidation of opponents, or gaining control over a territory. Assassinations and Repeated Murders While the working definition/characterization of political assassination events given earlier seems exclusive and capable of providing generalizable and distinct guidelines,

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there are two categories of taking other people’s life that may appear, prima facie, close. These are mass murderers, compulsive killers, and serial murderers. While these types of killings may, sometimes, share some common characteristics with political assassinations (e.g., the fact that a few groups committed a number of political assassinations), there are some significant differences between them. Mass, compulsive, and serial murderers do not typically select their victims on a basis characterized by a strong political ‘reasoning’. The murders are usually hidden, and the personal pathology of the murderers is also typically present and emphasized. The dynamics of making a decision to assassinate, the ‘reason’ given, the specific choice of targets – all render the comparison as not valid.

Assassinations and Organized Crime Organized crime organizations such as the Yakuza, Cosa Nostra, mafia, or smaller and less long-lasting criminal organizations have gained a questionable reputation of being involved in assassination plots. In almost all cases these assassinations seem to be focused on turf, areas of influence, trafficking in illegal psychoactive substances, women, and revenge as power struggles between competing groups. On the one hand, one can perhaps refer to these assassinations as ‘political’ because they involve power struggles. On the other hand, these assassinations do not involve competing ideologies, attempts to topple a government or state-sponsored attempts to eliminate competitors to power. In most cases these assassinations have strong economic motives of taking control of markets, or keep one’s control over such markets. As such, they do not fit the approach taken here to political assassinations.

Assassinations and Boundaries Assassinations form the moral and political boundaries between the legitimate and illegitimate, the powerful and the powerless. In a pluralistic society political assassinations and executions may become not only important boundary markers, but may be used as a conflict resolution technique. It is not uncommon for individual assassins, and their sponsoring groups, to view themselves as moral crusaders. Typical are Princip’s (assassin of the archduke Ferdinand) last account before he was executed, in which he stated that he was innocent, and expressing his belief that his death was required by Serbia. He must have obviously felt like a very righteous moral crusader. Individual assassins, and sponsoring groups, typically reject the prevailing hierarchy of morality and credibility, and project an alternative hierarchy. Therefore, it is not surprising that bitter arguments are waged around the

social construction and interpretation of the meaning of political assassinations. In a sense, the debate is focused on turning a particular form of killing into political statements. Consequently, political assassinations, and political executions involve, in the deepest sense, arguments about power, and social and political justice. In some instances, political assassinations may involve political trials and political prisoners, if the assassin is caught and brought to trial, which is not very common.

Impact and Results of Assassinations Most scholars working in this area were interested in the question of the impact, or usefulness, of assassinations. Some even confused the impact with the morality of assassination. Havens, Leiden, and Schmitt indeed point out that assessing the impact of assassinations is difficult. They distinguish between (1) the immediate impact of the act and the significance that history ultimately assigns to it, and (2) the personal impact versus the systemic impact. They suggest six possible types of systemic impacts of political assassinations: 1. No discernible changes are produced. 2. Personal changes occur that would not have taken place otherwise (e.g., the succession of Lyndon Johnson after Kennedy’s assassination). 3. Some change induced in particular policies (e.g., the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Rabin in November 1995). 4. Inducing profound alteration in the political system (e.g., the assassination of Rafael Trujillo Molina in the Dominican Republic (30 May 1961); Patrice Lumumba in the Congo (January 1961); Julius Caesar 44). 5. Inducing an actual social revolution (e.g., the assassination of Alvaro Obregon in Mexico in 1928). 6. Helping a whole political system to collapse and disappear (e.g., the assassination of Engelbert Dollfus, Austria’s Chancellor in 1934; that of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife on 28 June 1914, by Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo). It is more useful to discuss the results of political assassinations and not so much the ‘impact’. As most authors point out, ‘impact’ refers to ‘usefulness’; hence, some moral judgment may be involved in assessing impact in terms of a good or bad impact, and from whose point of view. The term ‘result’ (or, ‘outcome’ if one wishes) avoids that implicit moral problem by examining the results of the assassinations, regardless of their usefulness as judged by this or that criteria. To illustrate this distinction, let us examine one of Ford’s main conclusions. Summarizing his wide-lens work, Ford asks ‘‘Is assassination ever justified?’’ (i.e., is it ‘useful’?); ‘‘Does assassination

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work?’’ and ‘‘Has assassination proved that it can solve problems, not only in the short but also in the long run?’’ Ford unequivocally answers that ‘‘the history of countless assassinations, examined with an eye to comparing apparent motives with actual outcomes, contains almost none that produced results consonant with the aim of the doer, assuming those aims to have extended at all beyond the miserable taking of a life.’’ Put, perhaps, in different terms one could rephrase and dramatize Ford by stating that ‘‘political assassination is morally wrong and pragmatically useless.’’ Judging by his impressive work, one must cope with this strong generalization. Being opposed, in principle, to murder, one cannot object to the moral part of the statement, based on universalistic principles, that political assassination is morally wrong. However, the other question is whether political assassinations can be justified, and if so, on what grounds. There can hardly be a question that there are indeed quite a few moral justifications for assassinations. From this ‘pragmatic’ aspect Ford’s position is much more difficult to accept and defend. Obviously, numerous political assassinations and executions had results, both on the personal and on the system level. Even Hassan’s Assassins achieved, for a while, some rather impressive results. We certainly may not always like those results, but we cannot simply deny their existence. Assassinations that were aimed as revenge, as an alternative justice system, as propaganda by deed, or for elite substitution, were certainly pragmatic in the sense that more than once, they achieved clear results. Furthermore, the fact that political assassinations achieved results more than once is well documented. It is beneficial, at this point, also to remind ourselves of one of Rapoport’s wise observations: ‘‘The lone assassin can set furious political forces in motion, but only conspirators have a reasonable chance of controlling them, and the best way to exploit the opportunity provided by an assassination is to usurp the powers of government. . . .’’ One must also be reminded that assassinating for revenge, for propaganda, and tyrannicide may all achieve their explicit goals, and significant results, even without following it up with an immediate and integral (to the assassination) political process. Leiden argued that: ‘‘An assassination can have a high impact when (a) the system is highly centralized, (b) the political support of the victim is highly personal, (c) the ‘replaceability’ of the victim is low, (d) the system is in crisis and/or in a period of rapid political and social change, and (e) if the death of the victim involves the system in confrontation with other powers.’’ It is not entirely clear whether all these conditions must coexist simultaneously for an impact effect to exist, or whether only part of the conditions must be present, and if so what part. For example, it is not obvious whether condition (b) was valid for the fateful 28 June 1914, assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. Likewise, it is not

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obvious that condition (d) was valid for the 20 July 1944, attempt to assassinate Hitler. Both events did have severe impacts. Once we switch from thinking in terms of ‘impacts’ into thinking in terms of ‘results’, the question of ‘‘under what conditions are results achieved?’’ takes on very different meaning. One indeed can and should be interested to answer questions about results for the short and long run, as well as for the different social actors who were involved in the assassination. While such ‘impact’ as ‘revenge’ is meaningless, as a ‘result’ it is meaningful.

Terror and Assassination A major and typical problem has been the analytic tendency to associate and blur between the concept of political assassination with that of terrorism. The most important variable, which distinguishes political assassination from terrorism, is the specificity of the target. Assassination always involves a particular target. It is the death of actor X the assassin desires, and not the explosion of, say, an airplane per se. Snitch identified five basic goals for terrorism and, in his approach, for political assassinations as well. These goals are to: 1. 2. 3. 4.

receive popular recognition for a cause/group, receive official recognition for a cause/group, gain recruits, undermine the morale and prestige of the government, and 5. provoke the government to use such harsh and desperate measures as martial law, curfews, and massive arrests so that popular discontent would take place and help throw the government. Rapoport distinguishes between discrete assassinations and those that are part of a terrorist campaign. The former are viewed as a legitimate, useful means in power struggles. Thus, the word ‘assassination’ can be used legitimately to describe an act of a terrorist. Indeed, Rapoport and Ivianski argue that the theory of modern terror developed from the concept of tyrannicide, which was, after all, a theory of assassination. Likewise, it is not difficult to conceptualize the Islamic Ismaili (Assassins) as terrorists. Ivianski’s concept of ‘‘individual terror’’ perhaps illustrates this possible confusion in the sharpest sense. An added confusing element is that assassination as ‘propaganda by deed’ was a strategy which was used in the nineteenth century (it was also used by the Sicarii in the AD 1960s Jewish revolt against the Roman empire) and it is typically associated today with terrorism. While the author does not deny the validity, legitimacy, and usefulness of viewing political assassinations within the context of terror, it is well worth our while to examine political assassinations as a separate analytical and empirical entity, as one more specific form of lethal

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violence. In this way, a magnified (and more sensitive) perspective of this particular phenomenon emerges. David C. Rapoport has tried to develop one of the most interesting, thoughtful, and intriguing distinctions between terrorism and assassination (1971, and continued in 1988): ‘‘In his mind, the assassin destroys men who are corrupting a system while the terrorist destroys a system which has already corrupted everyone it touches . . . Assassination is an incident, a passing deed, an event; terrorism is a process, a way of life, a dedication. At most assassination involves a conspiracy, but terrorism requires a movement.’’ However, this approach presents several obstacles. First, Rapoport seems to hover between two separate analytical levels without making an explicit distinction between them. On the one hand, he talks of the assassin and the terrorist, and what may happen in their mind, that is, his focus is on subjective meanings. This is a difficult intellectual exercise, bordering on psychological reductionism, and apparently unsatisfactory. On the other hand, Rapoport resorts to the acts (incident vs. process) themselves: those of terrorism and assassinations. Hence, we have here two distinct categories: the mind and the act itself. The discussion does not clarify the connection between these categories. Second, Rapoport’s general approach tends to support the direction of including assassinations within terrorism, and consequently views such groups as the Sicarii, Ismaili, and others primarily as terrorist movements (indeed, a tendency shared by many modern researchers of terrorism). The major drawback of such an approach is that it may lead to less than sensitive findings and to cruder generalizations. This tendency may blur the differences between terrorism and assassinations. Third, making a distinction only on the basis of the meaning of the action on the microlevel may become problematic. If we interpret ‘meaning’ as the one imputed to the act by the assassin, than we may end up with a classification which will have nonmutually exclusive types (e.g., see section titled ‘Classification and categories of political assassination events’). Furthermore, it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish terrorism from assassination only on the basis of subjective meanings. Even Rapoport must have been aware of this problem and he suggests another nonsubjective distinction – one between an ‘incident’ (assassination) and a ‘process’ (terrorism). One of the prestate underground Jewish Israeli groups, Lehi, had an explicit ideology in favor of political assassinations and they practiced it. One can argue that the nineteenthcentury Russian Narodnaya Volya had some of this as well. It is no mere coincidence that Ivianski, who feels so uncomfortable with ‘‘political assassinations’’ but very comfortable with ‘‘individual terror,’’ was a former member of Lehi. The interpretative term ‘‘political assassination’’ is more threatening and derogatory than ‘‘individual terror.’’ The latter terms ‘‘allows’’ Ivianski to connect Lehi’s assassinations to the nineteenth-century Russian revolutionaries.

Classification and Categories of Political Assassination Events There are two prevalent typologies of political assassinations. As Rapoport points out, the first typology is close to a much older typology developed originally by Machiavelli, and focuses on the modus operandi. He suggested that assassinations have two stages: preparation and execution. Each of these stages is characterized by a specific set of problems. For example, the danger of informers in the preparation stage is magnified when a group conspires to assassinate someone. The advantage of this classificatory scheme is heuristic. We can use it to develop a four-category classificatory scheme. The first is ‘preplanning’. In this category we have cases of serious deliberations and discussions whether or not to assassinate a specific social actor. However, this is where things stop. The second category is ‘planning’, that is, when the assassination plot passed the preplanning stage and a decision and commitment to assassinate is made. However, planning means that for some reason, sometimes technical and sometimes substantial, the plan was not executed. The third category is ‘unsuccessful’. In this category we have cases that passed the first two stages but no assassination, or even serious physical injury to the victim, was made. The usual reason is technical – a mine that did not explode, a gun that malfunctioned at the critical moment, an explosive envelope that did not reach its destination (or, reached the wrong target). The fourth category is ‘successful’. In this category are those cases that passed the first two stages and culminated in an action that was either fully successful (victim died) or partially successful (victim wounded in a serious way). It is well worth noting that the above categorization is very different from legal categorizations of forms of killing and wounding. For example, the given categorization does not use the concept of a conspiracy, or the fact that ‘successful’ includes both killing and serious wounding. The major rationale for the categorization is the question of how far or to what extent did the assassination event proceed. Viewed in this way, the classification is empirically helpful. The above classification is based on a description of the event itself, regardless of the motivation of the assassin. However, the works by Kirkham, Levy, and Crotty, Crotty, and others seem to share a particular form of a classification of political assassination events, which is based on the motivation for the act. This classification has five types: 1. Elite substitution: The assassination of a political leader in order to replace him or her. Usually, it does not aim to create any substantial systemic or ideological change. This type of assassination typically refers to a power struggle when a particular leader is assassinated

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2.

3.

4.

5.

in order to replace him/her or those he/she represents in power with an opposing group at the same level. Tyrannicide: The assassination of a despot in order to replace him with a better, usually less repressive, oppressive, and more rational ruler. This is one of the oldest forms of assassinations as well as one that has many moral and philosophical justifications. Terroristic assassination: Assassination on a mass and indiscriminate basis in order to demonstrate the government’s inability to rule, or to let a minority govern a majority. Anomic assassination: Assassination of a political figure for private reasons. This type usually refers to the ‘crazy’ lonely assassin who may use a political rhetoric to justify the act, but appears to demonstrate a psychiatric disorder. Propaganda by deed: Assassination that is carefully planned for a particular political figure and that aims to draw and direct attention to a specific problem.

The given classifications have at least two problems. First, the different types are not mutually exclusive. Second, the third type obviously attempts to combine, on one analytical level, assassination and terror. Ben-Yehuda developed an additional category based on motivation: Revengeful assassination: Aimed at some form of revenge. Included in this act is the fact that this type of assassination may serve as a warning sign to others. There is something of a ‘propaganda by deed’ here.

Assassinations and Political Justice Beyond the different approaches, definitions, and classifications, and using Ocam’s razor-type of logic, how can one conceptualize in a culturally meaningful way, this peculiar and violent behavior focused on political assassinations and executions? Ben-Yehuda suggested that the most appropriate conceptualization is the one focused on political justice. When we examine the sets of accounts provided by assassins to justify their acts, we find frequent references to the victims as ‘traitors’, ‘squealers’, ‘spies’, ‘collaborators’, and the like. Moreover, political assassinations tend to involve killers and victims from the same cultural group. Thus, the conceptualization of political assassinations as violent acts and cultural devices that are invoked to explain and justify acts that the assassins want to project as political ‘justice’ receive much empirical support. These acts tend to occur in situations where the assassins feel (rightly or wrongly) that they cannot receive justice because the opportunities for justice are felt to be blocked. It is as if an alternative, informal, and popular system of ‘justice’ is put

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into operation. This system operates on principles of political justice, and social control. Such systems arise typically during struggles for national independence and formation of national identities. The type of justice that operates here is based on some information, sometimes on ‘confessions,’ and on command/administrative decisions. In such a system, the potential victim does not stand much of a chance to ‘prove his/her innocence’. This is a system of political justice which is based on negotiated claims, hearsay, partial information, and social constructions of ‘guilt’, ‘collaboration’, ‘treason’, and ‘vengeance’. In almost all important aspects, political executions can be placed within this framework as well. In reality, the way this system works is by selecting a target and then expose this target to a process of strangerization whereby a specific human being is socially constructed as a ‘dangerous alien’ who must be eliminated. The linguistic devices which are used in this process are usually embedded within specific ideologies, and this whole complex of ideology and linguistic justifications is used to propel the potential killers into suspending their recoil from killing and then into both, committing the act and feeling justified in doing so.

Some Cross-Cultural Illustrations for Political Assassination Events There are many different cases of political assassinations and it is not too difficult to conceptualize an encyclopedia focused just on this topic. Much of the information we have, as well as the analytical formulations we create in this area, are based on Western experience. More information is derived from West Asia, on the boundaries between West and East. This, obviously, does not mean that assassinations cannot be found in, nor that they are not a significant feature of, South and East Asian and African cultures. Since we lack accessible, thorough studies for these regions, and since we can assume that conditions of the human existence, interests, ideologies, and economic and political competitions are probably similar there, we can perhaps risk stating that (1) we can, and should, assume that similar patterns may exist there too, and (2) there is a very strong need for conducting studies on assassinations in those regions. It may be beneficial, from an illustrative point of view, to remind ourselves about some of the more famous cases we are aware of. There are, of course, the famous Biblical cases, and some cases in ancient Greece. The most famous case during the period of the Roman empire is probably that of the assassination of Julius Caesar on March 15 in 44 BC. There are quite a few recorded cases during the Middle Ages, and there are some fairly well-known cases in the modern era as listed in Table 2 (based on the works by Ford and Lentz).

152 Assassinations, Political Table 2 Some famous cases of assassinations/executions in the Modern age Date

Victim

Assassin/s

28 June 1914

Archduke Francis Ferdinand and Countess Sophie Chotek Grigory E. Rasputin

Bosnian nationalist Gavrilo Princip

16–17 Dec. or 29–31 Dec. 1916 15 Jan. 1919 24 June 1922 22 Aug. 1922 20 July 1923

Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht Walther Rathenau Michael Collins Francisco ‘‘Pancho’’ Villa

25 July 1934 20 Aug. 1940 18 April 1943 16 Nov. 1944 30 Jan. 1948 20 July 1951 22 Nov. 1963 4 April 1968 9 May 1978 27 Aug. 1979 6 Oct. 1981

Engelbert Dollfuss (Austrian Chancellor) Leon Trotsky Isoruku Yamamoto Baron Walter Edmund Moyne Mohandas K. Gandhi King Abdullah Ibn Hussein John F. Kennedy (U.S. President) Martin Luther King, Jr. Aldo Moro Louis Mountbatten Anwar Al-Sadat (Egyptian President)

14 Sept. 1982 28 Feb. 1986 4 Nov. 1995 27 Dec. 2007

Bashir Gemayel (Lebanese president elect) Olaf Palme (Swedish PM) Yitzhak Rabin (Israeli PM) Benazir Bhutto

Morality Debates Political assassinations, whether committed by specific groups or by states pose a thought-provoking dilemma. We have argued earlier about Ford’s characterizing political assassinations as pragmatically useless and have come to the conclusion that such assassinations almost always produce results. Is there a moral justification to these assassinations and executions? The issue here is complex. A simple illustration is tyrannicide. Is it justifiable to assassinate a ruthless and lethal tyrant? Many people would probably respond in the positive and justify their view on stating that one dead tyrant may be better than a very large number of innocent dead people. While such tyrannical ancient figures as Nero or Caligula can be conjured, perhaps the most famous contemporary illustration is focused on attempts to kill Hitler. Could killing Hitler have saved millions of lives? If the answer is positive, then the justification for such an act exists. If the answer is no, then the justification disappears. However, this justification is based on numbers and on a harmreduction argument. Small insurgency groups who resort to political assassinations use other justifications: destabilizing a regime, interrupting the regime’s routine, make a statement, revenge, rally the masses, create unrest, killing heads of oppressive regimes, and more. Their morality is typically based on claims that they are involved in

Members of Russian nobility German right-wing Free Corpsmen German right-wing nationalists IRA Irish rebels Mexicans headed by congressman Jesus Salas Barrazas Nazi agents Ramon Mercader (a Stalinist agent) P-38 Fighter pilots of U.S. Air Force Two members of the Stern Gang (Lehi) Nathuram V. Godse, A Hindu extremist Mustafa Ashu Lee Harvey Oswald James Earl Ray Red Brigades Thomas McMahon, Provisional IRA Army Lt. Khaled Ahmed al-Istambouly led a group of 4 Unknown Unknown Yigal Amir, a religious nationalist Extremist suicide assassin/bomber (in Rawalpindi, Pakistan)

revolutionary attempts aimed at creating a better future, usually against what they describe as oppressive, unjust state or states. This type of killing is not new, but so are state-sponsored killings. That states have authorized executions is an old phenomenon as well. The new angle is what has become known as the war on terror. The global spread of terror threats at the turn of the twenty-first century and the delegitimacy of using World War II tactics to cope with that terror have forced intelligence and military planners to think of how to deal with this new challenge. This dilemma is basically a moral one – that is, what is morally justifiable in coping with terror ? As we saw earlier on, since 1972 Israel elected to hit specific targets in what has become known as ‘targeted assassinations’. This policy has attracted harsh criticisms from many and varied directions and raises the original question of how is a state supposed to cope with threats of terror? Following the Al Qaeda terror which toppled the World Trade Centers, the USA and allies have invaded and conquered two countries (Afghanistan and Iraq). Is that measure justified? The same question arises when we examine small groups’ usage of lethal terror and assassinations (many times of innocent civilians) as part of what these groups present as a struggle for freedom. Are we willing to accept these tactics as justified? For example, are we willing to accept as morally justified the ‘individual terror’ used by the Stern Gang in its struggle for a

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Jewish homeland? Thus, the basic question that lies at using assassinations and executions as a modus operandi is not only a moral one focusing on the legitimacy of using these forms of killings, but a much more general question that focuses on what types of conflict-resolution tactics are we willing to accept as legitimate? Moreover, will they be effective?

Acknowledgments The research on assassinations was funded by the Israeli Foundations Trustees, contract no. 86–01–007. See also: Revolutions; Terrorism; Violence as Solution, Culture of

Further Reading Amnesty (1993). Getting away with murder, political killings and ‘disappearances’ in the 1990s. New York, NY: Amnesty International. Ben-Yehuda, N. (1993). Political assassinations by Jews. A rhetorical device for justice. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Ben-Yehuda, N. (2005). Terror, media and moral boundaries. The International Journal of Comparative Sociology 46(1-2), 33–53. Clarke, J. W. (1982). American assassins: The darker side of politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

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Crotty, W. J. (ed.) (1971). Assassinations and the political order. New York, NY: Harper and Row Publications. Ford, F. L. (1985). Political murder from tyrannicide to terrorism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Havens, M. C., Leiden, C., and Schmitt, K. M. (1970). The politics of assassination. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Hurwood, B. J. (1970). Society and the assassin. New York, NY: Parents’ Magazine Press. Israel’s Elimination Policy (2002). Jerusalem: Al-Canon and the public committee against torture in Israel (Hebrew). Ivianski, Z. (1977). Individual terror: Concept and typology. Journal of Contemporary History 12, 43–63. Kirkham, J. F., Levy, S. G., and Crotty, W. J. (eds.) (1970). Assassination and political violence. New York, NY: Praeger Publishers. Lentz, H. M., III (1988). Assassinations and executions. An encyclopedia of political violence, 1865–1986. Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company, Inc. Lerner, M. (1930). Assassination. In Edwin, S. (ed.) Encyclopedia of the social sciences, vol. II. New York, NY: The MacMillan Company. Lewis, B. (1967). The Assassins: A radical sect in Islam. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. (A 1985 edition published in London by Al Saqi Books.) Padover, S. K. (1943). Patterns of assassination in occupied territory. Public Opinion Quarterly 7, 680–693. Rapoport, D. C. (1971). Assassination and terrorism. Toronto: Canadian Publishing Corporation. Rapoport, D. C. (1984). Fear and trembling: Terrorism in three religious traditions. The American Political Science Review 78(30), 658–677. Snitch, T. H. (1982). Terrorism and political assassina – A transnational assessment, 1968–80. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 463, 54–68. Turk, A. (1983). Assassination. In Kadish, S. H. (ed.) Encyclopedia of Crime and Justice, pp. 82–88. New York, NY: The Free Press. Wilkinson, D. Y. (ed.) (1976). Socials structure and assassination behavior. Cambridge, MA: Schenkman Publishing Company.

B Balance of Power Relationships Derek F Lynch ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Conceptual Issues: Power and Balances of Power Balance of Power Balance-of-Power Relationships in the Post-Cold War World

Glossary Anarchic System A political system in which there is no overarching power, no world government to turn to for protection. Balancer A state or an actor whose foreign policy is directed at the preservation of a balance of power between competing forces, usually by intervening on the side of the weaker party. Concert of Europe A system for the collective management and coordination of Great Power relations in Europe after 1815; also, the name given to the leading participants in that system. Deterrence A policy designed to counter the aggressive intentions of one actor by the use or threatened use of greater or equal force deployed against it. Equilibrium Balance A balance of power in which two or more forces of equivalent strength are ranged against one another so that no one actor can exercise hegemony over the other(s). International Regimes Sets of rules, norms, and decision-making procedures governing specific issue areas in international relations. Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) The assumption behind mutual deterrence and the balance of terror in the Cold War, namely, that a conflict between two heavily armed nuclear-weapon states would result in the utter destruction of both countries. This was believed to deter either one from seriously threatening the status quo or from launching an all-out military attack on the other.

Conclusion Further Reading

Realism A paradigm or theoretical approach to international relations that stresses that state behavior is based on the pursuit of interests defined in terms of power. Adherents, such as E. H. Carr, Henry Morgenthau, and Henry Kissinger, stressed the need to explain the world as it is rather than as it ought to be. Neorealism, a later variant associated with Kenneth Waltz, Robert Gilpin, and Stephen Krasner, explains foreign policy and international economic relations in terms of a state’s location in the global military and economic power structure. Realpolitik An approach to the conduct of foreign policy that suggests that the ends justify the means in the pursuit of the national interest. System A set of interacting parts. Utrecht, Treaty of (1713) This ended the War of Spanish Succession. To preserve the then-existing balance of power in Europe, it stipulated that France and Spain should never be united. Westphalia, Treaty of (1648) This ended the Thirty Years’ War. The Westphalian settlement confirmed and institutionalized the principles of state sovereignty and noninterference in the domestic affairs of others, and marked an important stage in the evolution of a system of independent states in Europe. Zero-Sum Strategy A game plan that assumes that a gain for one side automatically results in an equivalent loss for the other. It encourages selfish or egoistic behavior.

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156 Balance of Power Relationships

The balance of power is one of the most widely used expressions in the field of international relations. In fact, it refers not to one but to numerous, often quite distinct, concepts. It conjures up a series of assumptions about a particular style of foreign policy behavior and interactions among states. Balance-of-power relationships are perceived of as the product of a hard-headed, unsentimental, calculating, and essentially nonideological diplomacy. They are usually associated with the heyday of the old European powers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This entry explores the multiple meanings of balance-of-power relationships and their implications for the foreign policies of states and the international system as a whole. Using insights from history and international relations theory, it assesses their past significance and their possible relevance to the postCold War international order.

Conceptual Issues: Power and Balances of Power Our first, and most obvious problem in attempting to define balance-of-power relationships is the enormous ambiguity which surrounds the concept of ‘power’ itself. Although the entries under power elsewhere in this volume provide a more comprehensive treatment of the topic, a few words on its application to balance-of-power relationships are in order here. Our other problem, of course, is with the notion of a ‘balance’. Since this has been the focus of the debate about the concept of the balance of power among international relations scholars, it is worthy of more detailed consideration. Power ‘Power’ can be understood as the ability to ensure that one’s own preferences prevail. This can be achieved by controlling the behavior of others, by shaping a favorable consensus of opinion, or by manipulating the environment. It can be exercised through action or inaction, as well as by means of coercion or persuasion. Power is often confused with indicators of power or with the purposes for which power is deployed. Historians have usually spoken of ‘balance of power’ in terms of the military and economic capabilities of states, those resources that might assist them in waging war, or in threatening the use of war to achieve diplomatic ends. Suffice it to say that a mere count of tanks or dollars does not in itself predict the power of any actor. Questions of political will and the ability to set and alter agendas must also be taken into account. The utility of material resources is heavily dependent on the context in which they are deployed. Geography and distance, for example, have important bearings on the value of conventional military forces.

Power also depends on the perceptions of those at the receiving end of a transaction. If a government is so fanatical in its beliefs that it is willing to expose its population to external attack and mass annihilation, the threat of military action may not alter its behavior. Economic pressures are less potent if a regime is committed to autarky as a matter of principle. A state that rejected the exchange value of paper money, for instance, would find it difficult to take part in the world economic system but the international community would have difficulty in pressurizing that state too. It is when two or more actors share the same or similar perceptions of the value of certain resources or the undesirability of certain outcomes, that the game of power politics comes into its own. The changing pattern of rules, expectations, and beliefs held by actors alters the balance of power among them. Changes in the balance of military or economic capabilities are only significant insofar as they are believed to enable or constrain states in particular ways. Just as legal decisions establish precedents, the unfolding of events over time changes the environment of world politics. This ‘transformational’ view of power, as found in the work of David Dessler, reminds us of the importance of nonmaterial factors. On the other hand, we must avoid dismissing traditional approaches to state power out of hand and throwing out the baby with the bathwater. As will be seen later, military-strategic resources have always been important and will remain so for some time, in part because most states still believe them to be the key to their national security. Balances of Power The concept of ‘balance’ has been used in numerous ways, each one with its own specific consequences for our understanding of international relations. A balance of power could refer to specific distribution of power among actors, even if • any it does not involve an equitable share-out of power

• • • •

resources, any relatively stable distribution of power among states or other major actors, a state of equilibrium involving two actors or two opposing coalitions of actors, a description of a particular configuration of the international system in the eighteenth or nineteenth century, or the theory and practice of power politics in general.

Paul Schroeder found as many as 11 definitions of ‘balance of power’, including the related concept of a ‘European equilibrium’. We could give preference to one or more of these over all the others. But, as will become apparent later in the article, a wide range of

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concepts has its merits and each has its own particular application. Now let us examine some of the more common interpretations in greater detail. The audit of power

The expression can be used to refer to any distribution of power among a number of actors, as in the phrase ‘balance of forces’, even if the capabilities of the actors involved are not evenly ‘balanced’. Thus we could say that China did not act in this or that way because ‘‘the balance of power was unfavorable’’ or because ‘‘the balance of power favored the United States.’’ It might even be possible to quantify such a balance by counting the number of actors and by calculating the relative concentration of power measured in terms of military and/or economic resources. Of course, what we are describing here could just as easily be called the distribution of power. Used in this way, the concept merely refers to an audit of capabilities as understood, for example, in the title The Military Balance, an annual compilation of military data produced by the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Critics have at least some merit on their side in protesting that this is not a ‘balance’ at all; and yet, its common appearance in international relations discourse means that this misuse cannot easily be excluded from the lexicon of international relations. The equilibrium balance

Alternatively, a balance could be thought of as a state of equilibrium in which two roughly equal forces balance each other out. The focus here is the blocking effect of equal but opposite forces which is understood to provide a basis for stability. That is the logic behind much of deterrence theory. The principle of ‘mutual assured destruction’ (MAD) relied on a balance of terror between the Americans and the Soviets during the Cold War, as well as on an assumption of rough strategic parity after 1970. Deterrence, of course, can also be provided through the threat of overwhelming defeat by vastly superior force, rather than by means of an equilibrium balance. Thus, the United States could deter Iraqi incursions into Saudi Arabia in the post-Gulf War situation, not because of any equal balance of forces but due to a preponderance of American power in the region. The general effect of a balance of power involving several actors of roughly equal strength is that no one actor will be able to overwhelm another major actor and, more importantly, that no actor will be able to establish itself as a hegemon that could eliminate the others from the scene and create a world empire or world state under its control. Such a balance could exist among several actors or simply between two major players. The optimal number of participants in the game has always been a bone of contention. It is even possible to disagree on what constitutes a relevant actor. Are we talking about individual states? Should we count alliances and coalitions of

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states as, in effect, single actors? The answers to these questions are also dependent on our assessment of the polarity of the system, that is, on the relative concentration of power. There were at least six Great Powers involved in the European strategic contest before World War I, suggesting a multipolar system. However, in practice, they were organized into two quite rigid alliances: the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy, and the Triple Entente comprising Britain, France, and Russia. Consequently, the European order was actually bipolar, with the alliances likely to behave almost as predictably as single actors. The traditional European balance of power

In its purest form, a balance-of-power system does not tend toward bipolarity. In other words, the players involved have no permanent allies and no permanent enemies. They enter shifting coalitions, as in a game of musical chairs. At first glance, and taking account of individual states as opposed to coalitions of states, such balances of power might appear to have been quite common in European history, especially since the consolidation of the international states system after 1648. The eighteenth century has been characterized as a period in which ‘balance-of-power’ relationships took the place of ideological war and rigid religious alliances. States formed coalitions to counterbalance the power of others regardless of traditional enmities or creeds. The complex system of relationships among Britain, France, the Habsburg Empire, and Russia subsequently extended to include the Ottoman Empire and Prussia/Germany, is described as the ‘‘classic’’ European balance of power. Although it is dangerous to generalize across time periods and civilizations, a similar multiplolar system could be said to have operated in China during the Warring States Period and in Renaissance Italy. These systems are usually contrasted with universal empires such as the Roman or later Chinese empires, on the one hand, and with the polarized ideological battlegrounds of postReformation Europe or the Cold War, on the other. But although European politics in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was characterized by prolonged periods of multipolarity, it is doubtful whether an equilibrium balance of power really prevailed for much of this time. The early years of the nineteenth century, for instance, are often described in terms of a contrived ‘concert’ of power arrangement rather than a mechanical balance of power. Such a ‘concert’ is a group of states attempting to coordinate their actions, playing together ‘in concert’, in spite of their many differences, in order to preserve overall system stability. The rhetoric of the European Concert suggested that it was somehow ‘balancing’ French power. The reality was quite different. France was a defeated actor. The Concert was an alliance of victors keeping weaker states at bay working to

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preserve the new status quo. It was only when France had time to recover and tensions arose among the antiNapoleonic allies that you could glimpse the possibility of a new multipolar equilibrium. It is also doubtful whether the European order in the second half of the nineteenth century could be characterized as a balance-of-power system. The emergence of Prussia-Germany altered the distribution of power and created a new source of instability. Germany’s perceived military lead over its protagonists increased rapidly. Bismarck was certainly conscious of balances of power among individual states or groups of states but he did not always want to preserve a systemic balance. He was concerned with German interests first and foremost. Shifting coalitions and balances were merely instruments to be deployed to enhance national power with minimal risk in the game of Realpolitik. Kissinger sums up the relationship between Bismarck’s conception of ‘balances’ and his pursuit of the national interest by arguing that ‘‘enhancing the power of the state became the principal, if not the only objective, restrained solely by the forces massed against it.’’ Realpolitik was seen exclusively in terms of national policy rather than as a systemic requirement which also served long-term national interests. The survival of the fittest and the potential for hegemony was the name of this very Darwinian game in which local balances of power were fleeting and expendable tactical devices. In a genuine ‘balance-of-power’ system, on the other hand, the balance would assume such significance that it might have to be deliberately created and preserved and would acquire long-term value for all major participants. Such a convergence of expectations was never a foregone conclusion, not even in the era of the Classical European Balance of Power. Intentionality: contrived versus automatic balances

The question of how a balance of power comes into existence and is maintained is just as important as the number of actors involved in it. At the outset, we can see two possibilities: the equilibrium happens by accident, as a consequence of the historical evolution of forces, or is deliberately created and maintained to serve systemic purposes. As summarized by Bull, the balance of power has traditionally served three purposes: it has facilitated international order, protected the sovereignty of the leading states in the system, and prevented a world empire. These were deemed to be positive by-products of ‘balance-of-power’ relationships and for much of the time, good reason to nurture them. They were observed and extolled as ‘principles’ of international relations by the eighteenth-century European philosophers such as Emmerich de Vattel, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and Edmund Burke. Doubtless, many saw parallels with

Newtonian physics, another arena where stability and natural order depended on carefully constructed equilibrium and delicate balances among the competing forces of magnetism, motion, and gravity. In an almost mechanical response, a power vacuum or the prospect of an imperial hegemon would prompt states to preserve an existing balance of power or to create a new one. Balances of power are more informal regulators of the international system than international law or global institutions. The rules by which they operate are essentially tacit rules, shared understandings based on a convergence of expectations among the participants. Although weak states can be sacrificed, the sovereignty and independence of the major actors are preserved. The rules of behavior are like the ‘laws of the market’, imposed on states by the logic of their situation rather than enforced by any identifiable world policeman. For writers such as Kenneth Waltz, the balance of power is a natural and almost an automatic feature of the international system. He suggests that states wishing to survive in an anarchic system will probably engage in ‘balance-of-power’ behavior anyway. With no world policeman, they must survive or go under. To survive, they will copy other survivors and form balances and alliances to counter threats to their security. Hegemony is difficult: world empire extremely difficult. Consequently, States balance power rather than maximize it. States can seldom afford to make maximizing power their goal. International politics is too serious a business for that. (Waltz, 1979: 127)

Hedley Bull argued that a fortuitously arrived-at balance of power may not be a solid guarantee of long-term stability. The same forces of economic and technological change that give rise to the equilibrium in the first place may eventually work to undermine it. Rising powers, emboldened by their new parity with the old giants, will want to go farther. Previously dominant powers will want to regain their advantage. So, on their own, the principles expounded by the philosophers could not prevent the balance from breaking down. When a number of relatively powerful states become locked into such a highstakes game, stability is all-important. The horrors of universal religious warfare and the benefits accruing from longer periods of peaceful trade and commerce ultimately taught European leaders that a contrived balance might be more attractive than none at all. It came to be believed that, for a balance to succeed, states must coordinate their actions, not only at the moment of its inception but on a continuous basis thereafter. There must be a desire to avoid excessive disruption. Even the dominant powers must show restraint. In this situation, power is something possessed collectively by all

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states in a system, not just by one. For Richard Little, this ‘‘associative’’ conception of the balance of power enables all the major players to safeguard their security by averting international crises and global war. Where such a power stalemate effectively precludes outright hegemony, nobody can secure freedom and peace by their own efforts alone but only by carefully playing world politics according to the rules of the game. As summarized by Kaplan, these stipulated the conditions under which states would go to war, form alliances, or act with restraint. They suggested that it was in everyone’s interest that no major power be eliminated. Vacuums tempted ambitious states into adventurism, so they must be avoided. The key to balance-of-power relationships in such a scenario is an awareness of how much pressure the international system can take and a realization that even states involved in strategic competition are interdependent. This sensitivity to the needs of the international system was best exemplified by Britain’s role as a ‘balancer’ in the nineteenth century, a role much admired by Henry Kissinger in his various writings on European history published between 1957 and 1994. Britain had a nonideological foreign policy, enabling it to form flexible coalitions with weaker powers against potential hegemonic blocs. It felt relatively secure and it had no claims on the European territories of the other major players in the system. It had interests beyond the central balance in Europe, namely in its overseas possessions. Thus, its caution in Europe contrasted with a more aggressive stance in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, and especially in the efforts to counter Russian expansionism southwards toward the Indian subcontinent through Central Asia and Afghanistan. Valuing the balance of power was one thing: preserving it was another. Few countries were in such a fortunate position as Britain. Restraint was not always easy. Moreover, the balance often required considerable risk-taking. Limited wars of adjustment were necessary if major war involving all the Great Powers was to be avoided. These corrective actions, such as the Crimean War, curtailed the ambitions of potential upstarts and ‘updated’ the share of spoils to reflect the evolving power distribution.

Balance of Power Relationships: Causes and Consequences Conceptual nuances aside, there has been much criticism of late of the dominance of power politics in the academic literature on international relations. During the late Cold War, for instance, critics charged that this only reinforced or intensified East–West conflict. The reaction against power politics has led specialists to explore new dimensions of global politics including gender issues, the

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environment, international political economy, and crosscultural communication. For many, this broadening of the international relations agenda was long overdue. But debate persists over whether we can simply equate power politics with war and violence and thus dismiss it as an outmoded and undesirable preoccupation. To assess the implications of balance-of-power relationships for the international system, we can ask two recurring questions that have been of concern to the international relations community: does the balance of power have any effect on the behavior of individual states and, if so, what kind of balance is most conducive to peace and security? In specifying the latter, we might ask how many actors should be involved in the system and investigate its polarity or concentration of power. The Significance of System Structure The first question that has to be addressed is the extent to which structural factors, that is, the arrangement of states in the international system and the distribution of power among them, can explain state behavior. This is a wider issue in international relations that cannot be dealt with in great detail here. But if we believe that domestic, statelevel factors are more important than global power structures, the balance of power may not be all that important anyway. Clearly, much of the drive behind the foreign policies of, say, the Islamic Republic of Iran or North Korea come from domestic ideological movements and experiences. Such states will often risk challenges to the superpowers even when the odds are against them because their belief systems or internal political factors suggest that is the ‘right’ thing to do. They may forgo militarily or economically profitable alliances with ideologically ‘impure’ partners for the same reason. On the other hand, even the most ideological decisionmakers must give some thought to the strategic consequences of an unfavorable distribution of power. Their policies will at least be influenced by an awareness of structural constraints. Indeed, faced with this reality, they may even violate their own declared rules and cover their forays into power politics with a neat ideological justification, just as superpowers often do. To understand this, one has only to recall the commonalties of interest that drove the antiterrorist Ronald Reagan, revolutionary Iran, and the conservative Likud government in Israel into tacit collaboration in the Iran–Contra Affair of the mid-1980s (this was a dubious scheme designed to supply arms to Iran via Israel and channel the proceeds, by a circuitous route, to anti-Marxist rebels in Nicaragua). These considerations reflect the wider but interminable debate between those who believe that international politics is essentially a tactical game in which ideology is either a sign of irrationality or a cloak for deep strategy, and those who would attach more weight to the declared

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beliefs of the participants. But even those who believe that a state’s location in the international hierarchy is important have moved away from crude deterministic approaches that claim to predict behavior from a single variable such as wealth or military power. Keeping an open mind on the resolution of this debate, we can at least explore structural elements without investing blind faith in them or assuming that they will provide watertight explanations of events. The Number of Players With these caveats on board, let us now consider the impact of the number of major powers participating in the system on balance-of-power relationships. At the height of the Cold War, when US–Soviet rivalry was resulting in what many perceived to be a dangerous polarization of the international system, the traditional European balance of power had a certain appeal as a potential influence for moderation. Morton Kaplan, for instance, suggested that as many as five reasonably strong states were necessary for a working balance-of-power arrangement. So why was bipolarity seen as so problematic? The key is its tendency to reduce the number of cross-cutting cleavages in the system. All effort goes into the core confrontation and every issue forces even the independent states to side with one camp or the other. A multipolar system, on the other hand, was believed to induce moderation by giving states more partners from which to choose. Critics of bipolarity, like Inis Claude, raise the prospect that the resulting crescendo of confrontation may end in war, as it did in the case of the standoff between the two opposing alliances in 1914. For Kenneth Waltz, however, the singular focus of bipolar confrontation has its advantages. If the two sides want to avert Armageddon, they must learn to deal with each other. They are not distracted by the multiple games that must be played in a more extensive political system. There is only one relationship to manage and the buck cannot be passed to others. Multipolarity could lead to greater instability. In a multipolar system, no one actor has sufficiently preponderant power to overwhelm its neighbor. Thus, in the absence of the collective will to coordinate state behavior, individual states can be tempted to settle their own scores at the expense of others. Regardless of political will, more states are materially capable of initiating aggression. This is especially evident if we enter weapons of mass destruction into the equation. To appreciate this point, just consider the implications of a world in which every state had an equal number of nuclear weapons and roughly equal delivery capability. Would such proliferation of weapons produce a stable balance of power based on allround deterrence? Or would it increase the probability of the use of such weapons by one rogue state?

Multipolarity can also greatly increase the level of complexity of the system. In a bipolar arrangement, there is only one major conflict to keep under wraps. In a multipolar system, there are numerous bilateral and multilateral relationships to consider. The number of bilateral relationships is given by the factorial equation Dðnumber of dyadsÞ ¼

ðn – 1Þn 2

where n is the number of actors. The consequences of this can be seen in Figure 1. With two players, there is only one relationship to manage. With three actors, there are three bilateral relationships. But four participants raise the number of bilateral relationships to six. When these are plotted, we see that the complexity of the system increases very rapidly once we move beyond a three- or four-actor game (Figure 2). The resulting uncertainty over likely future alliances was a positive factor when the consequences of war were limited by the available technology. But it would be more difficult to gauge the outcome in today’s environment when preemptive strikes over long distances can be undertaken with split-second decision-making. The link between the relative concentration of power and global stability is another hotly debated topic. Of course, those who see the balance of power as a relationship among equals will not even recognize an A

AB

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AC BC

C A

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Figure 1 Bilateral relationships involving two, three, and four actors.

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might outweigh the benefits of preemptive action or aggression are not easy to predict and they change over time. The predictability of security regimes is attractive on paper but much more difficult to create in practice. This is because, although complex balance-of-power relationships do exhibit features of interdependence and mutual restraint, most people still conceive of security issues in terms of zero-sum relationships. The balance of power is all very fine but if it does not favor me today, it might favor my enemy tomorrow.

45 Number of bilateral relationships

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40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 1

2

3

4 5 6 7 Number of actors

8

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Figure 2 Multipolarity and system complexity.

asymmetrical system as relevant to our discussion. But relative parity can also be dangerous. Organski, writing in 1958, and Scharpel, writing in 1993, found evidence for the proposition that rising powers are tempted to challenge states that are marginally stronger than themselves but less willing to disrupt the security regime when there is a clear power asymmetry. If the evidence appears inconclusive, it is because balance-of-power relationships cannot be seen in purely mechanical or numerical terms. Their efficacy also depends on the manner and purpose of their creation.

Contrived Balances of Power and Security Regimes Discussion of contrived and automatic balances of power has been given a new lease of life by the growing literature on international regimes, the sets of both formal rules and decision-making procedures governing specific issueareas in international politics. Like the Highway Code, regimes involve voluntary restraint on the part of actors who fear the collective risk and uncertainty that would prevail in their absence. Regimes are therefore intentionally created structures. As Robert Jervis has suggested, a balance-of-power system would generate regime-type behavior if it were consciously created and nurtured rather than an unintended consequence of the blocking power of others. Furthermore, regime theorists argue that regimes alter the perceived interests of states. They stick to the rules because they fear the consequences of a ruleless world. Insofar as balance-of-power relationships become institutionalized in this way, regime theory can be helpful. However, as we have seen, the requirements of the international system do not always coincide with the perceived interests of national elites. The circumstances under which estimated costs of a nonregime situation

Balance-of-Power Relationships in the Post-Cold War World A Return to Balance-of-Power Relationships? There are some reasons to believe that the study of balance-of-power relationships may be of renewed relevance in the post-Cold War World. The Cold War balance was a rather rigid, bipolar structure. It was also marked by the high salience of ideology. We are now assumed to have reached the ‘‘end of history,’’ as Francis Fukuyama called it, a time when global ideological crusades no longer threaten world peace. A preoccupation with the decline of American power since the early 1970s has been accompanied by evidence of the rising economic potential of Germany and Japan, and the emergence of a concerted European trading bloc. There has been a proliferation of missile and mass destruction weapons technology to the Middle East and South Asia. These trends point to a more multipolar world in the next century. On the other hand, there is also evidence of a trend toward unipolarity, with one major actor, the United States, calling the shots. This is bolstered by perceived American military preponderance since 1989. International military actions ranging from the policing of Bosnia-Herzegovina to the Gulf War were heavily dependent on US military firepower and logistics. Though post-Cold War optimism was badly dented the perceived failure to generate stable pluralist systems in Iraq and the wider Middle East after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, Americans are still broadly confident that their vision of capitalist democracy is in ascendancy. Some developing nations have expressed alarm at this prospect in the context of the US-inspired ‘New World Order’ promulgated by the UN. There are two principal counterarguments to the Unipolar World Thesis: those resting on assumptions about longer-term American decline and the neorealist proposition that power begets resistance and competition. It could also be argued that it is the balance of political and ideological alignments that has changed and that the actual balance of military capabilities has not altered very much since 1989. Russia has certainly lost territory,

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population, and strategic resources but retains the ability to initiate a global thermonuclear war that both superpowers would lose. Russia is probing rather than resisting American foreign policy purposes only because she has changed sides in the political game. Declinist arguments originated in research on the American response to defeat in Vietnam and growing interdependence in international economic relations. They peaked with Paul Kennedy’s study of The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. America’s share of world economic activity has fallen sharply since 1945 and the US indebtedness is portrayed as symptomatic of a superpower exhausted and overstretched from its global military commitments. But critics of the declinist school, such as Samuel Huntington and Henry Nau, for instance, have pointed to American economic resilience, noting that both the size of the US lead in the 1950s and the scare over deficits in the 1980s were temporary and exceptional cases. Indeed, the gap between US and European economic performance formed the essential backdrop to the G7/G8 summits of the 1990s and subsequent trade conflicts in the early twenty-first century. Citing balance-of-power theory, neorealists predict that a countervailing force will inevitably emerge to curb any trend toward long-term hegemony. Waltz, writing in 1993, argued that the most likely scenario in the post-Cold War world is not a ‘‘bandwagoning’’ effect around American preferences but ultimate resistance to US leadership. Since the early 1990s, a culturally and ideologically diverse group of countries, notably Iran, China, India, Zimbabwe, Cuba, and Malaysia, has indeed dissented from the emerging global consensus on human rights, UN military intervention, weapons proliferation, and trade. But, even when it has the backing of Russia, this grouping frequently lacks the cohesion to act consistently against American policy. China and Russia, for instance, have taken the lead in promoting the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a political bloc designed to unite Asian states against outside threats. However, they remain undecided, and sometimes divided, over which ‘threat’ to Asian nations SCO is really countering: the United States or radical Islamist terrorism. We can only conclude that while the global power structure is still undergoing some kind of transition, the pace and ultimate extent of change remains uncertain. Balance-of-Power Relationships and Regional Politics Perhaps we will find better evidence of the renewed salience of balance-of-power relationships at regional level. The Gulf Crisis of 1990 and 1991 certainly suggested a US concern with balance-of-power dynamics. To begin with, the ideologically incoherent anti-Iraqi coalition contained some unusual bedfellows: the United

States, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Syria, and, tacitly at least, Israel as well. The endgame was even more telling. The United States chose to leave Saddam Hussein in power because it feared the consequences of the fall of Iraq. The dismemberment of such a significant regional power might drag Turkey and Iran into a conflict over the carcass. The Turks would intervene to curb Kurdish guerrilla activity; Iran might want to establish a Shiite satellite state in the southeast. The optimal solution, in this view, was a delicate balance of power in which Iraq was strong enough to survive as a state but too weak to launch any new military adventures. A similar logic drove Western countries to favor a stalemate in the earlier Iran–Iraq War, since a victory by either side would pose a new strategic threat to the rest of the region. Note, however, that faith in a balance of power is no iron law of foreign policy. Its delicate reasoning was cast aside in its entirety in 2003, when American neoconservatives urged a shattering of regional stability and a very robust pursuit of democracy in the region as a whole. Iraq was defeated and its regime replaced. Neoconservatives, unlike traditional realists, clearly believed that the risks of instability were worth taking to counter terrorism and WMD proliferation in the long run. Their critics say the lengthy insurgency that followed the Iraq War, together with Iran’s political gains in the region as a whole, actually proved the need to focus on the balance of power rather than on crusades for freedom (see ‘Further reading’ section). Balance-of-power reasoning is therefore locked in an ongoing contest with more ideologically driven policy prescriptions along a range of fronts. Another region where balance-of-power relationships are assuming new importance is East Asia. The rise of Japan and the tiger economies adds weight to the prospects of multipolarity in the world economy. There has been speculation about a new post-Cold War militarystrategic balance within the region itself. If the United States were to withdraw from the area because of the declining Russian threat, Japan and the other East Asians might fear Chinese opportunism. China is already building a blue ocean navy capable of projecting power in the western Pacific. There are conflicts over territorial seas and resources around the Paracel and Spratly Islands. Beijing might use military coercion to resolve its unfinished business in Taiwan. In the more distant future, any failure on the part of the United States to protect South Korea or Japan might induce Tokyo to translate its technological advantages into military applications in a way that significantly alters both the regional and the global balance of military power. Tokyo and Beijing would then court the other East Asians in an attempt to get them on side or to neutralize those that might be initially tempted to support the opposing power. Conscious of these dynamics, the medium-sized states would shift alliances as their threat perceptions altered. Much as they fear

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Chinese hegemony, they also retain painful memories of a militarily aggressive Japan. They too might feel more secure in a true balance-of-power system. The behavior of all participants in this regional subsystem already echoes the curious mixture of military preparedness and diplomatic caution that we found in Europe in the past. Whether in the fields of human rights or trade, many Western leaders follow Henry Kissinger’s advice and pursue pragmatic policies toward China and the Southeast Asian nations in anticipation of their increasingly important role in the regional and global power structure of the twenty-first century. Policymakers tread gingerly lest they might need their opponent of today as a friend tomorrow. As for the United States, it could play the role of balancer that Britain performed in nineteenth-century Europe. Washington wants good relations with both China and Japan, while wishing to constrain them as well. It also wants to lessen its overall military involvement in the region. This neat scenario is not without its problems. To begin with, it is still difficult to determine whether all of this reflects genuine efforts to construct a stable regional balance or merely reflects inertia and confusion in a time of strategic transition. Moreover, Michael Sheehan argues that the balancing role performed by Britain in the nineteenth century arose under a specific set of historical circumstances and is not a useful model for contemporary politics. In the case of East Asia, past American involvement and partisan commitments in regional conflicts render it less acceptable as a systemic balancer. Britain’s land forces were not sufficient to pose a serious threat to the European powers. Her capabilities were primarily relevant to the ocean-based politics of naval warfare and the global political order rather than to military campaigns on the continental landmass. American power is so much greater and more wide-ranging that it poses a potential all-round threat to other essential actors in the system. The pull of interdependence and trade may also favor regional integration rather than power politics, as it has done in Europe. In a recent survey, Renato Cruz de Castro found little statistical evidence of a regional arms race or an action-reaction cycle typical of balancing behavior. But this analogy with Europe could also be taken too far. For, despite all of the progress toward European integration, the triangular relationship among Germany, Britain, and France still provides ample room for shifting coalitions and alliance behavior in the internal politics of the European Union. Balance-of-power relationships are also evident in South Asia. Despite India’s clear military superiority over Pakistan, the fear of chemical and nuclear war has produced a balance of terror on the subcontinent. Conscious of the need to prevent a systemic breakdown, both sides have agreed to mutual restraints under the

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1972 Simla Accords, especially regarding Kashmir and their border areas. Moreover, Pakistan and India have cultivated external and subregional alignments in an attempt to preserve or alter the balance according to their needs. Thus, Pakistan has sought links with both the United States and China, while India is struggling hard to ensure continued Russian support in the postCold War setting. As Russia and China strengthen their ties, India has moved to improve its relations with Beijing too, lest Sino-Russian rapprochement develop to her disadvantage. Again conforming to the rules of power politics, the improvement in Sino-Indian relations reflects the logic of shifting alliances in circumstances where China, rather than Russia, could lead the challenge to American hegemony much desired by some Indian leaders. As if to turn the game of musical chairs to full volume, the United States has cast aside its earlier angst over India’s nuclear tests and stepped up economic and military cooperation. It may be hoping to use New Delhi as a counter-weight to China. But India and China, like eighteenth century players with their cards close to their chests, declare no contradiction whatsoever between improved ties with one another, with Russia, and with the Americans! The Asian case raises another intriguing possibility: are our perceptions of or expectations about balancing behaviors too Euro-centric? The eighteenth century balance and that of the Cold War era were focused on Europe. Kang has argued that apparent Chinese hegemony in large parts of Asia in the nineteenth century was often tolerated by other Asian states. Rather than casting it as hegemony, many Asians saw it as a continuation of a concentric-circles model of Chinese power and influence rooted in earlier traditions. Thus, far from being a recipe for instability, an ordered hierarchy appeared to have the tacit consent of others. Though this might appeal to many today, it would meet stiff resistance from states like India that appear poised to enjoy the fruits of great power status. But Kang’s contribution to the international relations debate reminds us that power politics does not have to be about balances of power. Competing Ideas: The Ideological Balance of Power It would be premature, of course, to announce the death of global ideological conflict. Samuel Huntington has predicted a new ‘‘clash of civilizations’’ involving the liberal West, the Islamic East, and the socially authoritarian Far East. Conflicts over values and human rights have not abated. The new power struggle in Central Asia may well be about access to regional mineral resources or geopolitics. But it is also, at least in part, a contest between those who put their faith in secularism and those who welcome an overtly Islamic influence.

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It is all too easy to represent balance-of-power relationships and ideological competition as quite distinct and even mutually exclusive phenomena. Competing ideas often provide those intangible elements of political will and motivation that make all the difference. The balance of power among ideas is an important factor in the overall power balance. This is especially significant when the ideas in question concern the nature of the international system itself. Stephen Kocs, for instance, argues that the nineteenth-century balance of power persisted, not because of the deterrent effect of military alignments but because of a shared adherence to international law. But he has still missed the point. It is the law of practice, the expected rules of behavior based on experience, rather than the formal Law of Nations written in treaties that is paramount. There was another balance of power at work here: that between those who believed that the strategic balance was important and those who would have undermined it. The great philosophical questions in international relations have practical significance. Should security be dependent on balance-of-power relationships? Or should we attempt to build collective security through the United Nations? Has the sovereign state had its day? Should the global economy be run on free market lines or a more regulated basis? The prevailing answers to these questions create shifting balances of power which favor some states or actors at the expense of others. This kind of balance may change as a consequence of a single dramatic development. But more often than not, change will be evolutionary as the ebb and flow of ideas runs its course. The prevailing norms of the international system are also power resources that can be used by states. Thus, while the norm against infringements on state sovereignty does not prevent superpower aggression against small states, it does restrain Great Power behavior in many circumstances. Likewise, as Krasner has shown in his 1985 work on North–South structural conflict, Third World states exploit the rules of conference diplomacy in international institutions and the collective ideology of Third World solidarity as a resource to generate bloc cohesion and as a counterweight to the Western advantage in material capabilities. Similarly, shifts in the prevailing mood have favored either free market or interventionist economic policies that, in turn, have had important implications for overall balance of power in the world economy. As with the balance of material capabilities measured in terms of tanks or dollars, the ideological balance can be loosely defined as any relationship among competing ideas, including situations in which one set of ideas constitutes an orthodoxy. Thus, the norm of state sovereignty is deeply embedded in the main body of Western thought on international relations. However, there can also be delicate equilibrium balances that are easily upset and

that require great care and attention. So even if the military capabilities of the nineteenth-century Great Powers were not evenly balanced, there was what Paul Schroeder called ‘‘a balance of satisfactions and rights, performance and payoffs.’’ These ‘‘satisfactions’’ and ‘‘rights’’ were intangible variables but no less critical to European stability. Our focus on nonmaterial considerations echoes the so-called ‘constructivist’ approach to power and international institutions. In this view, it is not the material resources themselves that constrain behavior but their meaning to the actors involved. This meaning is ‘constituted’ or constructed through the experience of interaction among states. The system socializes actors and creates rules of practice. Where these rules are intentionally created, we have international regime, the norms and rules governing specific issue areas in international politics. We have already met these regimes in the context of intentionally created balances of power where rules governing mutual restraint and power relations are in effect. A key element here is the belief that one’s own interests are in some way bound up with the health of the system: not necessarily of other individual states but of the system as a whole. The balance of power held together not only because of mutual fear but also because of an even greater fear of the consequences of systemic crisis. Again, we must emphasize that rules, expectations, and fears are nonmaterial, perceptual, or cognitive rather than purely material factors. Perhaps the greatest contest over rules and expectations arises between status quo powers and rising challengers. Challenges to the status quo can result from shifts in the distribution of military or economic resources, but they can also be cultural and ideological. Moreover, as in conventional balanceof-power relationships, some actors can swap their partners as we move from one issue to another, thus creating cross-cutting cleavages of the type that we saw in the ‘musical chairs’ of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century power politics. The Cold War ended in the capitulation of one of the ideological blocs, a paradigm shift in which one perspective displaced another. The increasingly bitter contest between Western value systems and radical Islamist influences in much of the Arab world, the Middle East, and Central Asia also appears quite intractable. So the prospects for balance of power–style flexibility and ‘musical chairs’ in the relationship among cultural warriors do not look particularly good. But they are not impossible. East Asians, for instance, have much in common with the West and may dislike Islamic fundamentalism. They also dislike Western preaching about human rights. On the other hand, there are social and cultural issues on which Western conservative leaders and Islamic or East Asian governments might agree. Who will these emerging nations support when it comes to the construction of

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global regimes? Likewise, Latin Americans have followed the US example in much of their political and economic life. They have a love–hate relationship with the United States. On the other hand, many of them would like to import European-style social democracy in order to deal with problems of poverty and inequality. In a global debate between US-style free market liberalism and European social regulation, the Latin Americans are in an intriguing position. Rather than dismissing intangible resources like rules and value systems as ‘another’ arena of inquiry, we can incorporate them into our calculation of the overall balance of power. Given the methodological problems associated with quantifying material power resources, this will not be easy. On the other hand, the exclusion of these variables as mere residual factors does little to enhance our understanding of balance-of-power relationships, the object of the research in the first place. Finally, some would suggest that globalization and technological change may be undermining one of the constitutive principles of modern international politics, the preeminence of sovereign states. This point is already frequently made by Marxists, who highlight the relative power of big corporations. More recently, nonstate actors have demonstrated the interest in, and means of acquiring, weapons of mass destruction, or of acting violently against states and civil society in ways previously considered the prerogative of states alone. The Aum Shinrikyo cult in Japan carried out a chemical-weapons attack on the Tokyo subway in 1993. Chechen terrorists have sought radioactive material. Transnational terrorist networks, like those associated with al Qaeda, are operating on a bigger scale and with more extensive resources than before. This begs a question for the future: in calculating the balance of power, at what point will we have to factor in nonstate actors with the ability to pose military or existential challenges to major states in the international system? We are still quite a long way from this scenario but it is one that must be addressed by the international relations community.

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perceived by others. These aspects of balance-of-power relationships contribute to global or regional communitybuilding in a practical sense but without the usually futile macropolitical engineering associated with Utopian plans for World Government and Universal Law. At the same time, however, power politics, whether directed at systemic or individual state goals, can blind policymakers to the rights of individuals and other moral and ethical dimensions of international relations. As we saw in the case of Bismarck’s Germany, balance-of-power relationships can be misused to mask longer-term expansionist, zero-sum strategies. Balance-of-power relationships do not prevent war. At best, they confine it to a limited sphere of corrective action and legitimate it under specific circumstances. The danger is that, for the most ambitious states, a delicate equilibrium balance of power may represent an obstacle to be overcome at the earliest possible opportunity. The looser conception of balance of power as any stable configuration of forces will continue to be used to describe and even to quantify the structural features of the international system at any given time. But if this is to be accurate, we must add nonmaterial variables to our calculations. The ideological balance of power is just as important as any raw count of material factors. Its incorporation into the wider concept represents an interesting challenge to both empirical and theoretical research in the years ahead. The various interpretations of balance-of-power relationships described here will continue to be used by academics. As with any other concept, this is not problematic provided that we specify our terms in advance and indicate how they are to be used. Moreover, though the patterns we discover in those relationships can be interesting, they do not produce iron laws. Researchers can avoid a crude and deterministic approach to the predictive utility of the distribution of resources. The real world of international politics is much more complex than allowed for by any model. Nonetheless, balance-of-power theory can be a useful yardstick or framework of analysis for assessing many instances of state behavior.

Conclusion The concepts of a balance of power and balance-of-power relationships remain elusive. A pure multipolar equilibrium balance of the type preferred by the eighteenthcentury philosophers will be difficult to establish and even more difficult to maintain over long periods of time. Nonetheless, many of the norms and expectations born out of earlier attempts to sustain such balances are still relevant today. Attention to local, regional, or global balances can foster a concern for system stability, alongside the usual focus on national interest. It also encourages actors to learn more about the strategic vulnerabilities

See also: Alliance Systems; Cold War; Collective Security; Diplomacy; Enemy, Concept and Identity of; International Relations, Overview; Military Deterrence and Statecraft; Political Theories; Power, Alternative Theories of; Power, Social and Political Theories of; United Nations, The

Further Reading Bull, H. (1977). The anarchical society: A study of order in world politics. New York: Columbia University Press. Claude, I. (1989). The balance of power revisited. Review of International Studies 15(2), 77–85.

166 Behavioral Psychology of Killing de Castro, R. C. (1997). Is there a northeast Asian arms race? Some preliminary findings. Issues and Studies 33(4), 13–34. Dessler, D. (1989). What’s at stake in the agent-structure debate? International Organization 43(3), 441–473. Fukuyama, F. (1990). The end of history and the last man. New York: Free Press. Gulick, E. (1955). Europe’s classical balance of power. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Huntington, S. P. (1988). The US – Decline or renewal? Foreign Affairs, 67(2). Reprinted in Stiles, K. and Akaha, T. (eds.) (1991). International political economy: A reader, pp. 481–498. New York: HarperCollins. Huntington, S. P. (1997). The clash of civilizations. Hemmel Hempstead: Simon and Schuster. Kang, D. (2005). Hierarchy in Asian international relations, 1300 to 1900. Asian Security 1(1), 53–79. Kaplan, M. (1966). Some problems of international systems research. International Political Communities: An Anthology. Garden City: AnchorReprinted . in Vasquez, J. (ed.). Classics of international relations, 2nd edn., pp. 277–282. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall. Kennedy, P. (1987). The rise and fall of the great powers: Economic change and military conflict from 1500 to 2000. New York: Random House. Kissinger, H. (1994). Diplomacy. London: Simon and Schuster. Kocs, S. A. (1994). Explaining the strategic behaviour of states: International law as system structure. International Studies Quarterly 38(4), 535–556. Krasner, S. D. (1985). Structural conflict: The Third World against global liberalism. London: University of California Press. Little, R. (1989). Deconstructing the balance of power: Two traditions of thought. Review of International Studies 15(2), 87–100. Lowe, R. and Spencer, C. (eds.) (2006). Iran, its neighbors and the regional crises: A Middle East programme report. London: Chatham House/Royal Institute of International Affairs.

Moul, W. (1989). Measuring the ‘balances of power’: A look at some numbers. Review of International Studies 15(2), 101–122. Nau, H. R. (1990). The myth of America’s decline: Leading the world economy in the 1990’s. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Organski, A. F. K. (1958). World politics. New York: Knopf. Paul, T., Wirtz, T. and Fortmann, M. (eds.) (2004). Balance of power: Theory and practice in the 21st century. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press. Scharpel, J. (1993). Change in material capabilities and the onset of war. International Studies Quarterly 37(4), 395–408. Schroeder, P. (1989). The nineteenth century system: Balance of power or political equilibrium? Review of International Studies 15(2), 135–154. Sheehan, M. (1989). The place of the balancer in balance of power theory. Review of International Studies 15(2), 123–134. Waltz, K. (1979). Theory of international politics. London: McGraw-Hill. Waltz, K. (1993). The emerging structure of international politics. International Security 18, 44–79.

Relevant Websites http://www.leeds.ac.uk/polis/englishschool/papers.htm – British International Studies Association. http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/research/bop/index.asp – U.S. Naval Postgraduate School Center for Contemporary Conflict. http://www.faculty.washington.edu/modelski/evoglopol.html – Evolution of World Politics. http://www.allacademic.com/one/prol/prol01/ – Political Research Online database.

Behavioral Psychology of Killing Kenneth R Murray, Armiger Police Training Institute, Gotha, FL, USA Dave Grossman, Arkansas State University, Jonesboro, AR, USA Robert W Kentridge, University of Durham, Durham, UK ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction: A Behavioral Revolution in Combat The Birth of Behavioral Psychology The Problem: A Resistance to Killing The Behavioral Solution: Conditioning to Kill

Glossary Acquired Violence Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AVIDS) The ‘violence immune system’ exists in the midbrain of all healthy creatures, causing them to be largely unable to kill members of their own species in territorial and mating battles. In human beings this resistance has existed historically in all close-range,

This article is reproduced from the previous edition, volume 1, pp 187–198,  1999, Elsevier Inc., with revisions made by the editor.

Conditioning Kids to Kill Conclusion: The Future of Violence, Society, and Behaviorism Further Reading

interpersonal confrontations. ‘Conditioning’ (particularly the conditioning of children through media violence and interactive video games) can create an ‘acquired deficiency’ in this immune system, resulting in AVIDS. As a result of this weakened immune system, the victim becomes more vulnerable to violence enabling factors such as poverty,

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discrimination, drugs, gangs, radical politics, and the availability of guns. Behavior Modification (also behavior therapy and conditioning therapy) A treatment approach designed to modify a subject’s behavior directly (rather than correct the root cause), through systematic manipulation of environmental and behavioral variables thought to be related to the behavior. Techniques included within behavior modification include operant conditioning and token economy. Behavioral Psychology (also behaviorism) The subset of psychology that focuses on studying and modifying observable behavior by means of systematic manipulation of environmental factors. In its purest form behaviorism rejects all cognitive explanations of behavior. Classical Conditioning (also Pavlovian and respondent conditioning) A form of conditioning in which a neutral stimulus becomes associated with an involuntary or autonomic response, such as salivation or increased heart rate. Conditioning A more or less permanent change in an individual’s behavior that occurs as a result of experience and practice (or repetition) of the experience. Conditioning is applied clinically in behavior modification. There are generally two types of conditioning: operant conditioning and classical conditioning.

Introduction: A Behavioral Revolution in Combat Behavioral psychology, with its subsets of behavior modification and operant conditioning, is a field that is ripe for use and abuse in the realm of violence, peace, and conflict. Perhaps the least subtle or most ‘directive’ of all the fields of psychology, in its purest form behaviorism rejects all cognitive explanations of behavior and focuses on studying and modifying observable behavior by means of systematic manipulation of environmental factors. In its application, behavior modification and other aspects of the behavioristic approach are generally considered best for use on animals and children (who tend not to resent or rebel against such overt manipulation as reinforcers and token economies), and for the preparation of individuals to react immediately and reflexively in life-threatening situations such as: children in fire drills, pilots repetitively trained to react to emergencies in flight simulators, and law enforcement and military personnel conditioned to fire accurately in combat situations. Throughout history, armies and nations have attempted to achieve ever higher degrees of control

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Operant Conditioning (also conditioning) A form of conditioning that involves voluntary actions (such as lifting a latch, following a maze, or aiming and firing a weapon), with reinforcing or punishing events serving to alter the strength of association between the stimulus and the response. In recent human usage operant conditioning has developed into a type of training that will intensely and realistically simulate the actual conditions to be faced in a future situation. Effective conditioning will enable an individual to respond in a precisely defined manner, in spite of high states of anxiety or fear. Reinforcement The presentation of a stimulus (i.e., a reinforcer) that acts to strengthen a response. Behavioral Psychology The subset of psychology that focuses on studying and modifying observable behavior by means of systematic manipulation of environmental factors. This article examines the history and origins of behavioral psychology, the role of behavioral psychology in creating a revolution in military training and combat effectiveness during the second half of the twentieth century, and the contributions of behavioral psychology in helping to understand one of the key causal factors in modern violent crime.

over their soldiers, and reinforcement and punishment have always been manipulated to do so. But it was done by intuition, half blindly and unsystematically, and was never truly understood. In the twentieth century this changed completely as the systematic development of the scientific field of behavioral psychology made possible one of the greatest revolutions in the history of human combat, enabling firing rates to be raised from a baseline of 20% or less in World War II to over 90% among modern, properly conditioned armies. In the post-Cold War era the police officers and the soldiers of the world’s democracies are assuming increasingly similar missions. Around the world, armies are being called upon for ‘peace making’ and ‘peacekeeping’ duties, and law enforcement agencies are responding to escalating violent crime with structures, tactics, training, and weapons that have been traditionally associated with the military. Some have observed that this process may be resulting in the creation of a new warrior–protector class similar to that called for by Plato in that first, fledgling Greek democracy more than 2000 year ago. If there is a new class of warrior–protector, then one factor which is profoundly unique in its modern makeup is this systematic

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application of behavioral psychology, particularly operant conditioning, in order to ensure the warrior’s ability to kill, survive, and succeed in the realm of close combat. Today the behavioral genie is out of the bottle, and in life-and-death, close-combat situations any soldier or police officer who is not mentally armed may well be as important as if he or she were not physically armed. Governments have come to understand this, and today any warrior that a democratic society deems worthy of being physically armed is also, increasingly, being mentally equipped to kill. When this is done with law enforcement and military professionals, it is done carefully and with powerful safeguards, yet still it is a legitimate cause for concern. But the final lesson to be learned in an examination of the role of behavioral psychology in violence, peace, and conflict is that the processes being carefully manipulated to enable violence in government agencies can also be found in media violence and violent video games, resulting in the indiscriminate mass conditioning of children to kill, and a subsequent, worldwide explosion of violence.

The Birth of Behavioral Psychology Around the turn of the century, Edward Thorndike attempted to develop an objective experimental method for testing the mechanical problem-solving ability of cats and dogs. Thorndike devised a number of wooden crates which required various combinations of latches, levers, strings, and treadles to open them. A dog or a cat would be put in one of these puzzle boxes and, sooner or later, would manage to escape. Thorndike’s initial aim was to show that the anecdotal achievement of cats and dogs could be replicated in controlled, standardized circumstances. However, he soon realized that he could now measure animal intelligence using this equipment. His method was to set an animal the same task repeatedly, each time measuring the time it took to solve it. Thorndike could then compare these learning curves across different situations and species. Thorndike was particularly interested in discovering whether his animals could learn their tasks through imitation or observation. He compared the learning curves of cats who had been given the opportunity to observe other cats escape from a box, with those who had never seen the puzzle being solved, and found no difference in their rate of learning. He obtained the same null result with dogs and, even when he showed the animals the methods of opening a box by placing their paws on the appropriate levers and so on, he found no improvement. He fell back on a much simpler, ‘trial and error’ explanation of learning. Occasionally, quite by chance, an animal performs an action that frees it from the box. When the animal finds itself in the same position again, it is more likely to

perform the same action again. The reward of being freed from the box somehow strengthens an association between a stimulus (being in a certain position in the box) and an appropriate action. Rewards act to strengthen these stimulus–response associations. The animal learned to solve the puzzle-box not by reflecting on possible actions and really puzzling its way out of it but by a mechanical development of actions originally made by chance. Thus, Thorndike demonstrates that the mind of a dog, or a cat, is not capable of learning by observation and can only learn what has been personally experienced and reinforced. By 1910 Thorndike had formalized this notion into the ‘law of effect’, which essentially states that responses that are accompanied or followed by satisfaction (i.e., a reward, or what was later to be termed a reinforcement) will be more likely to reoccur, and those which are accompanied by discomfort (i.e., a punishment) will be less likely to reoccur. Thorndike extrapolated his finding to humans and subsequently maintained that, in combination with the ‘law of exercise’ (which states that associations are strengthened by use and weakened by disuse), and the concept of instinct, the law of effect could explain all of human behavior in terms of the development of a myriad of stimulus–response associations. Thorndike, his laws, and trial-and-error learning became the foundation for behavioral psychology, and the behaviorist position that human behavior could be explained entirely in terms of stimulus–response associations and the effects of reinforcers upon them. In its purest sense this new field of behavioral psychology entirely excluded cognitive concepts such as desires or goals. John Broadhus Watson in his 1914 book, Behavior: An Introduction to Comparative Psychology, made the next major step in the development of behavioral psychology. Watson’s theoretical position was even more extreme than Thorndike’s. His rejection of cognition, or ‘mentalism’ was total, and he had no place for concepts such as pleasure or distress in his explanations of behavior. He essentially rejected the law of effect, denying that pleasure or discomfort caused stimulus–response associations to be learned. For Watson, all that was important was the frequency of occurrence of stimulus–response pairings. Reinforcers might cause some responses to occur more often in the presence of particular stimuli, but they did not act directly to cause their learning. In 1919 Watson published his second book, Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist, which established him as the founder of the American school of behaviorism. In the 1920s behaviorism began to wane in popularity. A number of studies, particularly those with primates (which are capable of observational, monkey-see, monkey-do, learning), appeared to show flaws in the law of effect and to require mental representations in their explanation. But, in 1938, Burrhus Friederich Skinner powerfully defended and advanced behaviorism when he published The Behavior of Organisms, which was arguably the most influential work

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on animal behavior of the century. Skinner resurrected the law of effect in more starkly behavioral terms and developed the Skinner box, a technology that allowed sequences of behavior produced over a long time to be studied objectively, which was a great improvement on the individual learning trials of Watson and Thorndike. Skinner developed the basic concept of ‘operant conditioning’ claiming that this type of learning was not the result of stimulus–response learning. For Skinner the basic association in operant conditioning was between the operant response and the reinforcer, with a discriminative stimulus serving to signal when the association would be acted upon. It is worth briefly comparing trial-and-error learning with classical conditioning. In the 1890s, Pavlov, a Russian physiologist, was observing the production of saliva by dogs as they were fed, when he noticed that saliva was also produced when the person who fed them appeared, even though he was without food. This is not surprising. Every farm boy for thousands of years has realized that animals become excited when they hear the sounds that indicate they are about to be fed. But Pavlov carefully observed and measured one small part of the process. He paired a sound, a tone, with feeding his dogs so that the tone occurred several times right before and during the feeding. Soon the dogs salivated to the tone, as they did to the food. They had learned a new connection: tone with food or tone with saliva response. In classical conditioning, a neutral stimulus becomes associated with an involuntary response, such as salivation or increased heart rate. But operant conditioning involves voluntary actions (such as lifting a latch, following a maze, or aiming and firing a weapon), with reinforcing or punishing events serving to alter the strength of association between the stimulus and the response. The ability of behavioral psychology to turn voluntary motor responses into a conditioned response is demonstrated in one of Watson’s early experiments which studied maze-learning, using rats in a type of maze that was simply a long, straight alley with food at the end. Watson found that once the animal was well trained at running this maze, it did so almost automatically, or reflexively. Once started by the stimulus of the maze its behavior becomes a series of voluntary motor responses largely detached from stimuli in the outside world. This was made clear when Watson shortened the alleyway, which caused well-trained (i.e., conditioned) rats to run straight into the end of the wall. This was known as the ‘Kerplunk experiment’, and it demonstrates the degree to which a set of behaviorally conditioned, voluntary motor responses can become reflexive, or automatic in nature. Only a few decades after Watson ran these early, simple experiments, the world would see the tenets of behaviorism used to instill the voluntary motor responses necessary to turn close combat killing into a reflexive and automatic response.

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The Problem: A Resistance to Killing Much of human behavior is irrefutably linked to a mixture of operant and classical conditioning. From one perspective, grades in school and wages at work are nothing more than positive reinforcers, and grades and money are nothing more than tokens in a token economy, and the utility of behaviorism in understanding daily human behavior is significant. Yet the purist position (which holds that behavioristic processes explain all aspects of human behavior) is generally considered to be flawed in its application to humans, since humans are able to learn by observational learning, and humans tend to strongly oppose and negate blatant attempts to manipulate them against their will. But in emergency situations, or in the preparation of individuals for emergency situations, behaviorism reigns supreme. Those in power have always attempted to utilize the basic behavioral concepts of rewards, punishments, and repetitive training to shape or control, and in many cases they would hope, predict the responses of military and law enforcement personnel throughout history Certainly, in ancient times when there was no formal understanding of the underlying precepts of conditioning, military leaders nevertheless subjected their troops to forms of conditioning with the intention of instilling warlike responses. Repetition played heavily in attempting to condition firing as seen in Prussian and Napoleonic drill in the loading and firing of muskets. Through thousands of repetitions it was hoped that, under the stress of battle, men would simply fall back on the learned skill to continue firing at the enemy. While this may have accounted for some increase in the firing of muskets in the general direction of the enemy, statistics from the Napoleonic era do not bear out the hit ratios that would indicate success in the method, success being determined by increased kill ratios. In tests during this era it was repeatedly demonstrated that an average of regiment of 250 men, each firing a musket at a rate of four shots per minute, could hypothetically put close to 1000 holes in a 6-foot high by 100-foot wide sheet of paper at a range of 25 yards. But Paddy Griffith has documented in his studies of actual Napoleonic and American Civil War battles that in many cases the actual hit ratios were as low as zero hits, with an average being approximately one or two hits, per minute, per regiment, which is less than 1% of their theoretical killing potential. While these soldiers may have been trained to fire their weapons, they had not been conditioned to kill their enemy. In behavioral terms, to prepare (or train, or condition) a soldier to kill, the stimulus (which did not appear in

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their training) should have been an enemy soldier in their sights. The target behavior (which they did not practice for) should have been to accurately fire their weapons at another human being. There should have been immediate feedback when they hit a target, and there should have been rewards for performing these specific functions, or punishment for failing to do so. No aspect of this occurred in their training, and it was inevitable that such training would fail. To truly understand the necessity for operant conditioning in this situation, it must first be recognized that most participants in close-combat situations are literally ‘frightened out of their wits’. Once the arrows or bullets start flying, combatants stop thinking with the forebrain (which is the part of the brain that makes us human) and thought processes localize in the midbrain, or mammalian brain, which is the primitive part of the brain that is generally indistinguishable from that of a dog or a rat. And in the mind of a dog the only thing which will influence behavior is operant conditioning. In conflict situations the dominance of midbrain processing can be observed in the existence of a powerful resistance to killing one’s own kind, a resistance that exists in every healthy member of every species. Konrad Lorenz, in his definitive book, On Aggression, notes that it is rare for animals of the same species to fight to death. In their territorial and mating battles, animals with horns will butt their heads together in a relatively harmless fashion, but against any other species they will go to the side and attempt to gut and gore. Similarly, piranha will fight one another with raps of their tails but they will turn their teeth on anything and everything else, and rattlesnakes will wrestle each other but they have no hesitation to turn their fangs on anything else. Lorenz suggests that this nonspecicidal tendency is innately imprinted into the genetic code in order to safeguard the survival of the species. One major modern revelation in the field of military psychology is the observation that this resistance to killing one’s own species is also a key factor in human combat. Brigadier General S. L. A. Marshall first observed this during his work as the chief historian of the European Theater of Operations in World War II. Based on his innovative new technique of postcombat interviews, Marshall concluded in his landmark book, Men Against Fire, that only 15–20% of the individual riflemen in World War II fired their weapons at an exposed enemy soldier. Marshall’s findings have been somewhat controversial, but every available, parallel, scholarly study has validated his basic findings. Ardant du Picq’s surveys of French officers in the 1860s and his observations on ancient battles, Keegan and Holmes’ numerous accounts of ineffectual firing throughout history, Paddy Griffith’s data on the extraordinarily low killing rate among Napoleonic

and American Civil War regiments, Stouffer’s extensive World War II and postwar research, Richard Holmes’ assessment of Argentine firing rates in the Falklands War, the British Army’s laser reenactments of historical battles, the FBI’s studies of nonfiring rates among low enforcement officers in the 1950s and 1960s, and countless other individual and anecdotal observations, all confirm Marshall’s fundamental conclusion that man is not, by nature, a close-range, interpersonal killer. The existence of this resistance can be observed in its marked absence in sociopaths who, by definition, feel no empathy or remorse for their fellow human beings. Pit bull dogs have been selectively bred for sociopathy, bred for the absence of the resistance to killing one’s kind in order to ensure that they will perform the unnatural act of killing another dog in battle. Breeding to overcome this limitation in humans is impractical, but humans are very adept at finding mechanical means to overcome natural limitations. Humans were born without the ability to fly, so we found mechanisms that overcame this limitation and enabled flight. Humans also were born without the ability to kill fellow humans, and so, throughout history, we have devoted great effort to finding a way to overcome this resistance.

The Behavioral Solution: Conditioning to Kill By 1946 the US Army had completely accepted Marshall’s World War II findings of a 15–20% firing rate among American riflemen, and the Human Resources Research Office of the US Army subsequently pioneered a revolution in combat training that replaced the old method of firing at bull’s-eye targets with deeply ingrained operant conditioning using realistic, man-shaped pop-up targets that fall when hit. The discriminative stimulus was a realistic target popping up in the soldier’s field of view. For decades this target was a two-dimensional silhouette, but in recent years both the military and police forces have been changing to mannequin-like, three-dimensional, molded plastic targets; photo-realistic targets; and actual force-on-force encounters against live adversaries utilizing the paint pellet projectile training systems pioneered by The Armiger Corporation under the name of Simunition. These are key refinements in the effectiveness of the conditioning process, since it is crucial that the discriminative stimulus used in training be as realistic as possible in its simulation of the actual, anticipated stimulus if the training is to be transferred to reality in a crucial, life-and-death situation. The operant response being conditioned is to accurately fire a weapon at a human being, or at least a realistic simulation of one. The firer and the grader know if the firing is accurate, since the target drops when hit. This

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realistically simulates what will happen in combat, and it is gratifying and rewarding to the firer. This minimal gap between the performance (hitting the target) and the initial reinforcement (target drops) is key to successful conditioning since it provides immediate association between the two events. A form of token economy is established as an accumulation of small achievements (hits) are cashed in for marksmanship badges and other associated rewards (such as a three-day pass), and punishments (such as having to retrain on a Saturday that would have otherwise been a day off) are presented to those who fail to perform. The training process involves hundreds of repetitions of this action, and ultimately the subject becomes like Watson’s rats in the Kerplunk experiment, performing a complex set of voluntary motor actions until they become automatic or reflexive in nature. Psychologists know that this kind of powerful ‘operant conditioning’ is the only technique that will reliably influence the primitive, midbrain processing of a frightened human being, just as fire drills condition terrified school children to respond properly during a fire, and repetitious, stimulus–response conditioning in flight simulators enables frightened pilots to respond reflexively to emergency situations. Modern marksmanship training is such an excellent example of behaviorism that it has been used for years in the introductory psychology course taught to all cadets at the US Military Academy at West Point as a classic example of operant conditioning. And in the 1980s, during a visit to West Point, Skinner identified modern military marksmanship training as a near-perfect application of operant conditioning. Throughout history, various factors have been manipulated to enable and force combatants to kill, but the introduction of conditioning in modern training was a true revolution. The application and perfection of these basic conditioning techniques appear to have increased the rate of fire from near 20% in World War II to approximately 55% in Korea and around 95% in Vietnam. Similar high rates of fire resulting from modern conditioning techniques can be seen in FBI data on law enforcement firing rates since the nationwide introduction of modern conditioning techniques in the last 1960s. One of the most dramatic examples of the value and power of this modern, psychological revolution in training can be seen in Richard Holmes’ observations of the 1982 Falklands War. The superbly trained (i.e., conditioned) British forces were without air or artillery superiority and were consistently outnumbered threeto-one while attacking the poorly trained (i.e, nonconditioned) but well-equipped and carefully dug-in Argentine defenders. Superior British firing rates (which Holmes estimates to be well over 90%) resulting from modern training techniques has been credited as a key factor in the series of British victories in that brief but bloody war.

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Today nearly all first-world nations and their law enforcement agencies have thoroughly integrated operant conditioning into their marksmanship training. It is no accident that in recent years the world’s largest employer of psychologists is the US Army Research Bureau. However, most third-world nations, and most nations which rely on large numbers of draftees rather than a small, well-trained army, generally do not (or cannot) spare the resources for this kind of training. And any future army or law enforcement agency which attempts to go into close combat without such psychological preparation is likely to meet a fate similar to that of the Argentines.

Conditioning Kids to Kill Thus the tremendous impact of psychological ‘conditioning’ to overcome the resistance to killing can be observed in Vietnam and the Falklands where it gave US and British units a tremendous tactical advantage in close combat, increasing the firing rate from the World War II baseline of around 20% to over 90% in these wars. Through violent programming on television and in movies, and through interactive point-and-shoot video games, the developed nations are indiscriminately introducing to their children the same weapons technology that major armies and law enforcement agencies around the world use to ‘turn off the midbrain ‘safety catch’ that Marshall discovered in World War II. US Bureau of Justice Statistics research indicates that law enforcement officers and veterans (including Vietnam veterans) are statistically less likely to be incarcerated than a nonveteran of the same age. The key safeguard in this process appears to be the deeply ingrained discipline that the soldier and police officer internalize with their training. However, by saturating children with media violence as entertainment, and then exposing them to interactive ‘point-and-shoot’ arcade and video games, it has become increasingly clear that society is aping military conditioning, but without the vital safeguard of discipline. The same sort of discipline that sets boundaries for members of the military is also part of the hunting subculture, the other sector of society that is familiar with guns. In this environment there are: strict rules about not pointing guns at people, extreme cautions regarding the safety of individuals, and often even respect for their prey, all of which hunters pass on as part of their socialization process and which are reinforced by strict laws. Video game players are not instilled with the same values. The observation that violence in the media is causing violence in our streets is nothing new. The American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Medical Association, and their

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equivalents in many other nations have all made unequivocable statements about the link between media violence and violence in our society. The APA, in their 1992 report Big World, Small Screen, concluded that the ‘‘scientific debate is over.’’ And in 1993 the APA’s commission on violence and youth concluded that ‘‘there is absolutely no doubt that higher levels of viewing violence on television are correlated with increased acceptance of aggressive attitudes and increased aggressive behavior.’’ The evidence is quite simply overwhelming. Dr. Brandon Centerwall, professor of epidemiology at the University of Washington, has summarized the overwhelming nature of this body of evidence. His research demonstrates that, anywhere in the world that television is introduced, within 15 years the murder rate will double. (And across 15 years the murder rate will significantly under-represent the problem because medical technology developments will be saving ever more lives each year.) Centerwall concludes that if television had never been introduced in the United States, then there would today be 10 000 fewer homicides each year in the United States, 70 000 fewer rapes, and 700 000 fewer injurious assaults. Overall violent crime would be half what it is. He notes that the net effect of television has been to increase the aggressive predisposition of approximately 8% of the population, which is all that is required to double the murder rate. Statistically, 8% is a very small increase. Anything less than 5% is not even considered to be statistically significant. But in human terms, the impact of doubling the homicide rate is enormous. There are many psychological and sociological processes through which media violence turns into violent crime. From a developmental standpoint we know that around the age of 18 months a child is able to discern what is on television and movies, but the part of their mind that permits them to organize where information came from does not fully develop until they are between ages 5 and 7. Thus, when a young child sees someone shot, stabbed, beaten, degraded, abused, or murdered on the screen, for them it is as though it were actually happening. They are not capable of discerning the difference, and the effect is as though they were children of a war zone, seeing death and destruction all around them, and accepting violence as a way of life. From a Pavlovian, or classical conditioning standpoint, there is what Dave Grossman has termed the ‘reverseclockwork orange process’. In the movie Clockwork Orange, a sociopath is injected with a drug that makes him nauseous and he then is exposed to violent movies. Eventually he comes to associate all violence with nausea and is somewhat ‘cured’ of his sociopathy. In real life, millions of children are exposed to thousands of repetitions of media violence, which they learn to associate with not nausea but pleasure in the form of their favorite candy,

soda, and a girlfriend’s perfume as they sit and laugh and cheer at vivid depictions of human death and suffering. Finally, from a behavioral perspective, the children of the industrialized world participate in countless repetitions of point-and-shoot video and arcade games that provide the motor skills necessary to turn killing into an automatic, reflexive, ‘kerplunk’ response, but without the stimulus discriminators and the safeguard of discipline found in military and law enforcement conditioning. Thus, from a psychological standpoint, the children of the industrialized world are being brutalized and traumatized at a young age, and then through violent video games (operant conditioning) and media violence (classical conditioning), they are learning to kill and learning to like it. The result of this interactive process is a worldwide virus of violence. A hundred things can convince the forebrain to take gun in hand and go to a certain point: poverty, drugs, gangs, leaders, radical politics, and the social learning of violence in the media. But traditionally all of these influences have slammed into the resistance that a frightened, angry human being confronts in the midbrain. With the exception of violent sociopaths (who, by definition, do not have this resistance), the very vast majority of circumstances are not sufficient to overcome this midbrain safety net. But, if you are conditioned to overcome these midbrain inhibitions, then you are a walking time bomb, a pseudosociopath, just waiting for the random factors of social interaction and forebrain rationalization to put you at the wrong place and the wrong time. An effective analogy can be made to AIDS in attempting to communicate the impact of this technology. AIDS does not kill people, it destroys the immune system and makes the victim vulnerable to death by other factors. The ‘violence immune system’ exists in the midbrain, and conditioning in the media creates an ‘acquired deficiency’ in this immune system, resulting in what Grossman has termed ‘acquired violence immune deficiency syndrome’ or AVIDS. As a result of this weakened immune system, the victim becomes more vulnerable to violence-enabling factors such as: poverty, discrimination, drugs, gangs, radical politics, and the availability of guns. In behavioral terms this indiscriminate use of combat conditioning techniques on children is the moral equivalent of giving an assault weapon to every child in every industrialized nation in the world. If, hypothetically, this were done, the very vast majority of children would almost certainly not kill anyone with their assault rifles; but if only a tiny percentage did, then the results would be tragic, and unacceptable. It is increasingly clear that this is not a hypothetical situation. Indiscriminate civilian application of combat conditioning techniques as entertainment has increasingly been identified as a key factor in worldwide, skyrocketing violent crime rates. Between 1957 and 1992 aggravated assault in the United States,

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according to the FBI, went up from around 60 per 100 000 to over 440 per 100 000. Additionally, 1977 and 1986 the ‘serious assault’ rate, as • Between reported to Interpol, increased nearly fivefold in

• •

Norway and Greece, and the murder rate more than tripled in Norway and doubled in Greece. In Australia and New Zealand the ‘serious assault’ rate increased approximately fourfold, and the murder rate approximately doubled in both nations. During the same period the assault rate tripled in Sweden and approximately doubled in Belgium, Canada, Denmark, England-Wales, France, Hungary, Netherlands, Scotland, and the United States; while all these nations (with the exception of Canada) also had an associated (but smaller) increase in murder rates.

All of these increases in violent crime, in all of these nations (which Dave Grossman has termed a virus of violence) occurred during a period when medical and law enforcement technology should have been bringing murder and crime rates down. It is no accident that this has been occurring primarily in industrialized nations, since the factor that caused all of these increases is the same factor that caused a revolution in close combat, except in this case it is the media, not the military, that has been conditioning kids to kill.

Conclusion: The Future of Violence, Society, and Behaviorism The impact of behavioral psychology on combat in the second half of the twentieth century has been truly revolutionary. It has been a quiet, subtle revolution, but nonetheless one with profound effects. A healthy, selfaware, democratic society must understand these processes that have been set in play on its streets and among its armed forces. Among government institutions this is being done with great care and safeguards, nevertheless it should trouble and concern a society that this is occurring and (far more so) that it may well be necessary. In a world of violent crime, in a world in which children around the globe are being casually conditioned to kill, there may well be justification for the cop and the peacekeeper to be operantly conditioned to engage in deadly force. Indeed, Ken Murray has conducted pioneering research at Armiger Police Training Institute that concludes that, even with conditioning, the psychology of the close-combat equation is still badly skewed against the forces of law and order. Building on the ‘killing-enabling factors’ first developed by Dave Grossman, Murray’s widely presented findings have been instrumental in a

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major reassessment of the need for a comprehensive, systematic approach to law enforcement training. But if the carefully safeguarded conditioning of military and law enforcement professionals is a necessary evil that is still a legitimate cause for concern, how much more should a society be concerned about the fact that the exact same process is being indiscriminately applied to our children, but without the safeguards? The impact of behavioral technology in the second half of the twentieth century has been profound, closely paralleling the timeframe and process of nuclear technology. Behavioral psychology has done to the microcosm of battle what nuclear weapons did to the macrocosm of war. Just as our civilization is entering into the twenty-first century with a determination to restrain and apply itself to the challenges of nuclear proliferation, so too might the time have come to examine the indiscriminate proliferation of violent behavioral conditioning distributed indiscriminately to children as a form of entertainment. See also: Aggression and Altruism; Animal Behavioral Studies, Non-Primates; Animal Behavioral Studies, Primates; Psychological Effects of Combat; Ritual and Symbolic Behavior; Weaponry, Evolution of

Further Reading American Psychiatric Association (1975). A psychiatric glossary. Washington, DC: APA Washington. Boakes, R. A. (1984). From Darwin to behaviorism: Psychology and the mind of animals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bower, G. H. and Hilgard, E. R. (1981). Theories of learning, 5th edn. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Centerwall, B. (1992). Television and violence: The scale of the problem and where to go from here. Journal of the American Medical Association 267, 3059. Grossman, D. (1995\1996). On killing: The psychological cost of learning to kill in war and society. New York, NY: Little, Brown, and Co. Holmes, R. (1985). Acts of war: The behavior of men in battle. New York, NY: The Free Press. Lorenz, K. (1966). On aggression. New York, NY: Harcourt Brace. Mattson, M. Paul. (2003). Neurobiology of aggression: Understanding and preventing violence. Totawa, NJ: Humana Press. Moll, J., De Oliveira-Souza, R., and Eslinger, P. J. (2003). Morals and the human brain: A working model. NeuroReport 14, 299–305. Reiss, A. J., Jr., Miczek, K, A., and Roth, J. A. (eds.) (1993). Understanding and preventing violence: Biobehavioral influences, vol 2. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Rosenkoetter, L. I., Rosenkoetter, S. E., Ozretich, R. A., and Acock, A. C. (2004). Mitigating the harmful effects of violent television. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 25, 25–47. Schwartz, B. and Robbins, S. J. (1995). Psychology of learning and behavior, 4th edn. New York, NY: W. W. Norton. Skinner, B. F. (1938). The behavior of organisms: An experimental analysis. New York, NY: Appleton Century Crofts. Watson, J. B. (1930\1963). Behaviorism. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago.

174 Biochemical Factors in Aggression and Violence

Bias-Motivated Crimes See Hate Crimes

Biochemical Factors in Aggression and Violence David LeMarquand, Regional Mental Health Care London, London, ON, Canada Peter N S Hoaken, The University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada Chawki Benkelfat, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada Robert O Pihl, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction Hormones Neurotransmitters

Glossary Agonist A compound that binds to a receptor and initiates intracellular processes. Amino Acids Monomers that are the structural building blocks of proteins; a small minority function as neurotransmitters. Androgens Male sex hormones; one class of steroid hormones in mammals. Antagonist A compound that binds to and occupies a receptor but does not initiate intracellular processes. Central Nervous System Part of the nervous system composed of the brain and spinal cord. Cerebrospinal Fluid Liquid produced by the choroid plexuses of the lateral, third, and fourth ventricles that fills the ventricular system of the brain and the spinal subarachnoid space. Hormone A compound released from neuronal or non-neuronal cells that circulates and acts at a site distant from its release site. Monoamine Oxidase An enzyme that degrades biogenic amines.

Introduction The biochemistry of human aggression has been studied for about three decades; over this period, a considerable but inconsistent literature has arisen. Much less research has been done on the biochemistry of human prosocial and affiliative behavior (e.g., cooperation, altruism, friendship); as such, the primary focus of this review will be the neurobiology of aggression and violence in humans. The

Other Neurochemicals Summary/Conclusions Further Reading

Monoamines A class of neurotransmitters, along with amino acids and peptides, consisting of three catecholamines (dopamine, norepinephrine, and epinephrine), an indoleamine (serotonin), a quaternary amine (acetylcholine), and an ethylamine (histamine). Neurotransmitter A compound synthesized and released from the presynaptic membrane upon nerve stimulation of a neuron in the nervous system, inducing a physiological response on the postsynaptic membrane. Platelets Disk-shaped blood cells formed in the bone marrow whose primary physiological function is hemostasis. Receptor A protein in the neuronal membrane of a cell that is a binding or recognition site for a neuroactive compound which may result in a change in the activity of the cell. Reuptake Inhibitor A compound that blocks the reuptake of a neurotransmitter into the presynaptic membrane.

primary dependent measures used in the study of the biochemistry of human aggression and violence include: (1) hormones and their precursors/metabolites, measured in saliva, blood, and urine; (2) neurotransmitters and their precursors/metabolites, measured in blood, urine, and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF); (3) neurotransmitter uptake and receptor functioning on blood platelets; and (4) neurotransmitter physiology and its effects on hormonal responses using neurotransmitter precursor, reuptake

Biochemical Factors in Aggression and Violence

inhibitor, and direct receptor agonists/antagonists. The latter technique has been particularly useful in elucidating which specific neurotransmitter receptor subtypes may be involved in aggression, particularly with the development of agonists and antagonists with greater receptor specificity. Much of the literature is composed of correlational studies linking a particular biochemical to aggression; however, some experimental studies assessing human aggressive behavior following the administration of hormones or neurotransmitter precursors, agonists, or antagonists have also been conducted. Many of the aforementioned measures are limited in what they indicate about central nervous system (CNS) function. Urinary biochemicals (e.g., neurotransmitter metabolites) primarily result from metabolism in the periphery; therefore they tend to be less reflective of CNS function. The relationship between neurotransmitter (and precursor) concentrations in the blood and the function of CNS neurotransmitter systems is not well understood. As well, some cellular structures and physiological processes on blood platelets are thought to be analogous to those in synaptic membranes in the CNS. However, the environment of blood platelets is substantially different than that of neurons in the brain with potentially important consequences. It is not entirely clear how the levels of CSF neurochemicals, sampled from the lumbar spinal cord region, relate to brain neurochemical functioning. While studies have demonstrated correlations between CSF metabolite levels and levels of neurotransmitter metabolites in some brain regions, it is important to realize that it is unlikely that the former reflect neuronal activity in specific brain regions. This limitation also applies to the psychopharmacologic challenge paradigm. Despite their limitations, many of these measures have been correlated to CNS processes, and thus are held to be reflective of brain processes. As such, they are extensively utilized. It should also be noted that peripheral biochemicals may provide information on important peripheral processes pertinent to the understanding of the biochemistry of aggression and violence. A further difficulty in this field concerns how aggression and violence are defined, operationalized, and assessed. Aggression has been variously defined as any behavior directed toward the goal of harming or injuring another individual who is motivated to avoid such harm/ injury, or any behavior that is capable of damaging or degrading the integrity of other individuals or objects and that occurs within a social context. Violence has been defined as purposeless, antisocial aggression exhibited out of context: aggressive behavior that is no longer regulated by situational and social stimuli. A reactive form of aggression associated with high levels of emotional arousal has been distinguished from a more instrumental, proactive, calculated form of aggression associated with lower emotional arousal. The variability in the assessment of aggressive and violent behavior is equally great.

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Assessment techniques and measures include official records of violent and nonviolent criminal offenses, selfreport questionnaires of aggressive/violent traits and behaviors, and self-reported feeling states associated with aggression and violence (e.g., anger, irritability). Between-study differences on these parameters tend to hinder interpretation of the data, and may obscure relationships between certain biochemicals and specific types or components of aggressive/violent behavior (e.g., fighting, irritability, impulsivity).

Hormones Gonadal Androgens Hormones are secretions of endocrine glands that are transported through the bloodstream and act on target tissues throughout the body (including the CNS) to effect physiological and behavioral changes. Androgens, a particular class of steroid hormones, are primarily produced in the gonads (i.e., the testes and ovaries of men and women) and adrenal glands. They have two distinct sets of effects: androgenic (differentiation, growth, and development of the male reproductive tract) and anabolic (stimulation of linear body growth). During the pre- and perinatal organizational stage of sexual differentiation, androgens masculinize the fetus through the development of the male reproductive tract. At puberty, the activational stage begins, and androgen levels rise, leading to increases in bone growth, muscle mass, growth of the genital organs, development of the secondary sex characteristics, and increases in sexual motivation. The absolute levels of testosterone, one of the primary androgens, are substantially lower in women than in men, and decline with age in both sexes. Testosterone is the most abundant androgen, and is generally thought to have the greatest impact on behavior. Most of the behavioral effects of androgens are mediated through binding to androgen receptors widely distributed in the brain and other sites in the body. Hormonal action is terminated through the dissociation of the androgen from its receptor. Androgens are known to modulate the functioning of a large number of neurotransmitters and neuropeptides. Testosterone is metabolized into dihydrotestosterone, androsterone, etiocholanolone, and estradiol, the latter of which may act at the estrogen receptor to mediate androgen effects. Thus, how a steroid is metabolized will have important functional consequences. Interest in the relationship between the androgens, testosterone in particular, and aggression is most likely due to the oft-noted gender difference in aggressive behavior. Human males engage in more physical violence, and are more often the victims of violence, relative to females. As noted above, gonadal hormones are involved in the expression of sex differences in anatomy and sexual behavior. Androgens have also recently been

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demonstrated to have an effect on energy levels, play activity, and gender role behavior in children. As such, a possible relationship between androgens and aggressive behavior might be expected. A number of comprehensive reviews demonstrate that violent males have higher testosterone levels relative to nonviolent males. This holds true for criminals with histories of violent crimes compared to those with histories of nonviolent crimes, as well as violent sex offenders relative to nonviolent sex offenders and adult volunteers. Interestingly, studies with women have noted higher testosterone in aggressive versus nonaggressive groups. Despite the general consistency of these findings, some studies with offenders have found no differences in testosterone levels between, for example, adolescent males convicted for repeated assault compared to those convicted for assault or for property offenses, or men charged with murder or assault versus those charged with property offenses. Even in the former study, however, adolescents from the most violent group tended to show higher testosterone levels than the other two groups. A higher than expected proportion of XYY individuals are involved in violent crime; these individuals also have higher testosterone levels than their adolescent peers. In more recent studies, impulsive alcoholic violent offenders with antisocial personality disorder had high levels of CSF-free testosterone relative to healthy volunteers, whereas impulsive alcoholic violent offenders with intermittent explosive disorder and nonimpulsive alcoholic violent offenders did not. In these violent alcoholic offenders, high free-CSF testosterone was correlated with self-reported aggressiveness and sensation-seeking. The authors suggest that increased CSF testosterone may result from a lack of inhibition of luteinizing hormonereleasing hormone and luteinizing hormone by circulating cortisol. Alcoholic, impulsive violent offenders have been reported to have low urinary free-cortisol outputs (see further). Cortisol has negative feedback effects on anterior pituitary function, where luteinizing hormone, responsible for stimulating production of testosterone in the testes of males, is produced. Interestingly, one previous study found no differences in CSF testosterone between impulsive and nonimpulsive violent offenders. Also, a recent study of personality-disordered males found no correlation between CSF testosterone and selfreported aggression or impulsivity. There have also been a number of studies investigating hormone-aggression correlations in offenders. Many of these studies investigated total plasma (blood) testosterone rather than unbound (physiologically active) testosterone levels. Salivary testosterone levels are thought to provide a measure more reflective of unbound testosterone. In those studies that measured salivary testosterone in violent offenders, positive correlations were found with indicators

of aggression. Studies using total plasma testosterone also found, by and large, positive correlations with aggression in violent individuals. Unfortunately, wide between-study variation in the measures of aggression and sample characteristics hinders interpretation. Socioeconomic status (SES) and age appear to moderate the testosterone-aggression relationship. Among military veterans with high SES, high testosterone did not predict higher risk of engaging in antisocial behaviors. Among military veterans with low SES, however, higher testosterone predicted a higher risk of antisocial behavior. A study in incarcerated females found that increasing age was related to lower testosterone levels, reductions in violent crime, and less aggressive dominance in prison. Among young men, an earlier age of onset of criminal activities is correlated with higher testosterone levels. A number of studies have investigated testosteroneaggression correlations in normal volunteers including both men and women. As mentioned earlier, wide variability exists between studies on the testosterone measure assessed (total plasma vs. salivary (unbound) testosterone) and the measures of aggression used (self-report questionnaires, peer ratings, diary assessments). Overall, similar to studies with offenders, small positive correlations between testosterone and aggression have been noted (r  0.15). The magnitude of this relationship is smaller for studies using self-report measures of aggression, and slightly larger for studies using observer ratings (teacher, peer measures). Self-report inventories of aggression commonly measure aggressive traits or dispositions, suggesting that testosterone may be more related to aggressive behavior per se, rather than self-reported aggressive traits. Balanced against these findings are the studies finding no relationship between testosterone and aggression in normal volunteers, and some noting a negative relationship. In a recent study, aggressiveness in women was negatively correlated with both testosterone and estradiol. These incongruities are difficult to reconcile. Another study found estradiol to be significantly positively related to aggression in young men. This is not entirely unexpected, given that testosterone is aromatized into estradiol. There have been a handful of studies on boys at puberty, a time when an increase in aggressiveness might be expected to occur due to a rise in testosterone in males. These studies have provided only modest evidence of an association between testosterone and aggression. A longitudinal study using path analysis found that testosterone in boys at 16 years of age was associated with provoked aggression at age 16. Also, there was evidence that provoked aggression at age 13 was related to testosterone at age 16, suggesting that earlier experiences of provoked aggression may have led to subsequent elevations in testosterone. More recent analyses have shown that testosterone had a direct causal relationship with

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provoked aggressive behavior from grade six to grade nine. There was an indirect effect of testosterone on unprovoked aggression mediated by low frustration tolerance at grade nine. More longitudinal studies such as these are needed in order to test for causal relationships between testosterone and aggression. In terms of studies investigating the testosterone– aggression relationship in preschool or school-aged children, two studies measuring plasma testosterone did not find relationships with Child Behavior Checklist aggression scores, while two studies measuring salivary testosterone did find the expected relationship between testosterone and observations of more serious aggression in social interactions or staff-rated aggression. The major limitation of correlational studies is the difficulty in specifying the direction of the relationship. It is commonly hypothesized that higher testosterone leads to increased aggression through some as yet unspecified biochemical pathway. Alternatively, the effects of testosterone on muscle mass and body hair may lead to a more intimidating appearance, which may affect interactions with others, lead to changes in one’s self-perceptions, and ultimately increase aggressiveness. Alternatively, or additionally, aggression may increase testosterone. Increases in testosterone in male judo competitors were correlated with anger and violence during the competition, suggesting that these behavioral reactions produced the hormonal changes. Additionally, plasma testosterone was found to be elevated in healthy males following a laboratory point-subtraction aggression task. Other findings suggest that elevated mood may increase testosterone levels. In one study, testosterone levels increased prior to a sports competition and remained high in the winners compared to the losers. In this study, testosterone levels correlated more closely with the individual’s mood than performance; those with a more positive mood prior to the competition had higher testosterone. Also, among the winners, those most satisfied with their performance had the highest testosterone levels. Another study demonstrated elevated testosterone levels in the winners of a contrived laboratory competitive reaction-time task. There was no such increase in losers, which suggests that physical competition is not necessary to demonstrate hormonal changes. Thus it may be more the cognitive/affective experience of the event that affects androgen levels rather than androgen levels affecting performance. Additionally, dominance may be associated with testosterone. Testosterone levels in humans rise after victory and fall after defeat in competitions. Testosterone levels rose in winning male tennis players and wrestlers relative to the losers. Testosterone levels in chess players at a tournament rose and fell following wins and losses, with the likelihood of winning increased with higher testosterone. In new recipients of an MD degree, testosterone

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rises, and this increase is related to elevated mood in these individuals. Moreover, vicarious success and failure are associated with elevations and reductions in testosterone, respectively. Soccer fans whose team won showed an increase in salivary testosterone, while those supporting the losing team showed a reduction in testosterone. Testosterone is also positively associated with self-rated elevated mood, well-being and alertness, and decreased anxiety, fatigue, and tension. These findings suggest that increases in testosterone may result from the internal experience of dominance, or having dominance socially attributed (‘eminence’), and concomitant increases in status and subsequent feelings of well-being. Bidirectional influences are also possible. Higher testosterone levels may increase the likelihood of engaging and achieving success in competition; the increased status attained through victory might then increase testosterone levels. A longitudinal study of adolescent boys supports the notion that testosterone is associated with dominance and social success rather than physical aggression. Thirteenyear-old boys concurrently rated by unfamiliar peers as ‘tough’ and ‘leaders’ had higher testosterone compared to ‘tough-not leaders’ and ‘not tough’ groups. Conversely, longitudinal analyses revealed that those boys teacherrated as physically aggressive from ages 6 to 12 (particularly those also rated as anxious) had lower salivary testosterone levels than nonaggressive boys. These physically aggressive boys were not socially dominant, as they were rated as less popular by their peers compared to nonaggressive boys, and were failing in school. Thus, high testosterone was found in boys who were successful in imposing their will on their peers (perhaps through aggression at times), but who remained socially attractive. The stress of social rejection in physically aggressive boys may have led to higher anxiety and activation of the adrenal axis, which suppresses the hypothalamic– pituitary–gonadal (HPG) axis. Aside from the effects of competition on testosterone levels, a number of other factors can impact on testosterone and other androgens. Stress decreases these neurochemicals; sexual stimulation and exercise can increase them. Alcohol can also alter testosterone levels, although the direction of the relationship is not clear. These factors also must be considered when interpreting studies in this area. Some studies with adolescent males have shown that aggressive behavior is related to lower levels of gonadal hormones (e.g., testosterone) and higher levels of adrenal hormones. It has been suggested that lower concentrations of gonadal steroids and higher adrenal androgens are related to antisocial behavior through (1) a heightened sensitivity of the HPG axis to stress-related secretion of hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis hormones, resulting in HPG suppression, or (2) a predisposition in some individuals to heightened arousal following

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environmental stressors, resulting in HPA axis activation. Through its modulation, the HPA axis impacts indirectly on testosterone levels. Stress-induced HPA activation suppresses the HPG system, resulting in decreased androgen production. Finally, studies of aggressive behavior following androgen administration provide limited support for the notion that androgens increase aggression. A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover trial in which depo-testosterone or conjugated estrogens were administered to adolescent boys or girls, respectively, demonstrated increased self-reported physical aggressive behaviors and aggressive impulses in both boys and girls, with no changes in verbal aggressive behaviors or inhibitions in both. However, in a number of other studies in which testosterone has been administered to either hypogonadal men or men with normal gonadal function, no increases in mood correlates of aggression (e.g., anger) were noted following testosterone treatment. At least one study reported that, following testosterone treatment, anger decreased in hypogonadal men who were significantly more angry than controls at baseline. Healthy volunteers administered an anabolic steroid (methyltestosterone) in a double-blind, placebo-controlled study, experienced increases in negative mood symptoms, such as irritability, violent feelings, anger, and hostility, but also increases in euphoria, sexual arousal, and energy. Adrenal Hormones/Neurotransmitters Cortisol has been studied as method of indexing physiological activation of the HPA axis. Some studies have demonstrated that violent offenders have lower levels of HPA axis biochemicals, possibly indicating underarousal, an overregulated HPA axis, or an increased threshold for stress. For instance, urinary cortisol has been shown to be lower in habitually violent criminals relative to nonviolent offenders. Impulsive alcoholic violent offenders with antisocial personality disorder also had lower CSF adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH, or corticotropin, which regulates the synthesis of glucocorticoids such as cortisol) relative to healthy volunteers, with no differences in other adrenocortical stress response-associated neuropeptides (diazepam-binding inhibitor, corticotropin-releasing hormone, and arginine vasopressin). However, there have been opposing findings; violent alcoholics had elevated cortisol levels relative to depressed alcoholics and nonviolent, nondepressed alcoholics. The findings on the relationship between cortisol and aggression in children are equivocal. Some studies find lower levels of cortisol to be associated with aggressive behavior in children, which suggests reduced HPA activity. For instance, a negative correlation between the number of conduct disorder (CD) symptoms and salivary

cortisol concentrations in preadolescent boys has been noted. In this study, boys whose fathers had CD followed by antisocial personality disorder had lower salivary cortisol compared to boys whose fathers had CD but not antisocial personality disorder, and boys whose fathers had neither diagnosis. Two additional studies have found lower urinary cortisol at baseline to be associated with aggression/hostility towards peers or the teacher. In another study, children with CD but no DSM-III-R anxiety disorder had lower cortisol levels when compared to children with conduct and a comorbid anxiety disorder, but not relative to children with neither diagnosis. Similarly, low anxious/high externalizing boys demonstrated stress-induced cortisol decreases, while high anxious/high externalizing boys demonstrated large increases. Disruptive behavior disorder (DBD; i.e., a group including both oppositional defiant disorder and conduct disordered children) and normal control children did not differ in baseline cortisol levels, but the stressinduced increase in cortisol seen in the controls was absent in the DBD children. (Notably, antisocial children who demonstrate a cortisol response to a psychosocial stressor showed greater benefit from a structured therapeutic intervention.) In contrast, three other studies found no relationship between cortisol and aggression in disruptive children. This may be due to a failure to measure cortisol in children with aggressive and nonaggressive CD symptoms separately; however, a more recent study found higher salivary cortisol levels in boys with CD compared to those without, and boys with an aggressive form of CD with higher levels than with a covert form of CD. Furthermore, reactive aggression was strongly correlated with elevated cortisol. A few additional studies support the notion that aggression is related to reduced HPA axis function. Corticotropin-releasing hormone is released from the hypothalamus following a stressor. It induces the release of ACTH in the anterior pituitary. In pregnant adolescents, corticotropin-releasing hormone is negatively correlated with CD symptoms assessed postpartum. This finding is consistent with lower salivary cortisol in preadolescent males whose fathers had CD that later developed into antisocial personality disorder compared to boys whose fathers had no Axis I disorders or antisocial behavior. Also, prepubertal boys and girls characterized by low plasma cortisol levels at baseline that increased following a stressor had more CD symptoms than adolescents who either showed no changes or reductions in cortisol levels over time. Conversely, one study found a positive correlation between plasma cortisol and selfreported irritability and resentment (but not global aggressiveness) in healthy males. By and large, these studies, along with those reviewed in previous sections, suggest that reduced activity of the HPA axis is correlated

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with, and may be causally related to, aggressive and violent behavior. Cortisol levels have been shown to moderate the testosterone–aggression relationship. In one study of late adolescent offenders, among those offenders who were below the mean in cortisol levels, the correlation between testosterone and the extent to which the crime of conviction was violent in nature was higher, relative to those individuals above the mean in cortisol levels. Cortisol may moderate the testosterone–aggression relationship by inhibiting testosterone production directly (see ahead). Consistent with the notion that violent individuals may show reduced physiological activation under stress, several studies have demonstrated that violent offenders have reduced levels of plasma and/or urinary epinephrine. Epinephrine (adrenaline) is a neurotransmitter in the sympathetic nervous system and adrenal medulla; epinephrine levels may provide an index of peripheral sympathetic nervous system arousal. Plasma and urinary epinephrine were lower in men convicted of violent personal attack versus those convicted of arson, sexual, or property offenses. Urinary epinephrine and cortisol were also lower in violent offenders relative to nonviolent offenders, mentally ill, and healthy men following stressful environmental procedures. Conversely, a series of studies assessing urinary norepinephrine (NE) output found higher levels, particularly when anticipating a stressful experimental event, in violent incarcerated males relative to nonviolent controls. Plasma NE, a measure of peripheral presynaptic NE function, was positively correlated with risk-taking and self-reported impulsivity in personality-disordered individuals. Also, plasma NE in borderline hypertensives with suppressed aggression was higher following one of two mildly stressful laboratory tasks (mental arithmetic, Stroop task), with no changes in plasma epinephrine, relative to participants without suppressed aggression. Peripheral indicators of NE function are positively correlated with measures of aggression in healthy individuals as well. Self-reported irritability and resentment, as well as global aggressiveness reported by spouses and first-degree relatives, were positively related to plasma NE in healthy males. Also, plasma cortisol and growth hormone levels (but not prolactin) increased following a point-subtraction aggression laboratory task in healthy males with higher (vs. lower) basal aggressiveness. This was interpreted as a secondary response to increased plasma NE levels following the aggression task in these men. In another study, aggression on a laboratory task involving the administration of aversive noise to another person was weakly correlated with urinary methyladrenaline (methylepinephrine), but not with methylnoradrenaline (methylnorepinephrine) or creatinine, in healthy adolescent boys. Recent work with rhesus monkeys suggests that increased noradrenergic

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reactivity may be associated with state measures of aggressiveness and irritability. These results suggest that greater peripheral NE levels, and possibly function, is associated with aggressive behavior, particularly under conditions of stress. Also of importance are the androgens of adrenal origin, such as dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), dehydroepiandrosterone sulphate (DHEAS), and androstenedione. Children show a gradual increase in the adrenal androgens from approximately six years of age, a period known as adrenarche. The gonadal androgens, such as testosterone, become more important at puberty. As with the gonadal androgens, the hypothesis is that higher levels of adrenal androgens are associated with increased aggressiveness. Three studies have measured plasma DHEAS levels in prepubertal boys; two of these three found these levels to be related to aggression and delinquency scores. Investigators were able to rule out the possibility that DHEAS levels were elevated as a consequence of the stress of psychiatric disorder, as might be hypothesized if higher adrenal androgen levels reflect the adrenal response to chronic stress. One of these studies also discounted the hypothesis that the association between DHEAS and aggression was due to the aggressive children (diagnosed with the Oppositional Defiant Disorder) being more physically mature than the children in the psychiatric and normal control groups by finding the groups similar on the development of their secondary sex characteristics. Taken together, the findings of studies on adrenal hormones and neurotransmitters in violent offenders, other clinical groups, and healthy individuals tentatively suggest that aggression is associated with reduced basal HPA axis function coupled with hyperresponsivity during stress. Secondly, the findings on cortisol in aggressive children suggest the need to distinguish between aggressive individuals with and without anxiety symptoms, as hormonal/neurotransmitter and aggression relationships may be different in these two groups.

Neurotransmitters Serotonin Serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine, 5-HT) has been hypothesized to play an inhibitory role in the expression of aggressive and violent behavior. This neurotransmitter is primarily concentrated in neurons of the raphe´ nuclei of the brainstem, whose processes project to a wide variety of subcortical and cortical areas. Serotonin is formed from the amino acid tryptophan. The primary pathway of 5-HT metabolism leads to the formation of 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-HIAA), which is commonly measured in the CSF and employed as an indicator of brain 5-HT turnover.

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Violent offenders, fire-setters, incarcerated personality disordered individuals with XYY chromosomes, and homicidal perpetrators who had either killed a sexual partner or their own child have been shown to have low CSF 5-HIAA levels, suggesting reduced brain 5-HT function. Low CSF 5-HIAA also predicts recidivism in violent offenders and impulsive fire-setters. Additionally, low CSF 5-HIAA in them is associated with a history of serious suicide attempts and paternal alcoholism. The association between lower CSF 5-HIAA and aggression has been found to be independent of suicidal behavior in aggressive psychiatric patients. In several of these investigations, violent offenders have been classified as either impulsive or nonimpulsive based on the qualities of their index crime (impulsive crimes being those in which the victim was unknown to the offender, the offender was not provoked, and the crime was committed with little chance of monetary gain). In these studies, it is the impulsive violent offenders that show reduced CSF 5-HIAA levels relative to nonimpulsive violent offenders and healthy controls. Thus it may be impulsivity, a characteristic of a subset of violent acts, that is related to low 5-HT functioning. These findings have contributed toward 5HT being conceptualized as regulating behavioral inhibition/disinhibition. Some characteristics of the studies investigating the relationship between CSF 5-HIAA and impulsive aggression/violence suggest caution in the interpretation of their findings. For example, a number of the studies on CSF 5-HIAA and impulsive aggression have been carried out with samples of Finnish offenders; independent replication by other research groups with other samples is warranted. These violent offenders were comorbid for a number of other disorders (alcoholism, personality disorders), thus CSF 5-HIAA may be related to one of these characteristics rather than impulsive aggression. Also, in relating low CSF 5-HIAA to impulsive aggression, impulsivity has been defined as a quality of the index crime rather than a stable personality characteristic. The accuracy of such a characterization can be questioned; the description of the index crime may have been falsified by the offender in order to avoid more severe punishment. Despite these difficulties, a review of the studies judged to be the most methodologically rigorous concluded that low CSF 5-HIAA is related to aggression, particularly for relatively young, white, personality-disordered male criminal offenders. It has been hypothesized that the reduction in CSF 5-HIAA in impulsive violent offenders may be mediated genetically. The gene for tryptophan hydroxylase, the rate-limiting step in the conversion of the tryptophan to 5-HT, has at least two alleles, designated U and L. The L allele of the tryptophan hydroxylase gene has been associated with low CSF-5-HIAA in impulsive alcoholic violent offenders but not in nonimpulsive alcoholic

violent offenders or controls. It has also been related to a history of suicidal behavior in the alcoholic violent offenders, irrespective of impulsivity. This suggests a possible reduced capacity to hydroxylate tryptophan to 5-hydroxytryptophan, the precursors of 5-HT. (In healthy men, however, the U allele has been associated with lower CSF 5-HIAA levels.) Questions remain as to whether the tryptophan hydroxylase polymorphism is associated with aggression/violence or suicidal behavior, as other studies have found conflicting results (e.g., no association between the tryptophan hydroxylase gene and suicidal behavior, or an association between the U allele and suicidal behavior in individuals with major depression). Other gene polymorphisms related to gene products involved in 5-HT synthesis, reuptake, metabolism, and receptor function that have been linked to aggression or impulsivity include the 5-HT1B receptor (G861C allele), 5-HT2A receptor (T102C and 1438G/A alleles), and the serotonin transporter (5-HTT; 5HTTLPR allele). As one might expect, a similar relationship has been found between CSF 5-HIAA and aggression in personality-disordered individuals and other clinical groups. For example, some of the earliest studies investigating the 5HT/aggression relationship found an inverse relationship between CSF 5-HIAA and life histories of aggression and suicide attempts in personality-disordered men with no affective illness. Depressed individuals and alcoholic males who self-report high aggression have low CSF 5HIAA. Low CSF 5-HIAA is also related to ratings of hostility and anxiety on the Rorschach inkblot projective test in depressed and suicidal individuals. These results suggest that the CSF 5-HIAA/aggression relationship represents a biochemical and behavioral trait association that cuts across clinical groups. There have been incongruous findings, however. A recent study found a positive association between CSF 5-HIAA and aggression in personality-disordered men, no association in borderline personality disorder individuals with a history of violence towards others versus those without such a history, and no differences in CSF 5-HIAA between violent and matched nonviolent patients with schizophrenia. It has been suggested that the inverse relationship between CSF 5-HIAA and aggression may be dependent on the severity of aggression, with the relationship being found in individuals with more severe aggression. This interpretation is not supported by one study that noted an inverse relationship between self-reported aggression and CSF 5-HIAA levels in normal volunteers (although a second study found that this relationship disappeared after controlling for age). CSF 5-HIAA has also been negatively correlated with aggression in children and adolescents with DBDs (characterized by hyperactive, impulsive, and aggressive behaviors), and was lower in these young people than in

Biochemical Factors in Aggression and Violence

a comparison sample of pediatric patients with obsessivecompulsive disorder. CSF 5-HIAA significantly predicted the severity of physical aggression at two-year follow-up in these individuals. An alternate method of assessing central serotonergic functioning is through the measurement of the neuroendocrine hormones following the administration of a serotonergic compound. This method reflects the dynamic functioning of the serotonergic system in the limbic–hypothalamic–pituitary system, which regulates neuroendocrine hormones. Blunted prolactin responses following the administration of fenfluramine, a 5-HT releaser and reuptake inhibitor, have been noted in murderers with antisocial personality disorder, suggesting a subsensitivity of central serotonergic systems, possibly due to reduced postsynaptic receptor numbers or functioning. This interpretation is supported by the findings of a peripheral indicator of 5-HT function, platelet receptor binding. Platelet receptor binding studies assess the density (Bmax) and affinity (Kd) of plasma platelet receptors using various 5-HT ligands. Significantly lower ketanserin binding to platelet 5-HT2 receptors was found in adolescent violent delinquents compared to controls, possibly indicative of lower receptor binding in the central serotonin system in violent individuals. Congruent with the studies in violent offenders, blunted neuroendocrine responses to challenges with various central 5-HT reuptake inhibitors, releasers, or receptor agonists have been found in personality-disordered patients as well as those of other clinical groups. Blunted prolactin and/or cortisol responses to challenges with 5-HT agents (fenfluramine, meta-chlorophenylpiperazine, ipsapirone) have been noted in individuals with past histories of suicide attempts, impulse control disorders (bulimia, substance dependence, pathological gambling), and personality disorders (borderline, narcissistic); borderline personality disorder patients with histories of impulsive and aggressive behavior; patients with histories of self-mutilation or suicide; men with antisocial personality disorder; and personalitydisordered individuals, relative to healthy controls. One study in healthy males also negatively correlated cortisol responses to fenfluramine challenge with self-report Buss–Durkee hostility inventory total and aggression factor scores, with no relationship noted between prolactin responses and aggression, and no such relationships in females. Other studies have correlated the neuroendocrine response to 5-HT agonists with self-reported aggressivity. Prolactin responses to fenfluramine challenge have been inversely related to impulsive aggression in patients with personality disorders, Buss–Durkee hostility inventory ‘direct assault’ scale scores in personality-disordered individuals, a laboratory measure of aggression in personality-disordered men, and self-reported life

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histories of aggression in personality-disordered individuals. Reduced neuroendocrine responses to other 5-HT agents, such as the mixed 5-HT receptor agonist metachlorophenylpiperazine, and the 5-HT1A receptor agonists buspirone and ipsapirone, have similarly been correlated to aggression and impulsivity. Interpretation of reduced neuroendocrine responses to 5-HT agonists is difficult at present. Blunted neuroendocrine responses to fenfluramine suggest decreased presynaptic availability of 5-HT. Blunted neuroendocrine responses to 5-HT receptor agonists may indicate decreased postsynaptic 5-HT receptor numbers or function; alternatively, they may be the result of adaptive changes in 5-HT receptor numbers/function in response to altered presynaptic 5-HT availability. Recent neuroimaging studies using positron emission tomography (PET) have suggested altered 5-HT function in certain specific brain regions. In one study, impulsive aggressive individuals did not demonstrate an increase in glucose metabolism following a single dose of the serotonin-releasing agent fenfluramine in the orbitofrontal cortex and medial frontal and cingulate regions. Such an increase was observed in healthy controls. In a second study, impulsive aggressive patients did not show increased metabolic glucose metabolism in the left anteromedial orbital cortex or in the anterior cingulate in response to the serotonergic agonist meta-chlorophenylpiperazine (m-CPP) relative to healthy controls. In contrast, the posterior cingulate gyrus was activated by m-CPP in the impulsive aggressive individuals relative to controls. A third study found reduced serotonin transporter availability in the anterior cingulate cortex of impulsive aggressive individuals compared with healthy subjects, possibly reflecting reduced 5-HT innervation. Together, these findings are consistent with the existence of reduced 5-HT function in the orbitofrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex in subjects with impulsive aggression. Reduced serotonergic function in aggressive individuals may be partly genetically determined. Twin studies with indicators of serotonergic functioning suggest that this neurotransmitter system is partly under genetic control. As well, a genetic vulnerability to aggression has been demonstrated. Furthermore, indicators of reduced serotonergic function have been correlated with family histories of impulsivity and aggression. Reduced prolactin responses to the 5-HT releasing/reuptake inhibiting agent fenfluramine in personality-disordered individuals are correlated with a greater prevalence of impulsive personality disorder traits in their first-degree relatives. Reduced prolactin responses to fenfluramine in aggressive boys are associated also with a parental history of aggressive behavior. Also, the density of platelet 5-HT2A receptors was lower in boys with parents with histories of incarceration or substance abuse compared to

182 Biochemical Factors in Aggression and Violence

family history-negative boys, suggesting decreased central 5-HT2 postsynaptic receptor function. Finally, CSF 5-HIAA levels in newborns with family histories of antisocial personality disorder were lower than in those with no family histories of antisocial personality disorder. By and large, these studies suggest that low central 5-HT function is associated with aggression, and perhaps impulsive aggression. However, there have been conflicting results. Patients with compulsive personalities had higher impulsive aggression scores than noncompulsive patients, and had blunted prolactin responses to fenfluramine compared to noncompulsive patients and nonpatient controls. Additionally, there have been at least five studies showing no association, or a positive relationship, between neuroendocrine responses to 5-HT agonist challenge and impulsivity or aggressivity. Recent evidence suggests that the 5-HT neurotransmitter system in aggressive boys may show a different developmental trajectory than that of nonaggressive boys. Prolactin responses to fenfluramine challenge in younger aggressive attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder boys were greater compared to attention deficit/hyperactive nonaggressive boys with the same disorder. Also, prolactin response to fenfluramine was related positively to selfreported aggressivity and adverse-rearing environmental conditions in younger brothers of convicted delinquents. However, in an older cohort of boys, prolactin response was slightly higher in the nonaggressive boys (and therefore slightly blunted in the aggressive boys), suggesting that normal boys may show a developmental increase in serotonergic functioning not found in aggressive boys. This potentially interesting finding awaits replication. A recent investigation noted that central 5-HT function in childhood, measured via the prolactin response to fenfluramine, was negatively related with adolescent aggression assessed seven years later, and accounted for a significant proportion of variance in adolescent aggression. In one negative study, preadolescent and adolescent males with DBDs showed no differences in prolactin or cortisol release following d,l-fenfluramine challenge relative to controls. The neuroendocrine response was unrelated to aggression levels in those patients with disruptive behavior. A recent study found enhanced growth hormone responses to the relatively selective 5-HT1B/1D receptor agonist sumatriptan in DBD children, suggesting an increased sensitivity of these postsynaptic receptors, possibly due to an upregulation secondary to reduced brain 5-HT availability. Adolescent males and females with alcohol use disorders (AUDs) and comorbid conduct disorder also demonstrated elevated cortisol responses following fenfluramine challenge relative to those with AUDs and no comorbid CD and normal controls. Cortisol responses were also positively related to aggression in the total sample.

Other putative peripheral indicators of central 5-HT function have been studied although their significance remains equivocal. The availability of plasma tryptophan, the amino acid precursor of 5-HT, for uptake across the blood–brain barrier in violent individuals has been studied. Tryptophan competes with other large neutral amino acids for the same carrier for brain uptake. Contrary to expectation, increased concentrations of tryptophan and competing amino acids were found in violent offenders compared to nonviolent offenders and nonoffenders and in violent male offenders with intermittent explosive disorder, compared to those with antisocial personality and healthy controls. In one of these studies, there was no difference in the relationship between tryptophan and its amino acid competitors between the violent offenders and controls. Contrary to the findings in violent offenders, tryptophan has been negatively related to aggressive behavior in studies with other clinical groups. One study with a small sample found preliminary evidence that impulsive adolescents have low tryptophan levels and a reduced ratio of tryptophan to the other large neutral amino acids competing for brain uptake. Two reports have indicated that a low ratio of tryptophan to the other amino acids which compete for brain entry is associated with increased aggression in alcoholics, particularly early- ( 0.

Decision Theory and Game Theory

Maximin The maximum of the minimum payoffs associated with each of the strategies available to a player. Mixed Strategy A strategy determined by a random device, which ‘chooses’ among the available strategies with prescribed probabilities. Normal Form (of a Two-Person Game) A representation of a game by a matrix whose rows and columns represent the strategies available to the respective players and whose entries are the payoffs associated with each outcome of the game. Nonconstant-Sum Game A game that is not constant-sum. Paretodeficient Outcome An outcome of a game to which another is preferred either by all players or by

Modes of Conflict The appearance of game theory by Von Neumann and Morgenstern on the intellectual horizon in 1944 aroused considerable interest in military circles and among researchers at institutes of strategic studies as an impressively sophisticated theory of rationally conducted conflict. An impressive application of the theory was demonstrated in November 1945 at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry by a computer that played perfect tic-tac-toe, that is, it never lost and invariably won if its opponent made a mistake. A few years later Nobel laureate Herbert Simon predicted that within a decade a computer will be crowned world chess champion. It took longer, but the prediction was nevertheless realized in May 1997 when Deep Blue, a computer, defeated world champion Gary Kasparov. In the decisive sixth game of the match, Kasparov resigned after the nineteenth move. The notion of rationally conducted conflict suggests a classification of conflicts. This can be done in several ways; for example, according to aims sought by the conflicting parties, according to the level of rationality characterizing the pursuit of these aims, by the level of their intensity, and so on. A. Rapoport singled out three basic types: fights, games, and debates. A dogfight is a good example of a fight. Strictly speaking it has no discernible aim, being apparently driven only by escalating noxious stimuli. Among humans, one can, perhaps, identify an aim of a fight, which is hardly more than that of harming, incapacitating, or eliminating the opponent. Affects prominent in a fight, such as hostility, rage, fear, or blood lust are not essential in a game, but rationality is. The aim in a parlor game, for example, such as chess, is to outwit rather than to harm the opponent.

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some, while the remaining players are indifferent between the outcomes. Pareto-Optimal Outcome An outcome of a game that is not paretodeficient. Social Trap A situation in which each participant acts apparently ‘rationally’ but that leads to an outcome that is disadvantageous for all concerned. Strategy A program that prescribes to a player the choice among available moves in each possible situation that can occur in the course of a game. Utility A function that ascribes a numerical measure to each of a set of objects, situations, and so on, representing an actor’s degree of preference for each of them. In formal decision theory, utility is usually given on an interval scale.

In a debate, in the sense used here, the aim is neither to harm nor to outwit but to convince the opponent or at least to bring his position on some issue closer to one’s own. It follows that unlike the fight or a zero-sum game (one in which whatever one player wins another must lose), the debate potentially induces a common interest in the opponents and possibly widens the area of agreement. From a certain point of view, these three modes of conflict can be imagined to represent a de-escalation of potential for threatened and actual violence. Obviously cognitive processes involved in a game are far more complex than those involved in a fight. The game can also be supposed to reflect a higher ethical level than a fight. First, physical violence is not necessarily involved in it (although it may be, as in war, which in its strategic aspects can be regarded as a game). Second, there is a commitment on both sides to adhere to agreed-upon rules. The latter commitment represents at least a minimal area of common interest. Effective debate involves, over and above rationality, also an ability to see some merit in the opponent’s position and a readiness to state it, for only if the opponent feels that his position is understood can he be expected to seriously consider modifying it with the aim of increasing the area of common interest.

Changing Conceptions of War From Enthusiasm to Ambivalence In nineteenth century Europe, widespread belief in the inevitability of ‘progress’ was often linked to faith in a decline of violence: civilization was tacitly identified with debrutalization of man. Amos wrote in 1880 that the process of civilization would make wars ever more ‘humane’ and restricted in space and time. Eventually, he suggested, they would disappear altogether, simply

548 Decision Theory and Game Theory

because the immorality of killing human beings would be universally recognized and the art of statecraft (presumably based on developments of social science) would become sufficiently advanced to provide ways of settling conflicts between states. Interpreting this prognosis in terms of the given classification of conflicts, we could imagine that Amos envisaged war as passing through the three stages: from fight to game to debate. Let us see what actually happened. A few years after Amos’ prognosis an eminent German historian wrote: It is war which fosters the political idealism which the materialist rejects. What a disaster for civilization it would be if mankind blotted its heroes from memory. The heroes of a nation are the fighters which rejoice and inspire the spirit of its youth, and the writers whose words ring like trumpet blasts become the idols of our boyhood and early manhood. (Treischke, 1897–98, 1916: 87)

In his introduction to the English translation of this work Arthur James Balfour wrote in 1916: Political theories from those of Aristotle downwards, have been related either by harmony or contrast, to the political practices of their day; but of no theories is this more glaringly true than of those expounded in these volumes. They could not have been written before 1870. Nothing quite like them will be written after 1917. (Balfour, 1916)

The allusion to 1870 is the absorption of German states into the German Empire and the concomitant hypertrophy of militaristic nationalism, which Bismarck so aptly expressed in his slogan ‘‘Blood and Iron’’ as the wherewithal of international politics. The allusion to 1917 is Balfour’s projection of the defeat of Germany and, as he supposed, the concomitant bankruptcy of the ‘‘Blood and Iron’’ mode of international relations. Treischke’s celebration of war as expression of idealism was symptomatic of the predominant European public mood in the decades immediately preceding World War I. The martial mood of the time was shared by wide sectors of what throughout the nineteenth century became ‘the public’ – the urban, literate (hence newspaperreading) sector of the European population. The mood found identical expression in Paris, Berlin, and in St. Petersburg. Columns marching through the broad avenues of the capitals to the railroad stations were cheered by crowds on the sidewalks. Strangers embraced and congratulated one other. Nothing resembling that mood marked the outbreak of World War II a quarter of a century later. There were no

parades, no cheering crowds. And, indeed, it seemed that Lord Balfour’s prediction was at last realized. The romantic and heroic image of war was dissipated. After World War II no ‘Ministry of War’ remained. All became ministries of defense, as if the only recognized function of armed forces became ‘deterring aggression’ and, in case deterrence failed, repelling aggression. Almost universally, ‘peace’ acquired a positive connotation and ‘war’ a negative one. Academic communities, sectors of the general public, in some countries even governments became receptive to sytematized programs of study and research on the ‘causes of wars’ – studies of the sort envisaged over a century ago by Amos, the somewhat premature prophet of the eventual eradication of war or war as a consequence of discovering and removing its ‘causes’. It would seem, then, that Amos’ prognosis with respect to changed attitudes toward war (and presumably violence) was, in some respects, realized. When we examine the actual global level of violence during the following century, a very different picture emerges. Contemporary Levels and Targets of Violence In the period from 1900 until 1995, 109 745 500 warrelated deaths were reported, of which 62 194 000 (nearly 60%) were estimated to have been civilian. According to Sivard, in some countries, for example, Ghana, Mozambique, Rwanda, and Uganda, the proportion of civilian war-related deaths was more than 90%. Were Amos still among us, he might have attempted to explain these results by a cultural lag. The African countries, where civilians were routinely slaughtered, could be regarded as laggards in the general progress toward higher rationality and morality. However, comparison of analogous data on ‘civilized’ warfare refutes this hypothesis. According to data compiled by R. L. Sivard in 1996, war-related deaths during World War I numbered 19.6 million persons; the corresponding number during World War II was 38.2 million. Apparently, the dissipation of enthusiasm for war observed in the changed public moods did not have the expected effect of limiting the extent or attenuating the severity of war. Nor has the expectation of a decline in the frequency, extent, or intensity of organized violence (war) as a result of growing rationality associated with developing civilization been justified. The period between the two world wars was marked by severe criticism by specialists in the ‘art of war’, namely, of failure to take advantage of new war technology so as to make war ‘more efficient’. Efficiency, however, can be understood in two ways: (1) attainment of war aims with lower expenditures, say of lives; and (2) increasing the efficiency of weapons, that is enhancing their destructive potential. B. H. Liddell Hart, for example, would have it both ways. On the one hand, he decried the ossified

Decision Theory and Game Theory

Clausewitzian dogma of numerical superiority that sent infantry rushing at fortified positions to be slaughtered by machine guns in World War I; on the other hand, he also criticized the failure during that war to keep up with ‘progress’ in war technology, of which lethality of weapons is a reasonable measure. There was certainly no reticence in developing and applying increasingly sophisticated technology in the conduct of World War II. Nevertheless that war cannot be regarded as more ‘efficient’ in the sense of achieving more at less cost in lives and treasure than did World War I. On the contrary, both the new technology and elaborate new strategies were designed and developed with the view of achieving maximum destructiveness. Projecting the needs of war far into the future became routine in the flourishing development of the ‘art of war’. It follows that whatever inhibitions against the use of war as an instrument of national policy may have been generated by the ‘de-romanticization’ or ‘de-glorification’ of war throughout most of our century, these inhibitions were apparently neutralized by the concomitant ‘intellectualization’ or ‘rationalization’ of war. We will examine this process in the light of rapidly developing formal theory, an offspring of theoretical economics, namely, decision theory and its offshoot, the theory of games, which, as was said at the outset, aroused considerable interest in military circles.

The Scope of Decision Theory In the context of decision theory, a decision is a choice among available alternatives. These may be objects (to be bought, concealed, or repaired), persons (to be hired, married, or killed), actions (to be carried out or omitted), beliefs (to be adopted or discarded), or any imaginable entities, provided they can be unambiguously recognized and distinguished. Each choice is associated with envisaged or imagined consequences. An obvious limitation at this stage, however, is the human ability to apprehend the totality of potential alternatives. It is convenient to distinguish between normative and descriptive decision theory. A concept central in normative decision theory is that of a rational actor. ‘Rationality’ is conceived differently by different persons and in different situations. However, it can be generally agreed that all definitions of rationality involve taking into account the possible envisaged consequences of one’s decision, that is, of one’s choice among available alternatives. As we shall see, rationality will encompass considerably more in different circumstances. Once it is unambiguously defined in a given context, the aim of a normative decision theory is to deduce from a given definition of rationality how a ‘perfectly rational actor’ will choose among the alternatives given in the situation. Descriptive theory, on the other hand, tends to

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construct, on the basis of observations, experimental data, and the like, how actual actors, who may be described by some explicit characteristics, will actually decide in a given class of situations. In short, normative decision theory is purely deductive and, like pure mathematics, does not refer to events in the real world. Descriptive theory, on the contrary, is largely inductive. It rests on hypotheses suggested by observations and is deductive only to the extent that it generates predictions of further observations deduced from these hypotheses. The ‘actor’, whose choices are examined, need not be a person. The important criterion defining an actor in the context of decision theory is a set of interests, and these can be attributed not only to a person but also to a corporation, a hockey team, a gang, a guided missile, or a state. The theory of games examines situations in which two or more actors are involved. Their interests will generally not be identical. In particular, in the case of two actors, they may be diametrically opposed. But this they need not be. Most interesting from the point of view at the confluence of normative and descriptive decision theories are those games involving players, whose interests are partially opposed and partially coincident. Because of general noncoincidence of interests of actors, the tools developed in the theory of games have been used in the analysis of decisions suggested in conflict situations. For this reason the theory of games can be conceived as a normative theory of conflict, that is, conflict conducted in the light of rational decisions. Indeed, situations first analyzed by tools developed in game theory were analogous to those arising in so called ‘games of strategy’, those in which neither fun (as in children’s games of make-believe) nor physical skill (as in sport), but only strategic astuteness plays a part. Chess, Go, Bridge, Poker, Monopoly, all so-called ‘parlor games’, are well-known examples.

The Decision Problem Involving One Actor Decisions under Certainty Of the decision problems involving a finite number of alternatives, the simplest are those where each alternative is associated with exactly one consequence or outcome. It is assumed, further, that the actor can rank the outcomes in order of preference. Rationality in this context entails asymmetry and transitivity of the preference relation. That is, if outcome Oi is preferred to outcome Oj, then Oj, is not preferred to Oi (asymmetry); if Oi, is preferred to Oj and Oj to Ok, then Oi is preferred to Ok (transitivity). If the number of available alternatives is small enough to be scanned at a glance, the solution of the problem is trivial: one simply chooses the alternative that leads to the most preferred outcome.

550 Decision Theory and Game Theory

Complications of decisions under certainty arise in two ways: (1) the set of outcomes, hence of available alternatives, may be infinite, for example, all possible numbers in an interval; and (2) the outcomes may be characterized by two or more aspects regarded as criteria of choice. A timing problem, involving a choice of the best moment to perform some action, is an example of the former. An example of the latter is choosing among several cars to buy. Desirable properties of a car may be low price, economical fuel consumption, safety, and so on. A number of cars can be ranked according to each of these criteria, whereby the rankings along the criteria may all be different. Such ‘multi-objective’ decision problems may induce nontransitive preference relations that do not lead to a straightforward solution. These difficulties are overcome by introducing a onedimensional continuous measure (called an ‘interval scale’) of utility. The point of origin (zero) and the unit of this measure can be chosen arbitrarily, but once these are chosen, the relative ‘worths’ of any two outcomes become comparable. The decision problem then reduces to a maximization (or minimization) problem that can be attacked by powerful mathematical techniques, such as differential and integral calculus, linear and nonlinear programming, and so on. These techniques have become standard tools in operations research, control theory, management science, and related disciplines, in all of which the concept of ‘rational decision’ is central. The effects of this development on global levels of violence are discussed ahead. Decisions under Risk Dropping the assumption of one-to-one correspondence between alternatives and outcomes, we now formulate our decision problem as a matrix, where rows represent the given alternatives, columns ‘states of nature’. For example, the alternatives may be T (to take an umbrella along on the way to work) or L (to leave it home). The ‘states of nature’ could be R (rain) or S (shine). Four possible outcomes are: TR, TS, LR, or LS. The situation is represented by a 2  2 matrix: R

S

T

u11

u12

L

u21

u22

The entries represent ‘utilities’ (degrees of the actor’s preferences). To fix ideas, suppose u22 > u11 > u12 > u21. That is, the actor is happiest in outcome LS, when the sun is shining and he is not encumbered by an umbrella. He is unhappiest in outcome LR, when it rains and he does not have his umbrella. Assuming it does not rain when the actor leaves the house, the choice between T and L is not clear. If it should rain later in the day, T is preferred; otherwise L. A rational decision is suggested if two

conditions are fulfilled: (1) the degrees of preference can be determined on at least an interval scale; (2) probabilities p and 1  p can be assigned respectively to Rain and Shine. In terms of these quantities ‘expected utility’ can be defined as the weighted sum of the utilities associated with an alternative, where the weights are the probabilities of the states of nature relevant to the problem, (now an example of decision under risk). Thus, if probability p is assigned to Rain and (1  p) to Shine the expected utility associated with T is p(u11) þ (1  p)(u12) and that associated with L is p(u21) þ (1  p)(u22). A ‘rational decision’ can now be defined as one that maximizes expected utility. It agrees with conventional wisdom: take the umbrella if it looks like rain; leave it otherwise. From the point of view of normative theory, the solution of a problem of this sort can be identified as the alternative that leads to the largest expected utility. For instance, in the umbrella problem it becomes advisable to take the umbrella if pðu11 Þ þ ð1 – pÞðu12 Þ > pðu21 Þ þ ð1 – pÞðu22 Þ

but not otherwise. The problem remains of choosing an appropriate objectively verifiable surrogate of utility. In some situations, such a surrogate may readily suggest itself, for example, in business contexts money; in the practice of medicine relative numbers of patients helped, harmed, or unaffected by a given drug; in war, perhaps, relative numbers of own and enemy’s casualties in an operation. The chess-playing computer assigns numerical values to all future positions envisaged at each move (these valuations being determined by chess experts on the basis of experience and recorded games). Perhaps military experts assign similar values to positions lost or won in some operation and determine their expected utilities by assigning estimated probabilities of favorable or unfavorable outcomes. Once this is done, strategic planning becomes essentially a matter of cost-benefit analysis. Examples: Cost-benefit analysis of deterrence strategies The problem posed is that of finding an appropriate utility measure in allocating funds for a nuclear arsenal (within the limits of a given budget) presumably serving as deterrence of a Soviet attack on the United States. After dismissing megatonnage of bombs, numbers of bombers, and so on, as too crude, the authors consider . . . the number and value of enemy targets that can be destroyed (for a given budget) [which] takes into account the numbers of our offense bombers and missiles but also their operational effectiveness . . . It is still, of course, an ambiguous criterion and requires a more precise definition. For example, what target system—population, industry, or military bases— should we use to keep score . . .? (Hitch and McKean, 1965)

Decision Theory and Game Theory

Here may be the answer to the puzzle of how it came to pass that as public attitude toward war became increasingly negative in the industrialized countries after World War I, the scope and destructiveness of World War II sharply increased, while World War III, widely expected during the Cold War, was regarded as ushering in the end of civilization, perhaps of humanity. The conception of war as a rationally conducted process analogous to a business enterprise or a sports event (note the allusion to ‘keeping score’) replaced the image of war as an orgy of violence by an image of a sophisticated rational decision process, devoid of either exultation of heroism or of inculcation of hatred of the enemy (which may have been resisted). An even more crass example is found in the writings of Herman Kahn, a leading civilian strategist of projected nuclear wars: The problem of choosing a criterion of ‘‘disutility’’ of a nuclear war (assuming deterrence fails) was faced by Kahn when he attempted to determine the limit of ‘‘acceptable’’ cost (in terms of civilian casualties in a nuclear war) associated with credible deterrence. Kahn reports consultation with a number of colleagues. The proposed numbers of ‘‘acceptable’’ civilian casualties clustered around 60 million, which Kahn may have used as a ‘‘working figure’’ in designing an optimal deterrence posture. (Kahn, 1960, p. 15)

Two-Person Games The theory of games deals with decision situations involving two or more ‘rational’ actors, whose interests (valuations of outcomes) in general do not coincide. A game of strategy is sometimes represented as a sequence of decisions called ‘moves’. The decision makers are called ‘players’. The rules of the game specify which player is to make a move at each particular stage of the game and what choices are available to him, when it is his turn to make it (the rules of the game). A ‘strategy’ is a plan of action which a player selects before the game starts that specifies his choice in any situation that may arise in the course of the game. In almost all parlor games this is practically impossible, since the number of all possible situations, even if it is finite, is usually superastronomical.

game’) represented by a matrix with m rows and n columns. These denote respectively strategies available to the first player, henceforth called Row, and those available to the second, called Column. Each cell of the matrix represents an outcome of the game. It contains two numbers, called ‘payoffs’, the first being the utility of the outcome to Row, the second to Column. This representation is called the ‘normal form’ of a game. A play of the game consists of a choice by each player of one of his available strategies. It is assumed that neither knows the strategy chosen by the other.

Constant-Sum Two-Person Games As has been said, the fundamental distinction of the theory of games as a branch of decision theory is the multiplicity of actors, whose interests, in general, do not coincide. In the case of two-person games they may be diametrically opposed. That is, the larger the payoff is to one of the players, the smaller it is to the other. This is the case if the sum of the payoffs of every outcome is the same. Such games are called ‘constant-sum games’. Since the payoffs are usually given on an interval scale, invariant with respect to a linear transformation, their sum can without loss of generality be set equal to 0. (Here the win of one is paired with an equal loss of the other.) Hence, constant-sum games can also be called ‘zero-sum games’. Dominating strategies and saddle points

Consider the following 2  2 zero-sum game: C1

C2

R1

0; 0

– 2; 2

R2

3; – 3

1; – 1

In contemplating the choice between R1 and R2, Row notes that if Column chooses C1, then R2, which yields a payoff of 3, is preferred to R1 which yields 0. If Column should choose C2, then R2 (yielding 1) is still preferred to R1 (yielding 2). We say R2 dominates R1 (yields more than R1 regardless of the co-player’s choice). Similar arguments lead to the conclusion that Column C2 dominates C1 (2 > 0, 1 > 3). If both players are rational in the sense of maximizing their respective payoffs associated with the outcomes of the game, the outcome of the game is R2C2, the intersection of strategies R2 and C2. Let us now consider the game in which the outcomes in R2 have been interchanged:

The Normal Form If the number of players is two and the number of strategies available to each player (even though huge) is finite, we can imagine a game of this sort (called a ‘two-person

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C1 R1 R2

– 2; 2 3; – 3

C2 0; 0 1; – 1

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Here R2 still dominates R1 (3 > 2, 1 > 0), but C2 no longer dominates C1 (2 > 0, but 3 < 1). Row’s optimal choice is still obvious (R2), but Column’s is not. His optimal choice depends on Row’s choice, which by the rules of the game Column does not know. However, Column’s optimal choice can be determined if he ascribes rationality to Row. For if Row is rational, he can be expected to choose his dominating strategy, namely R2. Thereby Column’s optimal choice is also determined, namely C1, which yields him 1, while C1 yields 3. We have established a new criterion of rationality, in the context of the theory of games. Namely, a rational player attributes rationality to the co-player(s). Consider now the following game: C1

C2

C3

R1

–2

5

–7

R2

–1

0

6

R3

–4

–5

10

We have assumed that the game is zero-sum, hence only Row’s payoffs need be entered. Column’s are numerically equal with the opposite sign. We note that no row dominates the other two, and no column dominates the other two. So neither player’s rational choice can be immediately determined. However, a player, say Row, can reason as follows. Suppose I choose R1 and Column assumes that I did so. Which column would he choose? Clearly C3, since it is in his interest to minimize my payoff. Similarly he would choose C1 if he thought I chose R2 and C2, if he thought I chose R3. Of these three outcomes, each worst from my point of view, R2C1 is the best (‘least worst’). I shall therefore, assume the ‘worst case scenario’ and maximize my guaranteed payoff by choosing R2, which yields ‘the best of the worst’ or the maximum of the minima.

Such an outcome is called a ‘maximin’. If Row’s maximin entry in a game matrix is minimal in its row and maximal in its column, as in our example, then Column’s maximin entry must be minimal in its column and maximal in its row. Such an outcome is called a ‘saddle point’. In the light of the reasoning leading to it, it can be called a ‘rational’ outcome of the game (arrived at by two ‘rational’ players). Note that linkage between ‘rationality’ and the ‘worst case scenario’ in the theory of the two-person zero-sum game is congenial to traditional military thinking. It is not what the opponent may do in the pursuit of his own interest, but the worst he can do to you that matters. Mixed strategies

Not every two-person zero-sum game has a saddle point, as shown in the following example:

C1 R1

1; – 1

R2

0; 0

C2 – 5; 5 2; – 2

Here the ‘worst case scenario’ reasoning leads into a vicious cycle. Assuming again Row’s point of view, we see that Column would choose C2 if he thought Row would choose R1. But then, if Row thought so, he would choose R2 for a win of 2. But then, if Column followed Row’s reasoning, he would choose C1 (to make Row receive 0), which would then make R1 Row’s better choice, and so on in clockwise succession. Column’s reasoning would also fall into a vicious cycle. A way out if provided by extending the repertoire of available strategies to mixed strategies. The use of a mixed strategy involves the use of a random device calibrated to determine each of the available strategies with a certain probability. For example, in the case of the game represented by the matrix, Row would use a mixed strategy (p, 1  p) if he chose R1 with probability p and R2 with the complementary probability 1  p. Row’s rational choice in this case would be to choose p in such a way that Column’s expected gain would be the same whether he chose C1 or C2. In this game, (1/4, 3/4) would be such a strategy, since using either C1 or C2 or any probabilistic mixture of the two would make Column’s expected payoff 1/4. Similarly, Column’s optimal mixture in this game would be (7/8, 1/8), since this would give Row an expected payoff of 1/4, regardless of which strategy he chose. It follows that assuming many iterations, the most Row can win on the average playing against a rational Column is 1/4, which is the most Column must lose on the average. Neither player can improve his expected payoff by deviating from his optimal mixed strategy, assuming that the other does not deviate. The solution of the game is a sort of equilibrium in the sense described. In fact the use of all the three principles mentioned, namely the choice of dominant strategies when these are available, the choice of maximin strategies in games with saddle points, and the choice of optimal mixed strategies in games without saddle points leads to outcomes that are equilibria. The equilibrium principle is generally recognized as the determinant of rational decision in situations depicted as two-person constant-sum games. The notion of mixed strategy extended the ‘solvability’ of two-person constant-sum games to all finite games (having finite numbers of strategies) and thus vastly increased the scope of game theory. For instance, a mixed strategy could represent a probabilistic response to an antagonist’s move, thus curtailing the information available to him about one’s own strategy. Further extensions were made to extend the method to games with infinite strategy sets, such as games of timing or problems of control involving antagonistic controllers. Indeed much

Decision Theory and Game Theory

of research in this area of mathematics has been supported in the United States by the Naval Research Academy and by the Rand Corporation (a think-tank working, among other things, on problems arising in contemporary military science).

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another. The question which is the rational choice remains open. In our next example, all three principles suggest the same strategy to both players; yet the outcome, although ‘rational’ by all three criteria is unsatisfactory, as we shall see. Prisoner’s dilemma

Nonconstant-Sum Games As the name implies, in a two-person nonconstant-sum game, the sum of the payoffs associated with each outcome can vary from outcome to outcome. It follows that the interests of the players can be only partially opposed. The situation may have an area of common interest in that some outcomes may be preferred to others by both players. The game of Chicken

The game of Chicken is represented by the following scenario. The players drive toward each other, both straddling the middle of the road. The first to swerve to avoid collision earns the humiliating soubriquet ‘Chicken’. The driver who stays on the collision course receives approbation (rated as a ‘Daredevil’). If both swerve, the score is tied; if neither swerves, both lose heavily. The game is represented by the following matrix. The rows and columns have been relabeled in accordance to established usage. As will appear below, C stands for ‘cooperation’, D for ‘defection’: C2

Two men are suspected of burglary. There is not enough evidence to convict them but enough to convict them of a lesser crime, namely, possession of stolen goods. The state’s attorney, interested in obtaining confessions, explains the situation to them. If both confess to the charge of burglary, for which the normal penalty is 5 years imprisonment, both receive a reduced term of 3 years. If neither confesses, they can still be convicted of possession of stolen goods, for which the penalty is 1 year in jail. If only one confesses, he is set free (for turning state’s evidence), while the other (who has not confessed) can be convicted on the strength of his partner’s evidence and sentenced to the full term of 5 years. Let C represent ‘cooperation’, (with the partner, not with the state, that is to say, not confessing) and D ‘defection’ (confessing). The game can be represented by the following matrix, where negative utilities are assigned to prison terms of various durations: C1

D2

C1

1; 1

– 10; 10

D1

10; – 10

– 100; – 100

The game of Chicken

We note that neither player has a dominating strategy. If each chooses his maximin strategy, C1C2 results, which is not an equilibrium since each can improve his payoff by shifting to D, provided the other does not. Outcomes D1C2 and C1D2 are both equilibria, but the former favors Row, the latter Column. Neither can be chosen convincingly as the ‘rational outcome’, since the game is completely symmetric (its structure favors neither player). The game has also a third equilibrium, an intersection of mixed strategies, namely (10/11, 1/11), whereby the expected payoff of each player is 0. It is an equilibrium in the sense that neither player can improve his expected payoff, by shifting to another strategy, pure or mixed, if the other does not shift. This equilibrium is symmetric, hence reflects the structure of the game. Note, however, that it confers on both players an expected payoff (0) that is less than that associated with the choice of maximin strategies, namely 1. In sum, the choice of dominating strategies does not apply in this game; the maximin principle suggests one strategy; the equilibrium principle

C1

– 1; – 1

D1

0; – 5

D1 – 5; 0 – 3; – 3

Prisoner9s Dilemma

Clearly, in both players’ strategy D dominates C. Moreover, D is both players’ maximin strategy. Finally, outcome D1D2 is the only equilibrium of the game. All three principles of rational decision mentioned dictate the choice of D to both players. Nevertheless, both players prefer outcome C1C2 to D1D2, which raises the question of whether the choice of D is indeed ‘rational’ in this game. The name of the game was suggested by this dilemma. The paradox is resolved if in defining ‘rationality’ a distinction is made between individual and collective rationality. Then it is clear that in Prisoner’s Dilemma, individual rationality dictates the choice of D, collective rationality prescribes C.

Social Traps Prisoner’s Dilemma illustrates a situation called a ‘social trap’. These are situations in which each involved individual acts in accordance with individual rationality, that is, makes decisions designed to maximize the utility he assigns to the outcome, but in which the outcome resulting from all these apparently rational decisions is disadvantageous to every one concerned. An arms race

554 Decision Theory and Game Theory

is an often-cited example. In seeking security against potential enemies, a country may increase its military potential. If all countries do so, the security of none is increased, while the funds expended to increase security are wasted. It is in the individual interest of each fishing fleet to maximize its catch. If all fishing fleets do this, the fish population may be depleted entailing losses for all. If a fire breaks out in a crowded theater, it may seem rational to try to get to an exit as quickly as possible. If everyone tries to do this, a panic may ensue, and everyone may perish.

Cooperative Games So far nothing has been said about possible effects of communication between the players on the outcome of the game. It is conceivable that in games like Prisoner’s Dilemma, communication might make the players aware of their common interest and so allow them to achieve an outcome better for each than D1D2 dictated by the logic of individual rationality, namely, C1C2. This is, indeed, the case if in addition to the opportunity to communicate, the players can also make binding agreements. Then the solution of the game would not have to be an equilibrium, since departing from the agreed-upon outcome would constitute a violation of the agreement. In Chicken, the players might also agree on the outcome C1C2 (both swerve), rather than use a mixed strategy (the ‘rational’ solution of the noncooperative game), which entails a risk of a crash (the outcome that is worst for both players). Note that C1C2 is not an equilibrium, but the payoff associated with it to each player is larger than that associated with the symmetric mixed strategy equilibrium outcome. Thus the theory of the cooperative game extends game theory to problems solvable by conflict resolution. This approach is most clearly seen in the theory of n-person cooperative games (n > 2). When the rules of the game permit communication and entering binding agreements, subsets of N, the set of players can form coalitions, that is coordinate their strategies so as to achieve the largest possible joint payoff, assuming the ‘worst case scenario’, namely the case when the remaining players likewise join in a coalition and choose a strategy that keep the payoff of the first coalition to a minimum. Thus, each potential coalition S  N can count on a certain security level of payoff. The function that assigns to each potential coalition S its security level (S) is called the characteristic function of the game G, which is now defined by its set of players N and its characteristic function . It is designated by G ¼ . It is usually assumed that for each pair of nonoverlapping coalitions S and T:  ðS [ T Þ   ðS Þ þ  ðT Þ

In words, by joining in a coalition, members of S and T can guarantee themselves a joint payoff at least as large as they could guarantee themselves by staying in separate coalitions. It follows that it is always collectively rational for all players to form a single coalition (the grand coalition), since (N) is the most they can jointly get in the game G by cooperating, that is, coordinating their strategies. Note that the original decision problem posed in game theory, namely, that of determining a strategy that maximizes a player’s payoff (assuming other players are trying to maximize theirs) is bypassed in the theory of the cooperative game, inasmuch as the collectively rational strategy is assumed to have been determined. The problem remaining is that of dividing this maximized joint payoff among the members of the grand coalition. A particular apportionment of the joint payoff (N) among the n players is designated by the ordered set (x1, x2, . . . , xl, . . ., xn) where xi, the payoff apportioned to player P i. It is called an imputation if xi (i ¼ 1, . . ., n)  (i) and xi (i ¼ 1, . . ., n) ¼ (N). The first inequality represents individual rationality. It says that player i will get at least as much as a member of the grand coalition as he could get by playing alone against the coalition of all others; thus, it is worthwhile for him to join the grand coalition. The second equality represents collective rationality. It says that the players joining in a grand coalition will maximize their joint payoff. The solution of a cooperative n-person game in characteristic function form is conceived as an imputation or a set of imputations, that is apportionments of the joint payoff that satisfy certain stipulated principles of ‘stability’, or ‘fairness’, or ‘social justice’, however defined. For example, the core of the game is a set of imputations that makes it unprofitable for any subset of n players to break away from the grand coalition to form one of their own. This solution has the drawback that in some games, the set of imputations having that property may be empty. Related to the core is the nucleolus of the game, which always exists and, indeed, consists of a single imputation. It is, in fact, a realization of Rawls’ principle of social justice, in the sense that it identifies the ‘least advantaged’ set of players (those who are most motivated to break away from the grand coalition rather than accept a proposed imputation) as the set, whose situation is most favored by the solution. The Shapley value of a game, like the nucleolus, is a unique imputation, in which each player’s payoff is proportional to the average benefit he confers on a coalition that he joins – a sort of equity principle. The choice of a solution principle might well induce a conflict. However, the positions taken might be determined not by the particular problem on hand, but rather on how to agree on apportionments of the rewards reaped from cooperation in all future situations, so that no one

Decision Theory and Game Theory

would know in advance which principle would be the most advantageous from his point of view. That is to say, it could induce a debate not on a particular issue, where specific interests of the players are involved, but on how to deal with issues arising in the future, a matter of values, some of which the participants may hold in common. It seems that the most promising contribution of the theory of games to problems of conflict resolution, and hence ultimately to the reduction of violence, stems from the approaches suggested by the theory of the cooperative n-person game in characteristic function form. The contribution is not primarily to specific techniques of conflict resolution (these can be learned only through concrete experience) but to developing habits of more measured thinking about conflict.

Intellectualization of War As we have seen, the two-person zero-sum game appears to be an idealized representation of rationally conducted conflict. Associated with the growing prestige of sophisticated rational reasoning, characteristic of scientific activity, was a growing acceptance of this mode of thinking in the conduct of wars. This conception is stated explicitly already in Carl von Clausewitz’ magnum opus, On war, in which a clearly envisaged political aim is defined as the stake for which a war is (or ought to be) fought, and where much emphasis is put on the importance of well-thought-out strategy in pursuing victory. Moreover, victory itself is defined (ideally) as achieving total power over the opponent. War, written by Clausewitz, ‘‘is an act of violence intended to compel our opponent to fulfil our will’’ (p. 101). Here an area of common interests is implicitly excluded. The two-person zero-sum game appears to be the most accurate model of a war as, in Clausewitz’ opinion, it ought to be. Of the 35 papers presented at a conference on game theory in Toulon, France in 1964, 17 were on military applications and 14 of these on the two-person zero-sum games. Problems arising in missile warfare stimulated the development of differential games, particularly games of pursuit and evasion. In such a game, the role of Player 1 can be played by an attacking missile aimed at an enemy target and equipped with sensors processing information on the position, velocity, acceleration, and so on, of an antiballistic missile (Player 2), equipped with similar sensors, whose task is to intercept the attacking missile. The ‘‘payoff ’’ to the attacking missile increases as the distance between the point of interception (if such takes place) and the target decreases. The payoff to the intercepting missile increases with this distance. A strategy in this game is a choice of a program of control of a trajectory dependent on the information received by the sensors. Thus, the two

555

missiles are effectively playing a two-person zero-sum game, mathematically vastly complicated than the matrix games in our elementary examples, since strategies are represented not by single alternatives or by probability distributions on finite sets of alternatives but on ‘functions of functions’ where the domains are continua. It is hardly surprising that intricate problems in mathematics, information processing, physics, chemistry, and biology associated with the development of advanced offensive and defensive war technology, presented a challenge, not to speak of career opportunities, to young brilliant scientists. At the same time, preoccupation with these problems amounted to complete ‘insulation’ of their activities which, through long chains of application, lead to vastly increasing lethality of organized violence. This insulation involves not only separation of intellectual activity from its end product, namely, the huge machine which, if activated, could destroy civilization, perhaps humanity but also entails separation of rational decision making from reality, which it is supposed to control. In spite of the intense preoccupation with situations faced by absolutely antagonistic opponents, some aspects of two-person cooperative games did not escape the attention of theoreticians of ‘rational conflict’. In particular, implications of the possibility of communication with the antagonist were investigated, such as the utilization of communication in ‘deterrence’, the central concept in the rationalization of the ‘balance of terror’, as the supposed equilibrium sought in the conduct of the Cold War was sometimes called. In assessing the contribution of strategic bargaining to the theory of deterrence, T. C. Shelling wrote: We have learned that a threat has to be credible to be efficacious, and that credibility may depend on the costs and risks associated with the fulfilment for the party making the threat. We have developed the idea of making the threat credible by getting ourselves committed to its fulfilment, through the stretching of a trip wire across the enemy’s path of advance, or by making fulfilment a matter of national honor and prestige. . . We have considered the possibility that a retaliatory threat may be more credible if the means of carrying it out and the responsibility or retaliation are placed into the hands of those whose resolute in stronger. . . . (Schelling, 1960: 6)

A particular ‘‘commitment to fulfilment’’ of a threat was suggested by Kahn in the context of the game of Chicken: The skilful player may get into the car quite drunk, throwing whisky bottles out the window to make it clear to every body how drunk he is. He wears very dark glasses so that it is obvious he cannot see much, if

556 Decision Theory and Game Theory anything. As soon as the car reaches high speed, he takes the steering wheel and throws it out the window. If the opponent is watching, he has won. (Kahn, 1965: 11)

One can see the force of this reasoning. But what if the opponent is not watching? Kahn has foreseen this contingency too. If his opponent is not watching, he (the skilful player) has a problem; likewise if both players try this strategy. So far only the potentialities of communication (one feature of the cooperative game) have been examined. The other feature, more relevant to conflict resolution, namely the possibility of coordinating strategies to mutual advantage, was examined by Kissinger in a discussion of so-called ‘limited nuclear war’. It is possible to conceive of a pattern of limited nuclear war with its own appropriate tactics and with limitations as to targets, areas, and the size of weapons used. Such a mode of conflict cannot be improvised in the confusion of battle, however, The limitation of war is established not only by our intention but also by the manner in which the other side interprets them. It, therefore, becomes the task of our diplomacy to convey to our opponent what we understand by limited nuclear war, or at least what limitations we are willing to observe. . . If the Soviet leadership is clear about our intentions, a framework of war limitation may be established by the operation of self interest – by fear of all-out war and by the fact that new tactics make many of the targets of traditional war less profitable. (Kissinger, 1957: 185)

Rational Decisions and Irrational Violence Comparative zoology has established that homo sapiens is one of very few species that engage in massive, severely lethal combats with conspecifics (rats and some species of ants also come to mind). Moreover, the lethality of organized conflict between human groups has grown enormously throughout the evolution of civilization. A conspicuous cause of this development is clearly the growing effectiveness of killing technology but not that alone. War technology, besides becoming enormously ‘efficient’, has successively removed human targets from the awareness of the killers. Firearms removed them from immediate proximity. It is easier to shoot someone than to butcher him. Artillery removed them from sight. Aviation made possible massive destruction of civilians without targeting them specifically. Moreover, killing civilians became an explicit strategic goal in World War II as in attacks on Rotterdam and Dresden (undertaken with the view to breaking the enemy’s morale) or on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (presumably to reduce military casualties during the impending invasion of Japan).

From the perspective of ‘extreme rationality’, one can imagine a nuclear war as a sequence of ‘exchanges’ triggered by operators watching signals on a screen and manipulating appropriate levers. It appears that the infusion of sophisticated strategic analysis in the conduct of war (in our terms, the transformation of war from a fight into a game) did not contribute to its humanization – quite the contrary. In the light of this development, Kissinger’s conjecture (that nuclear weapons may actually make nuclear war more humane ‘‘making traditional targets of conventional war less profitable’’) is interesting. It rests on the assumption that limited war (more than all-out war) is in the ‘common interest’ of the potential enemies. Note, however, that the obvious next step in this line of reasoning is not made. Although it seems reasonable to assume that refraining from war altogether is even more advantageous to potential enemies, this solution apparently remains beyond the scope of rational decision-making. It contradicts the tacit and hence unassailable tenet of ‘realist’ politics: reduction of one’s military potential is analogous to reduction of one’s competitiveness in the global market and like the latter can never be consistent with ‘national interest’. An unexpected and altogether historically novel circumstance has been produced by the new hyperintellectualized (yet dehumanized) war model: one does not have to hate anyone in order to kill everyone. As a result, professional organizations and grassroots movements have arisen in the last century with greater strength and resolve than ever to see to the end of war. The resistance of the war establishment to its abolition is like the resistance of any quasiliving system to its demise. Systems that lacked sufficient self-preserving potential are no longer around. History is littered by dead or dying institutions, such as chattel slavery, dueling, hereditary absolute monarchy, human sacrifice. War may someday suffer the same fate. Its demise by no means implies the elimination of conflict from human life; it only means lifting conflict to a higher level of maturity (here envisaged as a blend of rationality and humaneness), the sort of conflict that is modeled by the n-person cooperative game, in which realization of collective interest is taken for granted and where choice of principles of fair apportionments of joint gains is a consequence of an ethically conducted debate. See also: Cold War; Conflict Management and Resolution; Correlates of War; Nuclear Warfare; Warfare, Modern; Weaponry, Evolution of; World War I; World War II

Further Reading Amos, S. (1880). Political and legal remedies for war. London: Casse, Potter, Galpin. Hitch, C. J. and McKean, R. N. (1965). The criterion problem. In Berkowitz, M. and Bock, P. G. (eds.) American national security. New York: Free Press.

Declarations of War Kahn, H. (1960). On thermonuclear war. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Kahn, H. (1965). On escalation. Metaphors and scenarios. New York: Praeger. Kissinger, H. A. (1957). Nuclear weapons and foreign policy. New York: Harper and Row. Liddell, H. B. H. (1933). The ghost of Napoleon. London: Faber and Faber. Mensch, A. (ed.) (1966). Theory of games. Techniques and applications. The proceedings of a conference under the aegis of the NATO Scientific Affairs Committee. London: The English Universities Press. Rapoport, A. (1960). Fights, games, and debates. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Rowls, J. (1971). A theory of justice. Cambridge, MA: Belknap. Sivard, R. L. (1996). World military and social expenditures. Washington, DC: World Priorities.

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von Clausewitz, C. (1968). On war (orig. publ. 1832). Hammondsworth: Penguin. Von Neumann, J. and Morgenstern, O. (1944). Theory of games and economic behavior. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Relevant Websites http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/game-theory/. http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/schools/game.htm. http://mat.gsia.cmu.edu/QUANT/NOTES/chap9/ node2.html. http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2004/10/ 65299.

Declarations of War Brien Hallett, University of Hawai’i-Manoa, Honolulu, HI, USA ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction Unfamiliar Terms What Is a Performative Speech Act?

Glossary Absolute Declaration of War A speech act that proclaims that the state and condition of war now exists (See Conditional Declaration of War). Armed Conflict Informally announced enmity between contending states or groups (See War). Authorization The clause in an absolute declaration of war that authorizes executive agents to impose diplomatic, economic, or military sanctions. Conditional Declaration of War A speech act that proclaims that the state and condition of war will exist if the grievances listed and the remedies sought are not settled through negotiations (See Absolute Declaration of War). Declaration of Peace The clause in a declaration of war that articulates the remedies sought, the peace terms, or war aims that will restore the amity of peace. Declaration of War The clause in an absolute declaration of war that formally initiates the state and condition of war. Denunciation The clause in a declaration of war that names or identifies the enemy. Formal/Informal Declaration of War Distinguishes wars declared with a solemn speech act in accordance with constitutional procedures from wars declared with

The Status of Declarations of War Contending Conceptions Further Reading

an unsolemn speech act by extraconstitutional procedures (See Perfect/Imperfect War). Indictment The clause in a declaration of war that lists the casus belli, the grievances that have caused the enmity. Perfect/Imperfect War Distinguishes wars declared formally with a solemn speech act in accordance with constitutional procedures from wars declared informally with an unsolemn speech act by extraconstitutional procedures (See Formal/Informal Declaration of War). Performative Speech Acts A language performance that creates or establishes a new social relationship when an authorized person speaks the required words in the appropriate circumstances (e.g., a bet, a naming, a threat, a marriage, etc.). Reasoned Declaration of War A speech act that justifies a war by listing the grievances that have caused a breach of the peace and the preferred remedies that will restore peace (See Unreasoned Declaration of War). Unreasoned Declaration of War A speech act that declares war absolutely without giving reasons (See Reasoned Declaration of War). War Formally declared enmity between contending states or groups (See Armed Conflict).

558 Declarations of War

Declarations of war are performative speech acts. With them, one proclaims the end to the amity of peace and the commencement of the enmity of war. They are a 5000-year-old diplomatic and negotiating technology that is often neglected, when not abused. Yet, when properly employed, they play essential roles in conflict management and provide the means for legislatures, as opposed to kings and presidents, to decide the question of war or peace. As a result, an open, formal declaration of war is one of the explicit requirements in most versions of the just-war criteria.

formal constitutional procedures needed to declare war; informal announcements of an armed conflict are thought to suffice. Second, war is said to be outlawed by the Kellogg–Briand Pact of 1928 and the United Nations Charter of 1945. Since war is now said to be illegal, declaring war is also thought to be illegal. And, third, as a result of the first two, there has not been a formally declared war anywhere in the world since 1945, although there have been over 228 armed conflicts, as mentioned by Harbom and Wallensteen in 2005. Note the dilemma, though: outlawing war and, hence, formal declarations of war, has only made the world safe for unrestrained armed conflict. This does not seem like progress.

Introduction Curiously, an ‘undeclared’ war is not possible. It is not possible because, as a performative speech act, a declaration is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for initiating the state and condition of war. The sufficient conditions, of course, are the actual imposition of diplomatic, economic, or military sanctions. The point of perplexity, however, is that, despite being absolutely necessary, the speech act may be performed in two different ways: either by making a formal declaration in accordance with constitutional procedures or by making an informal declaration using improper procedures. Three very pragmatic reasons exist to explain why declarations of war are absolutely necessary, if not sufficient. First, the sufficient diplomatic, economic, or military sanctions cannot be put in motion without either a formal or an informal declaration. Imagine a king who decides to go to war, but tells no one. Nothing would happen. Second, the decision must be explained. To make such an important decision but give no reason is simply unthinkable. One can decide to go for a walk without explanation, but to go to war without ‘declaring’ why is impossible. More properly though, no plans can be made without answering the question of why the war is declared. A statement of the reasons for abandoning the amity of peace for the enmity of war are absolutely necessary for developing one’s political goals and one’s diplomatic, economic, and military strategy. And, third, when properly employed, declarations of war are a potentially powerful conflict management technology, as the ancients knew, and as will be discussed ahead. Despite their necessity, declarations of war would appear to be an anachronism. This appearance is created by three factors. First, declarations of war create a purely formal distinction between war and armed conflict: war is formally declared; armed conflict is informally announced. Since respect for formalities is not characteristic of modern societies, few see any need to respect the

Unfamiliar Terms As with any technology, the declaring of war has a specialized vocabulary. Derived from Roman law and unused since the early twentieth century, it has an antique flavor. However, this vocabulary enables one to identify and talk about both the possible types of declarations and the internal structure of each type. With regard to possible types, declarations are described in terms of five contrasting pairs of characteristics (See Table 2 [change to Table 1]). Declarations are: 1. either ‘formal’ because they are properly made, or ‘informal’ because they are improperly made; 2. ‘reasoned’ because an explanation is given, or ‘unreasoned’ because no explanation is given; 3. ‘conditional’ because they threaten war only if negotiations fail, or ‘absolute’ because they declare that negotiations have failed; 4. ‘solemn’ because they are formally and properly made, or ‘unsolemn’ because they are made informally and improperly; and 5. ‘perfect’, again because they are made formally and properly, or ‘imperfect’, again because they are made informally and improperly. By mixing and matching the first three pairs, it is mathematically possible to generate eight possible types, of which only six are logically possible. This is so because conditional declarations cannot be unreasoned, the conditions stated necessarily being the reasons to declare war. The last two contrasting pairs, solemn/unsolemn and perfect/imperfect are not available to expand the number of possible types of declarations of war because they are synonymous with the formal/informal distinction, which is the most important of the distinction. As Grotius observed, ‘‘Public war is either formal, according to the law of nations, or less formal’’ (1925, I, iii, 4). With regard

Declarations of War

559

Table 1 Analysis of President George W. Bush’s formal, reasoned, absolute announcement of armed conflict against the Republic of Iraq of 19 March 2003, 10:16 to 10:20 P.M. Eastern Standard Time I. The Indictment of the casus belli: ‘‘Our nation enters this conflict reluctantly – yet, our purpose is sure. The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder. We will meet that threat now, with our Army, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard and Marines, so that we do not have to meet it later with armies of fire fighters and police and doctors on the streets of our cities.’’ II. The Denunciation of the Enemy ‘‘In this conflict, America faces an enemy who has no regard for conventions of war or rules of morality. Saddam Hussein has placed Iraqi troops and equipment in civilian areas, attempting to use innocent men, women and children as shields for his own military – a final atrocity against his people.’’ III. The Declaration of Peace (i.e., the war aims) ‘‘My fellow citizens, at this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.’’ ‘‘And helping Iraqis achieve a united, stable and free country will require our sustained commitment.’’ ‘‘We have no ambition in Iraq, except to remove a threat and restore control of that country to its own people.’’ ‘‘We will pass through this time of peril and carry on the work of peace. We will defend our freedom. We will bring freedom to others and we will prevail.’’ IV. The Declaration of War ‘‘Now that conflict has come, the only way to limit its duration is to apply decisive force. And I assure you, this will not be a campaign of half measures, and we will accept no outcome but victory.’’ V. The Authorization: ‘‘On my orders, coalition forces have begun striking selected targets of military importance to undermine Saddam Hussein’s ability to wage war.’’ Note: The reasoning given here should be measured against the ad bellum criteria of the just-war criteria. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/03/iraq/20030319-17.html Accessed 19 April 2003.

Table 2 Declarations of war by type Qualitity of the Speech Act

Justification

Degree of enmity

A. Declared War 1. Formal (perfect, solemn, or declared) 2. Formal (perfect, solemn, or declared) 3. Formal (perfect, solemn, or declared) 4. Formala (perfect, solemn, or declared)

Reasoned Reasoned Unreasoned Unreasoned

Absolute Conditional Absolute Conditional

B. Undeclared War (Armed Conflict) 5. Informal (imperfect, unsolemn, or undeclared) 6. Informal (imperfect, unsolemn, or undeclared) 7. Informal (imperfect, unsolemn, or undeclared) 8. Informala (imperfect, unsolemn, or undeclared)

Reasoned Reasoned Unreasoned Unreasoned

Absolute Conditional Absolute Conditional

a An unreasoned conditional declaration of war is mathematically possible, but logically impossible. To be conditional the declaration must state the conditions, which renders the declaration at least minimally reasooned. Used by Permission, ª 2006 Brien Hallett.

to the internal structure, reasoned, conditional declarations must contain (See Table 1 [change to Table 2]): 1. an ‘indictment’, which lists the grievances or casus belli that will cause the enmity of war if not remedied; 2. a ‘denunciation’, which identifies the party who is responsible for causing the grievances and needs to negotiate the remedies; and 3. a ‘declaration of peace’, which articulates the declarer’s preferred remedies for the grievances indicted and denounced. The indictment should normally consist of serious violations of human rights. Although not strictly required, a

fully reasoned declaration might also include a short philosophical exposition of the issues in hand, a summary of the course of the conflict to this point, describing the efforts resolve it, and any other of the ad bellum criteria of the just-war criteria that may be appropriate. A reasoned, absolute declaration of war should reiterate the indictment, denunciation, and declaration of peace before adding: 4. a ‘declaration of war’, which enacts the state and condition of enmity that is war, and; 5. an ‘authorization’, which instructs executive agents to undertake diplomatic, economic, or military sanctions against the enemy now indicted and denounced absolutely.

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Unreasoned, absolute declarations of war, naturally, neglect all of the elements except the declaration of war and the authoring clause.

What Is a Performative Speech Act? As synonyms for the formal/informal distinction, perfect/ imperfect, solemn/unsolmen refer, not so much to the type of declaration, as to the quality of the speech act by which enmity is proclaimed. As John Austin, John Searle, and other philosophers of language use the term, performative speech act describes the fact that much, if not all, of our social reality comes into existence when certain words are spoken by certain people in certain circumstances. The standard example is marriage. Only when the ‘solemn’ words, ‘‘I pronounce you man and wife,’’ are spoken formally and publicly by a minister is the couple married. Without the formal, solemn words, it is impossible to create or ‘perfect’ the social relationship of ‘marriage’, although an ‘imperfect’ relationship of ‘cohabitation’ can be ‘informally’ established using other, ‘unsolemn’ words. Likewise, without a formal, solemn declaration of war, it is impossible to create or ‘perfect’ the complex social phenomenon of ‘war’, although an ‘imperfect’ social phenomenon of ‘armed conflict’ can be ‘informally’ established using other, ‘unsolemn’ words. For example, in Great Britain, only the Queen may formally and solemnly say ‘‘We have thought fit to Declare war, and do hereby Declare war against. . .,’’ thereby performing a ‘perfect’ speech act. In contrast, when Prime Minister Tony Blair said ‘‘On Tuesday night I gave the order for British forces to take part in military action in Iraq’’ during his televised address on Thursday, 20 March 2003, his performance was both informal and unsolemn. It used extra-constitutional means to produce an ‘imperfectly’ declared armed conflict.

The Status of Declarations of War Before considering the historical status of declarations of war, a few words about their modern status is in order. Italy and Japan, due to their defeats during World War II, have officially repudiated war. The Japanese Constitution does this in Article IX and, in consequence, makes no provision for the declaring or war. The Italian Constitution does this in Article XI, but, strangely, does make a provision of the President to declare war ‘‘according to the decision of the parliament’’ in Article LXXXVII. Very much more usual, most modern constitutions vest the power to declare war in the executive, either the king or the president, as is the case in France

where the president declares war. The reason, of course, is the fact that the declaring of war has been viewed as a royal prerogative for thousands of years. Indeed, in Great Britain and many of the Commonwealth nations, this power is still explicitly seen as a royal prerogative, although exercised through the Cabinet without reference to Parliament. In presidential constitutions, the power to declare war is vested formally in the legislature, but actually exercised by the president informally. For example, the United States Congress has declared war formally this only five times in over 200 years, and not once since 1941. Since the Vietnam armed conflict, the usual procedure has been for the Congress to vote a precatory and hortatory ‘‘authorization of force resolution’’ at the request of the president. The German Fundamental Law (i.e., constitution) is unusually complex. It stipulates that the President of the Republic may declare war formally should he feel so inclined (Article 115a (5)) after ‘‘The determination that federal territory is being attacked by armed force or that such an attack is directly imminent (state of defence) are made by the House of Representatives with the consent of the Senate. . . at the request of the Government and requires a two-thirds majority of the votes cast’’ (Article 115a (1)). As an alternative procedure for when the ‘federal territory’ is not being attacked, the German Government presents a budget for a military operation, usually a humanitarian operation, which, when approved by the Bundestag, effectively authorizes the operation, again, without declaring war formally. A number of Scandinavian and west European countries have adopted roughly similar budget-approval procedures. What needs to be kept in mind is that none of these legislative procedures is an exercise of the power to declare war. The budget-approval procedures are an exercise of the ‘power of the purse’, while the ‘authorization of the use of force’ is an extra-constitutional precatory and hortatory permission to commence hostilities. The crucial fact is that the locus of decision remains firmly in the hands of the executive, the king, president, chancellor, or prime minister, who decides the question of war or peace informally, unsolemnly, in private, and then, subsequently, announces it to the public when he requests approval of the budget or an authorization to use force. In all cases, the legislature reacts to and complies with a private decision taken earlier by the executive, as the private decisions by Prime Minister Tony Blair and President George W. Bush to invade Iraq illustrate. How the locus of decision might be shifted away from the executive to the legislative, from the private to the public is explored later. Turning to the historical status of declarations of war, the first recorded exchange of formal declarations of war is found in the 5000-year-old Sumerian epic, Agga and Gilgamesh. The poem tells of the arrival of heralds from

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Agga of Kish indicting the casus belli in a conditional declaration of war to Gilgamesh of Erech. After debate in two councils, one of elders and one of warriors, Gilgamesh refuses to remedy the grievances indicted in Agga’s conditional declaration of war. The heralds thus return to Agga with an absolute declaration of war from Gilgamesh, which prompts Agga to issue an absolute declaration in his turn. Unfortunately for Gilgamesh and the people of Erech, Agga’s forces prove the stronger, and he prevails in the ensuing siege. More important than the age of the poem, however, is the way in which the to and fro of the heralds with Agga’s conditional declaration of war establishes the framework for negotiating the casus belli. For at least five millennia, then, the recognized norm has been for a formal, fully reasoned conditional declaration of war to be made as the basis of continuing negotiations, followed, if necessary, by a formal absolute declaration, either reasoned or unreasoned, informal announcements of armed conflict always being held as suspect. True, the norm was frequently honored in the breech; yet, never before 1945 has the norm ever been completely repudiated. The first effort to codify the norm occurred during the Roman Republic (510–27 BC) with the establishment of the ‘collegium fetialis’. The ‘collegium fetialis’ was the sacred congregation charged with sanctifying treaties and declarations of war. After the Senate had debated and voted a fully reasoned, formal, conditional declaration of war, in accordance with the jus fetiale (the law of the fatials), one of the fatials would carry the declaration to the enemy’s capital and spend up to 30 days negotiating over the grievances and remedies contained in it. Should the negotiations fail, he would return to the Senate and denounce the enemy as unyielding. At this point, the Senate would take the issue up again to debate its next step. Should the Senate vote for war, a formal absolute declaration would be composed, and the fatial would return to the enemy’s homeland, declaring war this time absolutely. Should the enemy respond in kind, hostilities would commence. Note how the practice of the Roman Republic is but an elaboration of that found in Agga and Gilgamesh. The first modern effort to codify the norm was at the Hague Convention of 1907. Convention III, Relative to the opening of hostilities held that ‘‘The contracting powers recognize that hostilities between themselves must not commence without previous and explicit warning, in the form of either a reasoned [motive´e] declaration of war or of an ultimatum with a conditional declaration of war.’’ The contrast with both Agga and Gilgamesh and the jus fetiale is instructive: While Convention III recognizes both the distinction between a conditional and an absolute declaration of war and the need for any declaration to be fully reasoned, the goal of Convention III is not to facilitate a diplomatic exchange. Rather, it is minatory, to avoid

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surprise attacks by providing explicit warning before commencing hostilities. As argued below, this shift is significant. Current opinion holds that Convention III rests in desuetude, having lost all force with the outlawing of war in the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact and the 1945 United Nations Charter. Specifically, the Kellogg– Briand Pact ‘‘renounces it [war], as an instrument of national policy,’’ whereas Article 2, section 3 of the Charter recommends that the member states ‘‘settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered,’’ and section 4 encourages them to ‘‘refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.’’ However, recognizing the frailty of international law and the force of circumstance, Article 51 states clearly that ‘‘Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.’’ As a result, juridical opinion now holds that, while wars are illegal, informally declared armed conflict is permissible when it is an exercise of self-defense after an armed attack, or when authorized by a Security Council resolution under Chapter VII, or, possibly, to effect a humanitarian intervention. This last case, however, is not universally accepted. In fine, the status of formal declarations of war, as opposed to informal announcements of armed conflict, has shifted from providing the basic framework for negotiating grievances between nations to a minatory pause before commencing hostilities in the early twentieth century to illegality in the mid-twentieth century, declaring one’s grievances and preferred remedies for restoring peace formally no longer being considered as acceptable international behavior.

Contending Conceptions As should be clear by now, declarations of war may be conceived of in three different ways: (1) One can think of them as ‘mere’ formalities, superfluous in all respects; or, one can think of them as necessary, indeed, crucial speech acts in a larger conflict management process. (2) One can think of them as minatory, a legal warning, alerting neutrals, belligerents, and the general public to take heed and act accordingly; or, one can think of declarations of war as crucial speech acts that possess substantive diplomatic, economic, and, possibly, military functions by articulating of a nation’s political purposes.

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(3) One can think of them as triggers, the public announcement that initiates or authorizes hostilities; or, one can think of them as necessary speech acts that hold the potential to empower legislatures to decide the question of war or peace. Although virtually unknown in modern times, in ancient times, the drafting, debating, and voting of declarations of war allowed the Greek Assembly and the Roman Senate to declare war formally, thereby capturing this power for the legislature at the expense of the executive. Needless to say, the first concept in each pair defines the conventional wisdom and forces one to conclude that declarations of war are hopelessly anachronistic, if not harmfully detrimental. Only when one is open to the second concept in each pair do declarations of war take on an air of utility, even necessity.

Needless to say, this is precisely what a fully reasoned declaration of war does. It is the formal public speech act that crystallizes the conflict: 1. by recognizing that amity has deteriorated to enmity, 2. by indicting the grievances that have caused this enmity and breached the peace, 3. by denouncing those who have caused the grievances, and 4. by declaring one’s preferred resolution or peace terms. In other words, a fully reasoned declaration of war creates the minimal baseline conditions for managing a conflict. To accent the obvious, a fully reasoned conditional declaration of war, such as those hinted at in Agga and Gilgamesh, creates much better conditions for managing a conflict. Specifically, it creates the conditions for managing a conflict through diplomatic means, as is well illustrated by the procedures of the jus fetiale.

Mere Formalities or Conflict Management Strategy Assuming that one can put the conventional wisdom aside for the moment, declarations of war are anything but ‘mere’ formalities. They are the necessary speech acts that can and should play a crucial crystallizing function in a complex conflict management strategy. That is, ignoring for the moment the crucial distinction between formal/informal, public/private, a conflict cannot be managed as long as it remains latent. Before one can manage, much less resolve, a conflict, it must become manifest. This requires that at least one of the conflict partners says, ‘‘I am upset,’’ thereby changing radically the character of the relationship between them. This necessary first step, however, is inadequate to manage the conflict and move it toward resolution. In order for the declaration of conflict to contribute to the actual management of the conflict, it must be reasoned. For, it is the reasoning articulated in the declaration that crystallizes a conflict, thereby producing a management strategy. More fully, a conflict becomes manageable only after the conflict partners have: 1. recognized that their relationship has deteriorated from amity to enmity (if the conflict partners say that friendship still prevails, no one can even begin to manage the conflict); 2. articulated the substance of the conflict (if the conflict partners cannot say clearly what the conflict is about, no one can begin to manage the conflict); 3. identified one’s conflict partner (if the conflict partners cannot say clearly with whom they are in conflict, no one can begin to manage the conflict); and 4. articulated one’s preferred resolution (if the conflict partners cannot say clearly how they desire to resolve the conflict, no one can begin to manage it).

Legal Functions or Statement of Political Purposes While it is certainly true that declarations of war serve several legal functions, neither war nor declaration of war is primarily a legal phenomenon. Consider the situation. Grotius and other jurists say that there are three principal legal effects. First, to warn the enemy, neutrals, and one’s own people of the change from the amity of peace to the enmity of war. Second, ‘‘that the fact might be established with certainty that war was being waged not by private initiative but by the will of each of the two people or of their heads’’ (Grotius 1925, III, iii, 11). Third, that citizens and soldiers should receive the protection of the laws of war and not be treated as pirates or brigands if captured. While no one can deny the importance of these legal effects, especially the warning of one’s own people, these effects should not overshadow the manner in which a fully reasoned declaration of war determines the conflict partners’ strategy, the mix of diplomatic, economic, and, possibly, military means by which each conflict partner plans to go forward toward resolution. Two ways exist to express this thought. First, viewed from the perspective of the declaration, more important than the legal effects is the manner in which a fully reasoned declaration of war, such as the Dutch Declaration of Independence, justifies the war. By ‘justifying’ war, one does not mean that the war is necessarily just. Rather, one means that serious reasons are given to convince a reader that real grievances have been truly identified and adequately analyzed and the war is truly aimed toward resolving the conflict. That is, as Cicero observed in De Officiis, ‘‘Therefore the only justification for war [or any other conflict] is that peace and justice should thereafter prevail’’ (De Officiis I, xi, 35). In other

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words, in order to develop a well-reasoned, successful conflict-management strategy that moves a conflict toward resolution, one needs to know (1) what the grievances are, (2) who the conflict partner is, and (3) what the objective (i.e., the war aims/peace terms) is. This is what a fully reasoned declaration of war does. Second, viewed from the perspective of war, if war be policy, as Carl von Clausewitz has famously argued, and not the violence of combat, then an absolute need exists to articulate this policy. The articulation of the policy requires, to repeat, that one indicts the grievances that have caused a breach of the peace, denounces those who have caused the grievances, and declares one’s preferred remedy, which, not incidentally, are also one’s peace terms/ war aims. Once the policy is articulated in these terms, it then becomes possible to develop a strategy to marshal the diplomatic, economic, and possibly, military means to effect the policy. In fine, viewing declarations of war through the narrow lens of their legal consequences, as is usually done, misses their power, purpose, and utility of declarations of war to manage a conflict and shape the conflict-management strategy of each of the conflict partners.

A Trigger to Commence Hostilities or Legislative Decision Recurring to the crucial distinction that separates formal from informal and public from private, one misses the point if one believes that declarations of war are merely the public announcement that triggers hostilities, and not a potentially crystallizing moment in the struggle to manage and resolve the conflict. Consider, first, the intention and the effect of the following two introductory sentences. On 26 July 1581, the Dutch States General formally declared its independence from Spain in an Act of Abjuration that began: As it is apparent to all that a prince is constituted by God to be ruler of a people, to defend them from oppression and violence as the shepherd his sheep; and whereas God did not create the people slaves to their prince, to obey his commands, whether right or wrong, but rather the prince for the sake of the subjects (without which he could be no prince), to govern them according to equity, to love and support them as a father his child or a shepherd his flock, and even at the hazard of life to defend and preserve them. And when he does not behave thus, but, on the contrary, oppresses them, seeking opportunities to infringe their ancient customs and privileges, exacting from them slavish compliance, then he is no longer a prince, but a tyrant, and the subjects are to consider in him no other view. (Act of Abjuration, 1581)

On 19 March 2003, George W. Bush formally announced his decision to invade Iraq in a speech that

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began, ‘‘My fellow citizens, at this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.’’ President Bush’s announcement may well have produced ‘‘shock and awe,’’ but it contributed little to resolving the conflict. Quite the contrary. More to the point, though, his formal public announcement reflected an informal private decision taken by him and his advisers at some indeterminate time in the past. In contrast, the Dutch Declaration of Independence reflected a public decision taken by the States General on precisely 26 July 1581 after a formal public debate and vote. To recall Grotius’ words, the Dutch declaration represents the will of one ‘‘of the two people[’s representatives],’’ while President Bush’s announcement reflects ‘‘the will of their heads.’’ The unresolved issue here is how might it be possible for the people’s representatives, if not the people themselves, to decide the question of war or peace. Little doubt exists as to how kings and presidents decide the question. They take the decision in private in their privy councils, and subsequently announce it in public. Should they possess the power to declare war as a formal, constitutionally recognized prerogative, then the public announcement of their private decision takes on the form of a formal royal declaration of war. If they lack the formal constitutional authority to declare war, then the public announcement of their private decision is just that – a public announcement – producing an informally declared armed conflict. The crucial point is that the decision is taken informally in private, thereby excluding both the people and their representatives. This exclusion is not accidental. It represents the very nature of executive decision-making. In contrast, legislative decision making is characterized by formal public debate and decisions. A bill is formally and publicly introduced; it is formally and publicly debated; it is formally and publicly voted up or down, and crucially, the formal public text of the bill is the content of the decision, while the formal public vote is the decision. In order for the question of war or peace to be taken by the people or their representatives, then the question must be framed in a draft, debated, and voted formally and publicly, a process which naturally produces a formal reasoned declaration. And, most important of all, this fully reasoned draft declaration should be conditional, if it is to contribute to the management of the conflict, instead of merely triggering hostilities. Thus, the tension between representative government and international law. According to the Kellogg–Briand Pact and the Charter of the United Nations, war has been outlawed, which means that formal declarations of war have also been rendered illegal. However, if the people’s representatives are ever to wrest the actual decision for

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war or peace away from kings and presidents, the only way for them to do it is by drafting, debating, and voting a formal reasoned declaration of war. Approving budgets or precatory and hortatory resolutions ‘‘authorizing the use of armed force’’ will not do. Such reactive measures leave the actual decision firmly in the hands of the executive. The hard and intransigent fact of the matter is that George W. Bush and Tony Blair are the ones who decided to invade Iraq; the US Congress and the British Parliament only authorized them to do what they had decided to do. The only way that the Congress, the Parliament, or any other legislature could have taken the actual decision themselves would have been for them to have drafted, debated, and voted on a formal public declaration of war, as the Dutch States General did in 1581. Furthermore, the only way that the people’s representatives could have contributed positively to the management and resolution of the conflict would have been for them to have made a fully reasoned conditional declaration, authorizing intensified diplomacy, but withholding authority for military operations until they, the people’s representatives, were convinced that this ultimate means was truly required in an absolute declaration of war. Such is the potential for democratic control of the decision for war or peace and the conflict management potential of the speech act that is a declaration of war.

A potential that was once realized by Agga and Gilgamesh and by the Romans of the Republic through the jus fetiale, but which have been lost with the outlawing of war and the declaring of war.

See also: Economic Causes of War and Peace; Economic Costs and Consequences of War

Further Reading Austin, J. L. (1975). In Urmsom, J. O. and Sbisa, M. (eds.) How to do things with words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Blick, A. (2005). How to go to war: A handbook for democratic leaders. London: Politico’s Publishers. Fisher, L. (2004). Presidential war power, 2nd edn. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas. Grotius, H. (1925). De jure belli ac pacis libri tres (trans. Kelsey, F. W.). Oxford: Clarendon Press. Hallett, B. (1998). The lost art of declaring war. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Harbom, L. and Wallensteen, P. (2005). Armed conflict and its international dimensions, 1946 2004. Journal of Peace Research 42(5), 623–635. Searle, J. R. (1995). The construction of social reality. New York: The Free Press. Watson, A. (1993). International law in archaic Rome: War and religion. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Wormuth, F. D. and Firmage, E. B. (1989). To chain the dog of war: The war power of Congress in history and law. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.

Democide See Genocide and Democide

Deterrence, Military See Military Deterrence and Statecraft

Development and Militarism See Militarism and Development in Underdeveloped Societies

Dictatorships and Authoritarian Regimes, Insurrections against

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Dictatorships and Authoritarian Regimes, Insurrections against Daniel P Ritter, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction Historical Background Violent Types of Insurrections

Glossary Authoritarian Regime An oppressive regime that rules through strict, intrusive, and violent enforcement of laws. Can take the form of a dictatorship, but may also manifest itself in totalitarian bureaucracies or oligarchies. Dictatorship A political system in which executive power is concentrated in one individual. Dictatorships are virtually always authoritarian in nature. Insurrection Elite and/or mass political action against a leader or a regime to bring about its reform or overthrow. In this article such action is directed either at a dictatorship or at another form of authoritarian regime. Nonviolent Action The effort to bring about social change through strategies and tactics that do not include violent methods, used here to refer to the pragmatic, more secularized version of Mahatma

Introduction Dictatorships and totalitarian regimes have been known to humanity at least since the birth of democracy. As a matter of fact, the two concepts are intimately connected as the term dictatorship, or autocracy, signifies the very opposite of democracy. Rather than the individual being ruled by the will of the people, the people are ruled by the will of the individual. Typically, the dictator imposes his or her will by assuming command of the nation’s armed and security forces. It should therefore come as no surprise that many dictators throughout history have been military men. While modern dictatorships in many ways closely resemble their ancient predecessors, several aspects of the nature of dictatorships have changed over the millennia. As Daniel Chirot notes, a qualitative shift has occurred in the general characteristic of dictatorships. Ancient occurrences of autocracies may have lacked the ideological elements often displayed by modern dictators in the shape of nationalism and a sense of certainty about

Nonviolent Insurrections Conclusion Further Reading

Gandhi’s form of nonviolent resistance. Gene Sharp uses the term to distinguish practical, political nonviolence from nonviolent teachings and spiritualities. Nonviolent action is a means of struggle rather than a lifestyle. Nonviolent Revolution A new form of effort to overthrow a political system or regime that has emerged over the last three decades. It may have the same outcomes as a traditional revolution, the difference being that violence plays no role, or a very limited one, in the achievement of revolutionary objectives. Satyagraha Gandhi’s form of nonviolent resistance. Literally meaning ‘grasping to truth’, Gandhi claims that a satyagrahi (a person adhering to the spirit of Satyagraha) will, by utilizing his or her own suffering, convert the heart of the opponent and bring about a change in the system.

a God-given task. As the twentieth century showed us, dictators are no longer content to rule and conquer, but see themselves as ‘burdened’ by greater missions, such as the creation of an Aryan nation or a communist project of totalitarian dimensions. However, the examples of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao are by no means historical peculiarities. Subsequent dictators have shown the world that a sense of mission is not unique to three of history’s arch-criminals. Rulers such as Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Nicolae Ceausescu, Ferdinand Marcos, and Slobodan Milosevic, among many others, followed in the footsteps of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao, causing much devastation to their nations, and in some cases to neighboring nations as well. Some of these dictators died in office or passed the torch to handpicked heirs, but many others were removed from power either by rivals hungry for power, or by ordinary citizens hungry for freedom. This article examines various types of such removals, ranging from assassinations to nonviolent revolutions. As noted above, the nature of autocracies has changed dramatically in the 2100 years that have passed since

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Julius Caesar assumed the position of the Western world’s first dictator. For the purposes of this article a dictator is defined as the national leader of a political system in which executive power is concentrated in one individual. A more all-encompassing way to think about both dictatorships and authoritarian regimes is to define these political systems on the basis of the regular citizens living in them. In 2006, Freedom House, a Washington think tank that every year measures and compares the civil liberties and political rights experienced by the citizens of the world’s countries, classified 45 of the world’s nations as ‘not free’ and another 58 as ‘partly free’, leaving 89 nations in the category of ‘free’ countries. It could be argued that ‘not free’ countries by definition are ruled by authoritarian regimes. Although some scholars are critical of the somewhat informal methods of these studies, the variables measured by Freedom House are developed on standard criteria that range from political to civil liberties. Based on this data, and the definition suggested above, the world currently hosts at least 45 dictatorial or authoritarian states, that is, ‘not free’ nations. Among those we find obvious dictatorial candidates such as North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il, but also more mainstream politicians like Russia’s president Vladimir Putin. Although significant differences exist between men like Jong-Il and Putin, these differences may not be substantial enough to classify only one of them as a dictator. Rather it might be useful to think of dictatorship as a spectrum ranging from totalitarian to pseudo-democratic. When framed in this manner, Jong clearly falls close to the totalitarian end of the spectrum while Putin would be placed somewhere towards the pseudo-democratic end of it. Nonetheless, both men are leaders of nations classified as ‘not free’ and therefore some might refer to them as dictators. Still, it is important to note the Putin cannot be considered the Russian equivalent of Jong-Il, mainly because there is a democratically elected parliament in Russia with substantial powers. Another characteristic of dictatorships and authoritarian regimes is that they are no longer solely domestic concerns of the particular nation experiencing dictatorial rule, but rather are viewed as threats to the prospect of international peace. As the world in the twenty-first century is decreasing in size, one nation’s problems become those of its neighbors as well. The removal of dictators thus becomes a global concern, as US foreign policy clearly indicates. However, despite much of the international criticism it is not the intentions of such policies that are problematic, but rather the military strategies employed to achieve the objective. As this article will show, violence is not the only, or, more importantly, the most efficient way to remove dictators. Nonviolence can and has been used to successfully replace autocracies with democracy.

Historical Background Origins of Dictatorships and Totalitarian Regimes The historical origins of dictators and tyrants can be traced back at least to ancient Greece and the writings of Aristotle. Some scholars would argue that tyrants and dictators ruled societies much more ancient than the Greek nation-states, but the term dictatorship makes more sense when juxtaposed to democracy. Thus, since democracy originated in Greece it seems reasonable to also name Greece the birthplace of dictatorships and authoritarian regimes. In his Politics Aristotle asserts that tyranny (now a synonym of dictatorship) is the perverted form of monarchy and thus the opposite of democracy, which is the perverted form of constitutional government. It should be noted that Aristotle, like his teacher Plato, was not convinced that democracy was the best form of government. However, Aristotle informs us, a tyrant is a monarch who only cares about himself, thereby violating his purpose in life. Although much can be gained from philosophical treatises about dictatorships and tyrannies, history shows us more concretely how the first tyrants came to power. Greek tyrants were usually former military men or demagogues who had gained popularity among the masses. Once their popularity had been established, wealthy noblemen and merchants would invest in the potential tyrant who then recruited his own private army of mercenaries and eventually assumed power over the particular city-state. Oftentimes these tyrannies lasted only a few years and were mainly a type of power game played by influential aristocrats. The tyrants were local and served largely as protectors of the people against other tyrants. The ideological dimensions of this early type of dictatorships were kept to a minimum. The birth of sustained dictatorship occurs in Rome with Julius Caesar’s climb to power. A general in the Roman army, upon accomplishing victory in Gaul Caesar crossed the river Rubicon and cast his famous die. By crossing the river he had violated the law prohibiting a Roman general to bring his troops into the city of Rome, thus finding himself in open conflict with the powerful senate. Caesar eventually defeated his opponents and assumed the role of dictator. Normally this title was given to a general for a limited period of time, endowing him with supreme and unlimited power in a time of national crisis. Caesar however chose to keep the title, which arguably led to his assassination in 44 BC. Many of the later emperor-dictators of Rome learned from Caesar’s mistakes and were wise enough to be content with less threatening titles. The emergence of early Greek and Roman tyrants and dictators was characterized by pragmatic objectives and

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elite power struggles. Greek and Roman potential rulers alike were motivated simply by the desire to rule. This stands in sharp contrast to the motivations of more modern dictators who, as mentioned above, are oftentimes ideologically motivated. In addition there seems to be a correlation between ideological motivation and cruelty, as some of the most vicious dictators have been those most strongly guided by a sense of mission. Origins of Insurrections against Dictatorships It should come as no surprise that insurrections against dictatorships have occurred for as long as there have been dictators to detest. If we agree to call Julius Caesar the first dictator, we must also agree to call his assassination the first insurrection against a dictatorship. Very few, if any, dictators experience a life of unchallenged rule. However, it may be suggested that it was the birth of modern, Western democracy that caused popular dislike of dictators to reach unprecedented levels. With the Great Revolution in France, which was inspired by the Enlightenment ideas of liberty, equality, and fraternity, democracy was hailed as the preferred mode of governance. As nation after nation established democratic rule, the prospects of successful dictatorships have decreased drastically. It should be noted that throughout the medieval period almost every ruler could be referred to as a dictator. The difference between these feudal tyrants and contemporary dictators is mainly that the former possessed considerably more limited power. After the French Revolution, dictatorships in the West did however not disappear. It took Napoleon Bonaparte less than a decade to establish himself as emperor of France, and many others, including his own nephew Louis Bonaparte, followed suit. What had changed was merely the rhetoric used by these new dictators: rather than ruling the people they ruled for the people, and very few of them repeated the mistake of Louis XIV, announcing that ‘‘l ’etat, c’est moi.’’ But once the masses had experienced the flavor of democracy they were on their guard against potential supreme rulers. Only in times of severe distress, much like in ancient Greece and Rome, would a single man (we would have to wait until Indira Gandhi before witnessing anything even resembling a woman dictator) be allowed to emerge as supreme ruler, which brings us to Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin, the perhaps two most vicious dictators to walk this planet. But not even these two extraordinarily powerful dictators were spared from insurrections against them, and it was only with great care, and equally great luck, that they, especially Hitler, protected themselves against attempts on their life. Dictatorships and insurrections go hand in hand. To be the supreme ruler of a nation is every megalomaniac’s most sacred dream, but the office of dictator comes with a

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heavy price, because when you are on the top of the pile, there is only one way in which to travel, and rivals as well as angry masses have a plethora of strategies to choose from in their attempts to remove the dictator. It is to those strategies we now turn our attention.

Violent Types of Insurrections This section identifies five different violent strategies by which challengers may remove a dictator from power. It should be noted that these methods are not unique to insurrections against dictators, but have also been used to remove democratic regimes. The five strategies are examined in order of their grandeur, ranging from assassinations and coups d ’etat to revolutions and invasions, with guerrilla warfare and civil wars somewhere in between. Assassinations Lerner defines assassination as ‘‘those killings or murders, usually directed against individuals in public life, motivated by political rather than by personal relationships’’ (1930: 27). For the purposes of this article executions are not included in the definition of assassination, as dictators facing execution have already been removed from power by nonlethal means. Although history tells us that democratic leaders, and even nonpolitical celebrities, are more likely than dictators to find themselves victims of assassinations, dictators are by no means immune to attempts on their lives. The man that has been named the world’s first dictator in this article, Julius Caesar, was indeed murdered by those closest to him, not for personal reasons, but for political ones. Ironically it seems that the more brutal a dictator is, the less likely he or she is to be assassinated. Above, it was indicated that Indira Gandhi might fit the mold of a dictator. It could be hypothesized that the reason why she was unable to escape assassination by her own bodyguard was simply the fact that she was not dictatorial enough. Generally, however, dictators have indeed been able to avoid assassinations for a few main reasons. The first, and perhaps most significant reason, is simply the fact that dictators know that as dictators they attract hatred and dislike from the rivals they dominate and the population they rule. This awareness, it may be argued, results in justified fear, which in turn causes the dictator to assemble a considerable secret police and security force. Once this security force has been built, it becomes difficult for political opponents to assassinate the dictator. Second, dictators rarely begin their careers as detested tyrants. Rather they emerge from the ranks of popular politicians or respected military men. As stated above, these dictators-to-be frequently come to power in times of great distress when they are hailed as saviors. By the

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time the savior’s intentions and true character become clear, the dictator is already well protected by the loyal security forces into which dictators regularly direct large portions of the state budget. The difficulties associated with assassinations of dictators do not prevent political opponents from trying. Hitler escaped several assassination plots before he eventually took his own life in 1945. Forty years later, Auguste Pinochet survived a rocket attack directed at the auto convoy in which he was traveling. Stories similar to these are common in the twentieth century, and they regularly share a common outcome: dictators oftentimes, for one reason or another, escape these attempts, rendering the dictator more powerful and committed to his or her cause. Escaping assassination allows the dictators to believe that divine will is on his side, and that his oppression of the opposition is necessary and justified. For this reason, and many others, it may be argued that assassinations are not the most efficient way to rid a nation of a dictatorship. Killing the dictators merely addresses the symptom and does nothing to cure the disease, as an assassinated dictator may very well be replaced by another. Coups d’E´tat Coups d’e´tat are sometimes defined as ‘‘seizure by action of a small group of physical and political control of the State machinery. Coups d’e´tat initially target the prime governmental centers of command, decision, and administration, and later the whole State apparatus’’ (Sharp, 2005: 544). Normally, coups are orchestrated by powerful elites, most often characterized by high-ranking military officers. In a coup, discontent elites hijack the government in order to presumably save it from a rogue leader. Ironically, the hijackers frequently turn out to be little improvement compared to the old dictator. Rather, coups seldom signify anything more than the transfer of power from one dictatorial ruler to another. One of the few meaningful differences might be that the leadership of a coup is composed of a group of ‘partial dictators’ who share power, rather than it being concentrated in one individual. Examples of coups are abundant in history. In 1920, a group of military officers, including General Walther von Lu¨ttwitz, attempted to gain control over Germany. That coup was eventually defeated, but the same sentiments that allowed for that coup to even become a possibility repeated themselves a decade later when Adolf Hitler capitalized on the popular discontent that had fueled the coup. More recently coups have occurred in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Guerrilla Warfare and Civil Wars In contexts where the opposition to the dictator is powerful enough and where weapons are readily available, guerrillas

may emerge as defenders of the people. Guerrillas fight the armed forces of the state in prolonged wars that frequently last for many years. As guerrillas depend on the general population for support in their battle against the state, the state necessarily needs to be perceived as dictatorial in nature. A government that does its best to help its people is much less susceptible to challenges from guerrilla forces, which are oftentimes seen as the people’s army. If the government is on the people’s side, guerrilla activities quickly turn into terrorism. Guerrilla (literally ‘little war’) warfare first emerged in Spain in response to Napoleon’s invasion in 1808. Although originally used to combat foreign invaders, guerrilla warfare has developed into a formidable tool against domestic dictators. One example of guerrilla warfare against a dictator was the Cuban insurrection led by Fidel Castro against President Batista that began in 1956. Largely due to the inefficiency of the Cuban military Fidel Castro came to power in 1958. An interesting side point here is to note that through the use of guerrilla insurrections, one dictator was replaced by another. Castro was of course not the only rebel in Latin America to utilize the method of guerrilla warfare. One of his most famous collaborators, Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara attempted to oust the sitting regime in Bolivia with similar tactics shortly after their Cuban success. Guevara’s movement ultimately failed, but spurred an expansion of guerrilla movements not only in South America but also in Africa, Asia, and even Eastern Europe. When guerrilla wars are fought over an extensive period of time (which is the most common situation for guerrillas as they usually cannot hope to quickly defeat the state forces), they eventually run the risk of turning into a civil war. Civil wars are fought between the state and opposition forces, much like guerrilla wars, but with a difference of scale. While guerrilla wars are partly defined by the immense superiority of power and force possessed by the state, civil wars are fought between more equal parties. When civil wars occur in dictatorial contexts, it could be seen as a sign of increasing resistance against the dictator. As long as the dictator can contain the insurrection against him or her to the level of guerrilla warfare, the dictator is fairly safe. However, when the conflict reaches the dimensions of a civil war, chances are that powerful opposition elites, and perhaps even international third parties, have engaged themselves in the conflict, making the prospects less favorable for the dictator. Revolutions Revolutions have received plentiful attention from scholars from the fields of sociology and political science. While significant knowledge has been generated, a general lack of agreement about the very nature of revolutions seems prevalent among researchers. For the purposes of this

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article I rely on Jack Goldstone’s definition which states that a revolution is ‘‘an effort to transform the political institutions and the justifications for political authority in a society, accompanied by formal or informal mass mobilization and noninstitutionalized actions that undermine existing authorities’’ (Goldstone, 2001: 142). Revolutions against dictators occur when political processes render the dictator unable to govern his territory. In contrast to coups (insurrection from above) and guerrilla resistance (insurrection from below), revolutions attract insurgents from potentially all classes of the populace, although this does not exclude the possibility of one class or status group leading the charge. According to Theda Skocpol, revolutions come about when a political crisis exploits the shortcomings of the current regime. Revolutions of this traditional kind (see section on nonviolent revolutions below) are violent ordeals that are followed by a period of chaos as victors fight for the spoils of the toppled regime. Similarly to assassinations, coups, and guerrilla war, the target of a revolution must not be a dictator. Nonetheless, the world is still to experience a fullfledged revolution against a truly democratic regime. While a revolution can address a political system rather than a specific individual in charge of that system, the dictator is usually removed along with the political system he or she upholds. Although revolutions are relatively rare occurrences in history, it is not difficult to find examples in which revolutions have been used to dispose a society of its dictator. The French Revolution constitutes an early example of such a revolution. King Louis XVI ruled, just like his predecessors, with the help of the French nobility. Once the structural conditions were ripe, members of all classes rose up against the monarchy. Poor crops leading to famine, competition from other nation-states, and elite disunity have been posited as plausible causal explanations to the French Revolution. The French Revolution resulted in the removal of the monarchy and the introduction of a constitutional democracy. However, as mentioned above, it would take less than a decade for Napoleon Bonaparte to emerge as the future emperor of France. The revolution that had sought to create a society of equals thus ended up trading the monarchy for the empire. Similar development occurred in China and Russia where the dictatorship of emperors were substituted for the dictatorship of communism in the shape of mainly Mao Zedong and Josef Stalin. Despite the fact that revolutions are rare social phenomena, the second half of the past century displayed a significant number of revolutionary movements against dictators. Nations like Vietnam, Cambodia, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, and Zimbabwe, to mention a few, fought bloody revolutionary struggles against authoritarian regimes. Sadly, in many cases of revolutions the outcome turned out to be merely the replacement of one tyrant

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with another. Generally, it seems, violent revolutions are an ineffective and slow way to change a political system from dictatorship to democracy. Invasions and Interstate War While assassinations, coups, civil wars, and revolutions are fairly old methods of dealing with dictators, invasions and wars have more recently materialized on the political scene as responses to dictatorial regimes. A plausible argument could be made on the basis of a correlation between wars and invasions against dictators and the creation of superpowers. As discussed above dictators are in general no longer merely power-hungry men and women who become tyrants for the sake of material gain and private pleasure. Rather, dictators like Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and Milosevic have combined their thirst for might with ideological motivations. Interestingly enough, the birth of dictatorships of this kind have coincided with ideological motivations in leaders of other nations who have ‘unselfishly’ attacked ideological dictators for the benefit of oppressed populations under authoritarian rule. The US and the USSR have obviously been the main practitioners of invasions and wars for the purpose of removing dictators. Needless to say, the superpowers’ preoccupation with dictatorial regimes was largely selfserving, as the US struggled to remove communist (or communist-friendly) dictators, mainly in Latin America and Asia, replacing them with more ‘democracy-oriented’ politicians. As history reveals, these ‘democratic’ leaders were simply American puppets, oftentimes no less dictatorial than their presumably communist predecessors. The Russians, on the other hand, did what they could to encourage the spread of communism by supporting sympathetic leaders in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America with both military and moral backing. A few illustrative examples might be helpful in historically situating superpower interactions with dictatorial regimes. In the 1960s the US decided to interject with what its leaders perceived to be a dangerous development in South Asia as communist groups were advancing their claims to power in Vietnam. If that nation fell victim to communism, US politicians feared, communism would quickly spread throughout the region. In order to prevent that type of development, the US invaded Vietnam in what was framed to be a case of one democratic nation helping another one in crisis. The Soviets then joined in, supporting the communist side in what turned out to be one of the severest catastrophes in the history of US foreign policy. Ultimately the American attempt to ‘save’ Vietnam from dictatorship in the shape of communism failed. The Soviets had a similar military disaster of their own after sending troops into Afghanistan, showing the difficulty even a well-armed superpower has when up against popular indigenous forces.

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In our own era, the US is once again involved in a war where one of the main reasons for attacking was to rid a country, this time Iraq, of a vicious dictator. Other reasons to justify the invasions were also provided by the US leadership, but once those reasons (mainly the existence of weapons of mass destructions) were proven unjustifiable, the removal of Saddam Hussein became President Bush’s main motivation for the invasion. In this case the US was successful in removing the dictator, but may have stirred up a chaos greater than what was present during Hussein’s time in power. As the examples of Vietnam and Iraq have shown, wars and invasion may not be the most efficient ways to oust dictators. Outcomes and Summary of Violent Insurrections As this section has indicated, proponents of violent means of political struggle have a wide variety of options to choose from when designing their attempt at dictatorship overthrow. However, as this section has also shown, none of these methods are particularly effective if the objective is to replace authoritarianism with democracy. If on the other hand the goal of the insurrection is to substitute one dictator with another, and not to achieve systemic change, violent means can be quite efficient. The main problem with violent insurrections is that it requires weapons, which is normally not widely available to the general population, thus making the overthrow of the dictator a largely elite affair. Overthrows of this kind are unlikely to produce either political or social change, but rather sustain an unjust system. While violence frequently backfires, revolutions have been used to remove dictators and achieve systematic change. The problem with violent revolutions is of course that they cause immense suffering, both during the revolution itself and the period of terror that may follow a successful revolution, during which members of the old ruling classes are purged. Democracy that is achieved through violent revolutions is often fragile as the examples of revolutions in France, China, Russia, and many others indicate. If all violent methods of dictator overthrow then are highly unlikely to succeed, does this mean that the cycle of dictators is nearly impossible to break? As we shall see, the last century provided the world with a viable option for turning dictatorships into democracies, and it is to that method, frequently referred to as nonviolent action, we now turn our attention.

Nonviolent Insurrections Historical Foundations It would be stretching conventional definitions of dictatorship to argue that Mohandas K. Gandhi and the Indian

freedom movement struggled against a dictator – the government the Indians were resisting was not their own, and dictators are normally by definition domestic leaders. Nevertheless, the tactics and strategies used by Gandhi and his followers have later been applied to nonviolent struggles against dictatorial regimes. Gandhi realized that violence would be a highly ineffective tool against dictators as he states that ‘‘science of war leads one to dictatorship pure and simple. Science of nonviolence can alone lead one to pure democracy’’ (Prabhu & Rao, 1967: 131). Sharing with the world an insight that has been utilized dozens of times since Gandhi’s death, the Mahatma provided the world with what is arguably the most efficient tool against dictatorial regimes. The underlying premise of Satyagraha (Gandhi’s term for what most scholars today refer to as ‘nonviolent action’) is that power has historically been misunderstood. Traditionally humans have believed that power is something a ruler takes from his or her subjects. Gandhi, on the other hand, reverses the equation and suggests that power cannot be taken, but must instead be given to the ruler by the subjects. By reversing the concept of power, Gandhi discovered a new way to fight against unjust regimes, sometimes referring to his way of fighting as nonviolent noncooperation. When large groups refuse to cooperate with a regime, that regime’s power is compromised and the regime is weakened. Prolonged acts of noncooperation can have a detrimental effect on a dictatorship’s wellbeing. Gandhi used his strategy successfully against the British and eventually led India to independence. One could argue that Gandhi’s ideas were pragmatically introduced in the West by the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. King and his followers in the Civil Rights Movement successfully utilized Gandhian methods of struggle in their quest for equality with American whites. It has been stated that King baptized Gandhi’s methods by relating them to the life of Jesus. Although Gandhi had made this comparison himself, King as a Christian pastor possessed additional authority on Christian issues. Only with great difficulty can it be suggested that the United States at the middle of the last century, despite its widespread racism, was a dictatorship. Therefore, just like the Indian freedom movement, the Civil Rights movement did not target a dictator, but rather an inherently unjust system. It was not until the last few decades of the twentieth century that the world experienced nonviolent ousting of dictators. Though Gandhi and King are often credited with the invention of nonviolent resistance, it would be historically incorrect to call them the first practitioners of nonviolent action as history is full of examples of groups principally opposed to violence utilizing nonviolent methods to combat their adversaries. However, these ‘pre-Gandhian’ examples are normally quite limited as far as the size of the activist group and the scope of its struggle, go. It is

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with Gandhi’s emergence on the scene that we for the first time experience mass-mobilized nonviolent action of the kind that has lately become very popular among political activists. Before we turn to some empirical examples of nonviolent action against dictators it might be helpful to review some of the tactics and strategies at the disposal of nonviolent activists.

Nonviolent Methods Lester Kurtz has argued that if it can be said that Martin Luther King baptized Gandhi, it can certainly be suggested that Gene Sharp secularized him and together with Joan Bondurant systematized Gandhi’s methods of nonviolent action. In his seminal work The politics of nonviolent action, Sharp identifies 198 methods of nonviolent struggle divided into three major categories. The first category, ‘‘protest and persuasion,’’ includes such conventional tactics as demonstrations, vigils, picketing, and public speeches, but also more unusual and creative tactics like mock funerals and haunting of officials. Sharp emphasizes that the use of humor is always important when fighting nonviolently, but especially so on the level of protest and persuasion where the objective is to raise awareness about a specific issue. The methods of protest and persuasion constitute the first phase of nonviolent resistance. In the second phase, which Sharp calls ‘‘noncooperation,’’ resisters embrace Gandhi’s notion of power discussed above. As power must be given to a ruler by his subjects, one effective way of resisting the dictator is to simply withdraw consent. This is what is meant by noncooperation. Regular citizens simply refuse to perform the activities that are required, and expected of them in order for the state machinery to function. Sharp identifies three different types of noncooperation: social, political, and economic. In a globalized world like ours, political and economic boycotts are likely to have the largest impact on a dictator. Political noncooperation basically implies that citizens refuse to acknowledge the political system the dictator advocates. By refusing to vote, disobeying laws, and boycotting political institutions such as the courts of law, citizens show the dictator and the world that they do not recognize the validity of the system. Economic noncooperation is perhaps even more effective as it has the capacity to paralyze an entire nation. Through strikes, embargos, and boycotts, workers can bring a nation’s industries to a halt, thus causing an internal crisis to the state machinery. The methods of economic noncooperation increase in effectiveness with a nation’s increased reliance on a capitalist form of economy. In other words, the more economically developed a nation is, the more likely it is to be disturbed by economic noncooperation. The methods of social, political, and economic noncooperation constitute the second phase of nonviolent movement.

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The third and final category of nonviolent action is ‘nonviolent intervention’. The tactics listed under this heading all take nonviolent resistance a step further as they directly challenge the regime. Fasts, sit-ins, and nonviolent occupations all fall under the category of nonviolent intervention, which can be thought of as nonviolence in its most militant form. A successful nonviolent movement most likely incorporates tactics from all three categories of nonviolent action into a coherent strategy. Furthermore, according to Sharp as well as other scholars, including Peter Ackerman and Christopher Kruegler and Kurt Schock, tactics must be chosen carefully with the political context in mind. In other words, nonviolent intervention should not be the first tactic used in a nonviolent campaign as time may not be ripe for such activities. Rather, it would be strategic for a movement to ‘test the waters’ with some more modest actions such as demonstrations or vigils (from the category of protest and persuasion). There is no doubt that Sharp has done the world a great service by systematizing nonviolent means of political action, but it could be argued that he, like many others, has failed to observe the one most potent variation of nonviolent action, namely nonviolent revolutions. However, Sharp should perhaps not be blamed for this oversight as the world had not yet witnessed nonviolent revolutions in 1973 when Sharp wrote his opus magna. Nonetheless, in the last three decades nonviolent revolutions have indeed emerged on the political scene and the increasing number of historical examples of the phenomenon suggests that this type of revolution needs closer examination.

Nonviolent Revolutions Nonviolent revolutions are new phenomena on the political scene. A case could be made that the Iranian Revolution of 1979 was the world’s first nonviolent revolution, but in this section the focus will be on three other nonviolent revolutions, namely those of the Philippines in 1986, Eastern Europe in 1989–91, and the Serbian Revolution against Slobodan Milosevic in the first year of the new millennium. Nonviolent revolutions share several characteristics with their violent, traditional counterparts, with the decisive difference that violence does not play a crucial part in the ousting of the old regime. Furthermore, nonviolent revolutions differ from other forms of nonviolent movements due to their scope. While nonviolent action can be used to oppose invasions, fight labor battles, or combat unjust laws, nonviolent revolutions represent perhaps the grandest utilization of nonviolent action as entire political and social systems are challenged and oftentimes overthrown.

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The Philippines

In February of 1986 the Filipino people had had enough of Ferdinand Marcos. The president had ruled the island nation in a dictatorial fashion for almost two decades, when fraudulent elections led to his inevitable fall. Marcos’ attempt to steal the presidential election from Corey Aquino resulted in 77 hours of massive nonviolent protests that eventually brought down the regime. Marcos’ had to flee the country with the help of the American military, although his life was never threatened. The Filipinos ousted Marcos in a ‘Filipino way’ – with laughter and prayer, and, most importantly, without the use of violence. While seemingly spontaneous, the nonviolent revolution had been prepared for years. Several international organizations arranged nonviolent workshops aimed at teaching the Filipinos how to go about their nonviolent revolution. Eastern Europe

At the beginning of the 1980s few analysts would dare to predict that the communist leadership of the Soviet Union and those of its satellites in Eastern Europe would collapse before the end of the decade. While some of the communist parties managed to stay in power for a little bit longer, the developments of Eastern Europe in the 1980s were nothing short of astonishing. Perhaps most surprising was the fact that once the Cold War ended, it did so with virtually no use of violence. The Eastern European development can be said to have started in Poland, where striking shipyard workers created the enormous labor union organization known as Solidarity. While the original motivation behind the creation of Solidarity was to promote workers’ rights, the organization soon become a vehicle for the pro-democracy movement and ultimately became largely synonymous with it. The preferred strategy of Solidarity was the strike, and since its members could be counted in the millions, the effects of Solidarity-initiated strikes were substantial. Because of this, and because of the massive support enjoyed by the Solidarity leadership, the organization eventually managed to negotiate for free and open elections, elections that inevitably led to the end of Polish state-communism. Spurred by the developments in Poland, activists in other nations such as Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Eastern Germany learned from the example set by Solidarity. In Czechoslovakia, where the Velvet Revolution evicted the communist party from power, revolutionaries had also had the experience of nonviolently resisting the Soviet invasion of 1968. While that manifestation of nonviolent resistance 20 years earlier had not managed to end the communist rule of the nation, it had provided the citizenry with crucial practice and experience in the methods of nonviolent action, and

when the time was ripe the revolution moved swiftly, efficiently, and nonviolently. In a matter of weeks nonviolent protests resulted in the installation of Vaclav Havel as the new leader of a democratic nation. Similar development occurred in Hungary and Eastern Germany, and eventually also in the Soviet Union itself. In the face of one of the most powerful military forces the world had ever known, nonviolent protesters managed to free several nations from communist authoritarian regimes in a matter of months. Although it could be argued that this was the most monumental display of nonviolent action the world has ever seen, it was certainly not the last time the method was to be employed. Serbia and Montenegro

For almost 15 years Slobodan Milosevic ruled first Yugoslavia and later Serbia and Montenegro. He survived the collapses of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, as well as communism, but he would not survive the resistance mounted by student organizations, one of which was known as Otpor. When Milosevic was forced to use election fraud as a last desperate measure to cling to power, it was clear that his days as president would soon be numbered. Reports of the attempted fraud reached every part of Serbia and resulted in miles-long auto-caravans with Belgrade as their destination. On 5 October 2000 hundreds of thousands of Serbs invaded their own capital and nonviolently ousted a dictator who had oppressed both his own people and their enemies. Through the use of strikes, humor, and political campaigning, the dictator was brought down in a nonviolent revolution. Recent developments

Following the Serbian Bulldozer Revolution of 2000, the world has witnessed three ‘color revolutions’ in Georgia (Rose Revolution), Ukraine (Orange Revolution), and Kyrgyzstan (Tulip Revolution), as well as a Cedar Revolution in Lebanon. The most recent example of an attempt to nonviolently revolt is at the time of writing taking place in Burma. Following its struggle for independence from British colonial rule, Burma came under the control of various military juntas that have since been able to effectively and harshly crush any challenge raised by the opposition. In 1988, large protests were organized under the leadership of Aung San Suu Kyi. Those protests were ruthlessly defeated. In 1990, Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) won 392 of 485 seats in the Burmese parliament but despite this telling display of popular sentiment, the military leaders regained control of the national polity and have kept Aung San Suu Kyi in house arrest for the larger part of the last 18 years. Beginning in late August of 2007 as a protest against rising fuel prices, the massive demonstrations led by

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Buddhist monks and directed at the military junta that governs Burma have been labeled the Saffron Revolution, referencing the dark red color of the monks’ dress. Whether or not the Saffron Revolution succeeds in its attempt to reintroduce democracy to Burma in the fall of 2007 remains to be seen, but it seems plausible that the protests, and the world’s outrage the protests have incited, may eventually bring down the Burmese generals.

Conclusion This article has examined the origins of dictatorships and both violent and nonviolent methods of insurrection against such regimes. Judging from history, it appears that nonviolent action and revolutions are here to stay, as an increasing number of insurrections against dictators occur through nonviolent means. Further research is needed in order to discover the relationship between type of insurrection and outcome. Tentatively, however, it could be argued that nonviolent revolutions, by virtue of being inherently democratic methods of struggle, are more likely to result in democracy than are assassinations, coups, civil wars, violent revolutions, and invasions. As mentioned in the introduction, dozens of authoritarian dictatorships still exist, and only time will tell how they will fall. The question is not ‘if’ but ‘when’ and ‘how’ they will do so, because – as Gandhi observed – dictatorships always fall, in one way or another. See also: Civil Wars; Critiques of Violence; Cultural Anthropology Studies of Conflict; Guerrilla Warfare; Nonviolence Theory and Practice; Nonviolent Action; Revolutions; Totalitarianism and Authoritarianism

Further Reading Ackerman, P. and Kruegler, C. (1994). Strategic nonviolent conflict: The dynamics of people power in the twentieth century. Westport, CT: Praeger. Aristotle. (2000). Politics (Jowett, B., Trans.). Mineola, NY: Dover. Bondurant, J. V. (1965). Conquest of violence: The Gandhian philosophy of conflict. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Boudreau, V. (2004). Resisting dictatorship: Repression and protest in Southeast Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bujosevic, D. (2003). The fall of Milosevic: The October 5th revolution. New York: Palgrave McMillan. Chirot, D. (1994). Modern tyrants: The power and prevalence of evil in our age. New York: Free Press.

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Cohen, L. J. (2001). Serpent in the bosom: The rise and fall of Slobodan Milosevic. Boulder, CO: Westview. Fischer, L. (1950). The life of Mahatma Gandhi. New York: Harper & Row. Forest, J. H. and Forest, N. (1988). Four days in February: The story of the nonviolent overthrow of the Marcos regime. Basingstoke, UK: Marshall Pickering. Freedom House (2006). Freedom in the world 2006. Washington, DC: Freedom House. Gandhi, M. K. (1957). An autobiography: The story of my experiments with truth (Desai, M., Trans.; Orig. Publ. 1927, 1929). Boston, MA: Beacon. Gandhi, M. K. (2002). All men are brothers. Kripalani, K. (ed.). New York: Continuum. Goldstone, J. (2001). Toward a fourth generation of revolutionary theory. Annual Review of Political Science 4, 139–187. Goldstone, J., Gurr, T. R., and Moshiri, F. (eds.) (1991). Revolutions of the late twentieth century. Boulder, CO: Westview. Hallgarten, G. W. F. (1960). Devils or saviours: A history of dictatorships since 600 B.C. (Gibbons, G., Trans.). London: Oswald Wolff. Jack, H. A. (ed.) (1956). The Gandhi reader: A sourcebook of his life and writings. New York: Grove Press. Kurtz, L. R. (2006). Gandhi’s paradox. Manushi: An International Journal of Women and Society 152, 19–26. Lerner, M. (1930). Assassinations. In Seligman, E. (ed.) Encyclopedia of the social sciences, 271–275. vol. II, New York: MacMillan. Prabhu, R. K. and Rao, U. R. (eds.) (1967). The mind of Mahatma Gandhi (Revised and enlarged 2nd edn.). Ahmedabad, India: Navajivan. Radu, M. S. (2006). Dilemmas of democracy and dictatorship: Place, time, and ideology in global perspective. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Schock, K. (2005). Unarmed insurrections: People power movements in nondemocracies. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Sharp, G. (2005). Waging nonviolent struggle: 20th Century practice and 21st century potential. Boston, MA: Extending Horizons. Skocpol, T. (1979). States and social revolutions: A comparative analysis of France, Russia and China. New York: Cambridge University Press. Skocpol, T. (1994). Social revolutions in the modern world. New York: Cambridge University Press. Smith, C. (1996). Resisting Reagan: The US Central America peace movement. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Smithey, L. and Kurtz, L. R. (1999). ‘We have bare hands’: Nonviolent social movements in the Soviet Bloc. In Zunes, S., Kurtz, L. R., and Asher, S. B. (eds.) Nonviolent social movements: A geographical perspective, pp. 96–124. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Zunes, S. (1999). The origins of People Power in the Philippines. In Zunes, S., Kurtz, L. R., and Asher, S. B. (eds.) Nonviolent social movements: A geographical perspective, pp. 129–157. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Zunes, S., Kurtz, L. R., and Asher, S. B. (eds.) (1999). Nonviolent social movements: A geographical perspective. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Relevant Websites www.canvasopedia.org – CANVAS, Organization Promoting Understanding of Nonviolent Conflict. www.aeinstein.org – The Albert Einstein Institution. www.nonviolent-conflict.org – The International Center of Nonviolent Conflict.

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Diplomacy Noe´ Cornago, University of the Basque Country, Bilbao, Spain ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Meanings of Diplomacy The Rise of Modern Diplomacy Old and New Diplomacy Bilateral Diplomacy Multilateral Diplomacy

Glossary Citizen Diplomacy The establishment through ordinary people of unofficial channels of communication between opposing sides in order to increase trust and foster mutual understanding. Diplomacy The conduct of international relations by negotiation and dialog or by any other means to promote peaceful relations among states. More comprehensively, diplomacy is a set of practices, institutions, and discourses that are key for the basic understanding of the historical evolution of the international system and its evolving functional and normative needs. Diplomatic Good Offices A method of peaceful settlement of disputes in which a neutral third party tries to facilitate the communication between the parties, without offering any substantial suggestion on the possible terms of settlement.

Diplomacy can be defined as the conduct of international relations by negotiation and dialog or by any other means to promote peaceful relations among states. Besides this widely accepted single definition, and more comprehensively, diplomacy is also a set of practices, institutions, and discourses which is crucial for the basic understanding of the historical evolution of the international system and its evolving functional and normative needs. Departing from some conceptual precisions, this article presents a general approach in discussing this topic, including a short note about the historical circumstances in which modern diplomacy was born, an introduction to its more prominent transformations over time, a brief discussion of bilateralism and multilateralism as its basic modalities, and finally some reflections about the relevance of negotiation and other diplomatic methods for the contemporary international relations of cooperation and conflict.

Diplomatic Negotiation From Peaceful to Coercive Diplomacy Conclusion Further Reading

Diplomatic Mediation A method of peaceful settlement of disputes in which a neutral third party, as requested by the parties, can make substantial proposals in order to seek a compromise, or facilitate a political agreement. Diplomatic Negotiation The most characteristic method of peaceful settlement. It can be defined as the attempt to explore and reconcile conflicting positions among states in order to reach an acceptable outcome for all the parties in areas of common interest. Inquiry The formal and impartial determination of facts, by a neutral team, requested by the parties in conflict, in order to elude misunderstandings and facilitate a peaceful settlement. Sustainable Diplomacy An explicitly normative approach to diplomacy that advocates that instead of promoting the particular interest of states diplomacy ought serve the general interest of the whole humanity.

The Meanings of Diplomacy It may seem that the basic condition for the extension of diplomatic relations throughout the world was the existence of independent states able to develop political relations among themselves. Notwithstanding, the history of diplomacy predates considerably that of the modern sovereign nation-state. For that reason, it seems necessary to discuss briefly the circumstances in which a set of practices of public and private communication among different political entities, existing since ancient times, underwent different historical transformations until they became conventionally defined as an exclusive attribute of the sovereign nation-state. Der Derian suggests that it was the attempt to mediate the conditions of estrangement among human beings and social groups since ancient times that created the basis for what we know today as diplomacy. The history of diplomacy would thus

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reveal the changing conditions of this alienation, as well as the more or less contentious efforts to mediate it through the development of different practices, institutions, and discourses under different systems of thought, power, and law. Surely, it is this communicative dimension which gives diplomacy its enduring and cross-cultural relevance, as well as its value as a way of representation, mutual recognition, and negotiated exchange among organized social groups.

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Nevertheless, the emergence in this period of numerous international conferences on topics such as industrial standards, intellectual property, international trade, labor legislation, or health, among others, became a way for national governments to explore potential common interests without great political costs. Thus, it can be said that during the second half of the nineteenth century, the old institution of diplomacy was gradually adapted to the growing functional and legitimizing needs of world capitalism.

The Rise of Modern Diplomacy Old and New Diplomacy Various forms of diplomatic behavior among diverse entities were well known during the Middle Ages in American, Asian, or African civilizations, but the most distinctive institution of modern diplomacy, the exchange of resident ambassadors, did not become a reality until the fifteenth century. This was due to the intensification of diplomatic activity in Europe, and the increasing awareness among the existing monarchies that diplomatic relations were more practical and efficient when establishing, under centralized political control, permanent representation in a foreign country. However, and apart from some interesting precedents from the Italian citystates, it can be said that during the Renaissance, the sixteenth-century French diplomatic system established for the first time some of the basic features of modern diplomacy: (1) the institutionalization of the permanent diplomatic missions and the definition of diplomatic protocolary and procedural rules; (2) the importance granted to secrecy of negotiation as well as to the personal caution and discretion of diplomats; (3) the extension of some important privileges and immunities for the ambassadors; and (4) the professionalization and administrative centralization of diplomatic services. Certainly, the completion of a web of ministers of foreign affairs, undoubtedly one of the basic institutions of modern diplomacy, did not appear until the late eighteenth century with the progressive consolidation of the modern nation-state. The great thinkers of the Enlightenment devoted considerable attention to the rational prospects for the establishment of peaceful international relations through the reform of diplomatic methods. Even so, the diplomatic world remained, during this long period, considerably isolated from philosophical discussions. So, it can be said that only after the revision and regulation of existing diplomatic institutions and practices during the Congress of Vienna, under the social and political impact of the French Revolution and its consequences, was modern diplomacy born in 1815. Later, during the classic era of European imperialism, the modern institution of diplomacy would be extended around the world without substantial changes, despite its increasing complexity, until the outbreak of World War I.

After World War I, diplomacy experienced a number of important transformations, giving sense to the so-called transition from old diplomacy to new diplomacy. In a context in which states became more and more aware of their interdependence, and increasingly interested in obtaining popular support, the European and the colonial wars appeared both to politicians and citizens as the clearest expression of the failure of classic diplomacy. The postwar crisis consequently opened a period of social, political, and academic debate about the obsolescence of traditional diplomatic methods and the need for reforms. Public opinion, mobilized first by governments in support of war efforts, would later be one of the principal sources of change. From very diverse political positions, including the peace movement, it would be claimed that diplomacy should be more open to public scrutiny, effectively submitted to international and domestic legal constraints, and specifically directed to the peaceful settlement of conflicts and the prevention of war. The most prominent result of this new climate of opinion in the critical postwar context was the creation of the League of Nations. Although the experience of the League would fail two decades later with the rise of fascism and the outbreak of a new world war, its relevance for the contemporary transformation of diplomacy is fundamental. The League of Nations established some important limitations on the use of force, institutionalizing different procedures for the peaceful settlement of disputes and creating a completely new system of collective security with the possibility of international sanctions. Besides the innovations in the field of collective security, the League of Nations was also very important in the gradual institutionalization of multilateral diplomacy over social, economic, and technical issues. Furthermore, the experience of the League of Nations substantially improved the techniques and methods of multilateral diplomatic negotiation, and created the first political basis to end the secrecy of the old diplomacy, in order to restore, as the Enlightenment thinkers had proposed, the duty of making public international treaties.

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Certainly, none of these innovations avoided the outbreak of a new war, but this failure would be precisely the starting point for the next changes in diplomacy. The transformation of diplomacy after World War II was the result of several prominent factors: (1) the repercussions of the institutional innovations introduced by the United Nations on diplomacy, particularly the new system of collective security, and the strengthening of multilateral diplomacy with the Security Council, the General Assembly, and the creation of diverse specialized agencies and other important organizations; (2) the Cold War impact, manifested in the importance, in an ideologically divided world, of new international organizations of security, as well as in the prominent diplomatic role of the Soviet Union and China; (3) the increasing role of modern intelligence and espionage, and the diplomatic management of conflicts in the presence of nuclear weaponry; (4) the impact of the decolonization process and the subsequent denunciation by the new independent states of Africa and Asia of the Western bias of contemporary diplomacy and international law; (5) the broadening and reform of the diplomatic agenda due to growing economic and technological interdependence, and the widespread recognition of the need to promote international cooperation through the creation of international institutions; (6) the growing international relevance of nonstate actors, such as substate governments, multinational corporations, or nongovernmental organizations and the intensification and diversification, impelled by new technologies of communication, of transnational contacts. Certainly, all these realities have, during the last decades, dramatically changed the environment in which diplomatic dialog takes place, imposing the need for rethinking the central role of diplomacy in contemporary international relations. In fact, all this seems to suggest that diplomacy needs to reconsider its methods and role in global governance, even if it is difficult to foresee its disappearance.

Bilateral Diplomacy For centuries, the most classic form of diplomacy was bilateral relations. However, besides some partial but important precedents, such as the Havana Convention of 1928 for Latin America, it was not until the signing in 1961 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, that the customary rules and practices of international diplomacy were codified. Many of them needed clarification; others required their adaptation to the contemporary conditions of international relations. Moreover, there was a strong feeling among Western states that international law on diplomacy needed the formal acceptance of the new independent states of Africa and Asia, in order to elude possible controversies and political conflicts in their diplomatic relations. The Cold War political context in

which the negotiation took place was revealed with the initial exclusion of China and other communist states. But, finally, the Convention achieved considerable success. The basic contents of the Vienna Convention can be summarized in four topics related to bilateral diplomatic relations: (1) the procedures for the establishment of permanent diplomatic relations between states based on mutual consent, and the required conditions for their unilateral reprieve or severance; (2) the identification of official representation and the promotion of friendly relations and international cooperation as the basic functions of permanent missions; (3) the protection of the legitimate interests of the sending state, and those of its nationals; (4) the inviolability of the mission’s premises, assets, or communications as well as the personal inviolability and jurisdictional immunity of diplomatic agents, as the functional privileges required by diplomatic missions. Furthermore, as a clear expression of fear of foreign interference in domestic affairs, the Convention also detailed the duties which missions must observe toward the receiving state. As some qualified observers have pointed out, the principal reason for the considerable success of the Vienna Convention in a particularly complex political context was surely its functional and pragmatic approach. Of course, the formal regulation established by the Vienna Convention did not reflect the wide variety of practices associated with contemporary bilateral diplomatic relations nor the real political functions fulfilled by resident embassies’ daily work. Certainly, the traditional methods of diplomatic communication and practice have suffered important transformations during the last decades. The spectacular development of transport and telecommunications has taken much significance away from embassies, dramatically transforming the methods of information, and the possibilities of direct personal contact. Nevertheless, some of the most classic diplomatic procedures, such as diplomatic correspondence in the form of letters or memoranda, still play an important role in contemporary international relations. Diplomatic notes, for example, are widely used for a great variety of purposes, ranging from administrative matters to the expression of a formal protest. The establishment of diplomatic relations among sovereign states is a matter of mutual consent. The correspondent agreement may contain different stipulations, always in accordance with the Vienna Convention, as well as some additional features such as limitations on the number and mobility of personnel at the embassies and consulates. Agreement with a newly independent state on diplomatic relations used to be considered an act of tacit recognition. Similarly, the maintenance of diplomatic relations can be interpreted, unless explicitly indicated to the contrary, as a form of tacit recognition of any

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change, even unconstitutional changes, in the political system of the receiving state. The severance of diplomatic relations is a discretionary unilateral act by the state that can be an expression of disapproval or dissatisfaction with the other state. Notwithstanding, the ceasing of diplomatic relations does not affect the existing treaty obligations, particularly those related with the legal protection of the citizens of each state in the territory of the other. However, as the citizens of the sending state lose the protection of their home country, a third state, acceptable to both the receiving and the sending states, may be entrusted with their protection.

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Although the most powerful states have always tried to instrumentalize multilateralism, sometimes with unquestionable success, they are usually much more confident in their diplomatic skills in the bilateral field. Alternatively, weak states usually prefer multilateral methods because of the possibility of building coalitions based on functional, regional, or cultural aspects. For this reason, the growth of consensus and majority voting as forms of collective decision making is probably the most prominent feature of contemporary transformation of diplomacy.

Diplomatic Negotiation Multilateral Diplomacy The main field of change and innovation in contemporary diplomacy during recent decades has not been the old institution and practice of bilateralism, but innovation due to the spread of multilateral and conference diplomacy. Although multilateral diplomacy is far from being an innovation of the present century, its dramatic growth during recent decades merits explanation. Undoubtedly, increasing international awareness of contemporary conditions of interdependence could explain the functional and rational basis for the growing institutionalization of international cooperation. Multilateralism seems to be a tool especially appropriate for dealing with current economic, technological, or ecological problems, through the establishment of diverse international regimes. In fact, the growing importance of international institutions and organizations, and the so-called parliamentary diplomacy, with its deep implications about diplomacy and international law, reveal the progressive institutionalization of international society. Furthermore, it can be said that contemporary multilateralism serves both the functional and legitimizing needs of global political economy, establishing new forms of international regulation over economic and technological issues, as well as new ways of managing potential social conflicts. In response to the growing importance of multilateralism and the new challenges posed to diplomacy by the increasing role of international organizations, in 1975 a new Vienna Convention tried, without success, to establish a regulation for the multilateral dimensions of diplomacy. The Convention, which did not come into force, covered topics such as those ranging from privileges and immunities of missions to international organizations as well as their diplomatic status. But besides these types of formal problems, key to the understanding of the growing role of international organizations, the most important implications of the rise of multilateralism on diplomatic practice are particularly clear in the domain of international negotiation.

Diplomatic negotiation can be defined as an attempt to explore and reconcile conflicting positions among states in order to reach an acceptable outcome for all the parties in areas of common interest. Although analysts usually identify a number of different sequential stages in diplomatic negotiations, the basic model can be characterized as a process in which parties first agree on the need to negotiate and then establish an agenda and the rules of procedure. Later, different opening positions are outlined and explored; and finally, compromises are sought in order to find a point of convergence, forming the basis for agreement. However, it cannot be assumed that any of the aforementioned stages should be necessarily easier than the rest. At times, states do not recognize the need to negotiate or are unable to agree on an agenda for talks, due to either its excessive precision or its vagueness, its eventual propagandistic value, or simply because of their preferences in the order of topics to be discussed. Another question that is equally relevant is the agreement on procedure. Frequently, more than two parties are involved in the talks and the negotiation could require both bilateral and plenary sessions. This can have the effect of making the election of the delegation members more complex according to their level and competence, as well as complicate the decision-making procedures. The procedure by which decisions are made differs considerably depending on negotiation objectives. But, if the parties seek to obtain substantial agreements, it is necessary to clearly establish the rules of procedure. The preparation and discussion of a resolution is usually a lengthy and laborious process. Moreover, the states can sometimes deploy diverse tactical devices of pressure and persuasion, according to their objectives, or even quit the table, breaking the negotiation. After discussing different drafts, the proposed resolution can be submitted to final approval. Although the adoption of decisions by consensus is very common, the most frequent method is voting. In fact, the unanimity rule might induce paralysis when large numbers of states

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are involved. There are three particularly relevant aspects of voting. First, the weight of votes, ranging from the classic system of one vote per country, to diverse forms of vote qualification according to some formulas, such as the country’s financial contribution to the agreement, or others related to their size or relevance to a particular topic. Second, the specification of quorum requirements in order to elude controversies among the parties during voting. Third, and the most prominent, are majority requirements. Decisions can be made by a single majority or qualified two-thirds majority of those present and voting, but sometimes unanimity can be required, or even the majority of some specified members, as in the United Nations Security Council. Besides the formal aspects, the parties shall also establish a certain agreement as to the level of discretion required in the negotiation, but it must always be developed in accordance with the rules of diplomatic protocol and the general principles of international law. As the enduring relevance of the so-called quiet diplomacy shows, the principle of publicity does not impede discretion in diplomatic negotiations but it is incompatible with the adoption of secret international commitments with compulsory content. Nevertheless, due to contemporary requirements of legitimacy in the democratic political process, diplomatic negotiation must sometimes be extended to society, eventually establishing consultative meetings with nongovernmental organizations, pressure groups, and noncentral governments. A sign of the increasing public interest in multilateral diplomacy is also the growing relevance of the international conferences, organized by nongovernmental organizations (NGO), with the objective of achieving influence on the diplomatic agenda, on topics such as development, human rights, peace talks, or environmental issues, among others. This trend is particularly notorious in the field of conflict resolution, as we will briefly discuss later in this work. Today, a great deal of bilateral and multilateral diplomacy takes place at the level of heads of government. Summitry is certainly as old as any other form of diplomacy, but during the last decades and due to the fast development of transport and communications it has gained considerable prominence. Both serial and ad hoc summits are usually subjected to greater public attention than standard multilateral or bilateral diplomacy. For this reason, without denying its diplomatic relevance, summitry may frequently be used as an excellent tool for foreign or domestic propaganda, as was clearly exhibited during the Cold War. Because of this, unless it has been meticulously prepared, summitry has come to be seen by professional diplomats as a certain intrusion in their daily work, which sometimes creates more inconveniences than advantages.

From Peaceful to Coercive Diplomacy Probably, the foremost role of diplomacy over its long history has been the peaceful settlement of disputes. Indeed, it can be said that some of the basic contributions of contemporary peace research such as the techniques of mediation and reconciliation were well known from the early beginnings of modern diplomatic practice. Notwithstanding, until the innovations established by the League of Nations, the adoption of different means of peaceful settlement of conflict was certainly a choice but never a legal duty for the states. Later, the Charter of the United Nations established the duty of peaceful settlement of disputes as a general principle of international law, considerably developing its institutional aspects without changing substantially its traditional methods. In fact, one of the more prominent innovations of the United Nations was precisely the possibility of nonpeaceful application of international law, through the coercive competencies of the Security Council. Consequently, the contemporary methods of peaceful settlement of disputes, in spite of their adaptation to contemporary institutional and technological conditions, remain similar to their traditional antecedents. Previously we have referred to negotiation as the most prominent and widespread method for settling international differences and the most characteristic method of diplomatic practice. However, not always it is possible to easily achieve direct discussion among the parties in a dispute. For this reason, throughout history, the states have developed diverse political and jurisdictional methods of peaceful settlement: (1) ‘Good offices’ is the participation of a neutral third party in order to facilitate the communication between the parties, but without offering any substantial suggestion on the possible terms of settlement. (2) ‘Inquiry’ is the process of obtaining evidence by a neutral team of investigators, requested by the parties in conflict. The clarification of facts can be very important in order to avoid misunderstandings and facilitate a political agreement. (3) ‘Diplomatic mediation’ is another type of third-party intervention that is especially adequate in disputes in which compromise seems to be very hard to achieve, due to the hostility among the parties or the nature of the conflict. Although the mediator ought to be neutral, his or her ability to make substantial proposals in order to see a compromise is particularly important, even if they could be understood by one party as favorable to the other side. (4) ‘Conciliation’ is another form of mediation in which a particular international institution has been requested by the parties, due to its recognized neutrality and experience in seeking to find an acceptable solution. (5) ‘Arbitration’ is a method of applying legal principles to a controversy in which the parties have agreed previously on legal principles and procedures,

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and have chosen the court – permanent or ad hoc – they prefer. In agreeing to submit the dispute to arbitration the parties are bound by the final decision. (6) ‘Judicial settlement’ implies that the states in conflict consent in submitting their dispute to the International Court of Justice. However, it should be noted that the states are usually more willing to negotiate directly, or even to accept mediation rather than to consent in a judicial settlement, the sentence of which is of compulsory compliance. Contemporary international law established the duty of peaceful settlement of disputes, but nothing assures its political success. So, it can be reasonably stressed that a good diplomatic method in dealing with international disputes should be the deployment of different strategies of preventive diplomacy. Those strategies can be of a very different nature, military as well as nonmilitary, according to their diverse objectives, such as crisis prevention, preemptive engagement, or preconflict peace building. Although diplomacy is generally defined as the conduct of international relations through negotiation and dialogue or by any other means able to encourage peaceful relations among states, it is difficult to deny that threats and coercion have played an important role in international relations. Moreover, despite the contemporary erosion of militarism and the decreasing role of military force in world politics, nothing seems to suggest that coercion will disappear. A possible solution to this apparent contradiction is to reserve the analysis of international coercion to foreign policy analysis, acknowledging its widely accepted incompatibility with diplomacy. Nevertheless, there is also an increasing amount of literature devoted to the study of ‘coercive diplomacy’. Coercive diplomacy would be a defensive strategy that is employed to deal with the efforts of an adversary to change a status quo situation. Coercive diplomacy needs to be differentiated from offensive strategies. The latter employs threats in an aggressive manner against target states. It is also quite different from deterrence, the preventive employment of threats to dissuade an adversary from undertaking a damaging action not yet initiated. This was certainly a type of diplomacy particularly prominent and controversial during the Cold War, but has today lost a great deal of its relevance. According to the proponents of coercive diplomacy, there are three basic types of coercive strategy, which should preferably be used after the failed resort of other more peaceful alternatives, such as a negotiated settlement. The first tries simply to persuade the opponent to stop the hostile action. The second seeks the reversal of the action already accomplished. The third, and undoubtedly the most controversial, seeks to terminate the opponent’s hostile behavior through the promotion of change in the adversary’s domestic political system. Certainly, the diplomatic nature of coercive diplomacy

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can be questioned, given that it can be seen as a violation of contemporary international law. However, it is difficult to deny the relevance of these practices for the contemporary understanding of international relations. Precisely for this reason, it must be remembered that the United Nations’ system of collective security, in spite of the growing importance given to preventive diplomacy and peace building, is the only contemporary legal expression of coercive but multilateral diplomacy firmly recognized by international law. Against this trend, which pretends to make compatible diplomacy and coercion, during the last decades different voices have claim for a more active role of diplomacy in peace building, human development, and global environmental sustainability. This is the case of both the so-called citizen diplomacy and sustainable diplomacy approaches. Citizen diplomacy, also called frequently second-track diplomacy, comes to emphasize the importance of ordinary people and unofficial channels of communication between opposing sides in order to increase trust and foster mutual understanding. Sustainable diplomacy advocates, by their side, defend an explicitly normative approach to diplomacy that instead to promote the particular interest of states shall serve to the whole humanity. If the former is largely the result of the growing transnational dimension of social movements and NGOs, the latter appeared within the diplomatic world itself, and is slowly gaining support among the increasing number of disappointed practitioners who refuse the subordination of diplomacy nowadays to economic or strategic interests. Our brief description of the classic methods of diplomatic settlement of disputes, as well as the short discussion on the importance of preventive and coercive diplomacy, can easily suggest that the theory of diplomacy has invariably considered the relations among states as the source of international conflicts. Notwithstanding, during the Enlightenment it was suggested by some prominent thinkers, and particularly by Kant, that true peaceful diplomacy would only be possible through the complete abolition of absolute monarchies. This type of examination of the existing relation between domestic political systems and international peace has been extensively reintroduced during the past years by an increasing amount of literature. The common point of departure is the empirical evidence that democracies seem to be much less willing to use violence among themselves than against nondemocracies. There are two prominent explanations to the so-called ‘democratic peace’. Some scholars have suggested that the reason may be the intrinsic complexity of the institutional procedures of democratic political process. Others find the source of more peaceful diplomacy in normative constraints imposed by social values of the general public in democratic states. Any thorough analysis of this question considerably exceeds the limits

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of this article, but its mention can suggest an interesting starting point for the analysis of domestic sources of peaceful diplomacy.

Conclusion Since the beginnings of modern nation-states, the ability to conduct diplomatic relations was considered one of the basic attributes of state sovereignty. Much more problematic is the associated assumption that it is also an exclusive one. Historical research has unquestionably established that diplomacy considerably predates the modern sovereign nation-state. In fact, the origins of diplomacy were the multiple practices of public and private communication among different political entities existing since ancient times. Certainly, these practices underwent different historical transformations until they became conventionally redefined as an exclusive attribute of the sovereign nation-states. Today, the conventional study of diplomacy tends to exclude a wide range of practices, such as corporate, nongovernmental, and noncentral governmental involvement in international affairs, in spite of their increasing relevance. Notwithstanding, the widely extended consideration of diplomacy as an exclusive attribute of the sovereign state is more an institutionalized political discourse than a corollary of empirical evidence. Beyond this however it is important to note that the foremost role of diplomacy over its long history has been the peaceful settlement of disputes of the most diverse nature. Indeed, it can be said that some of the basic contributions of contemporary peace research such as the techniques of mediation and reconciliation were well known from the early beginnings of diplomatic practice across the world. See also: Collective Security; Conflict Management and Resolution; International Relations, Overview; Mediation and Negotiation Techniques; Peace and Democracy

Further Reading Anderson, M. S. (1993). The rise of modern diplomacy. New York: Longman. Barston, R. P. (1988). Modern diplomacy. New York: Longman. Berman, M. R. and Johnson, J. E. (eds.) (1977). Unofficial diplomats. New York: Columbia University Press. Berridge, G. R. (2005). Diplomacy: Theory and practice. London: Palgrave. Brown, M. E., Jones, L., and Miller, S. E. (eds.) (1996). Debating the democratic peace. Cambridge: The MIT Press.

Clavel, J. D. (1991). De la negotiation diplomatique multilaterale. Paris: Bruylant. Constantinou, C. M. (1996). On the way to diplomacy. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Denza, E. (2004). Diplomatic law. A commentary on the Vienna convention on diplomatic relations. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Der Derian, J. (1987). On diplomacy: A genealogy of Western estrangement. Oxford: Blackwell. Diamond, L. and McDonald, J. W. (1996). Multi-track diplomacy: A systems approach to peace. London: Kumarian Press. George, A. L. and Simons, W. S. (eds.) (1994). The limits of coercive diplomacy. Boulder: Westview Press. Hamilton, K. and Langhorne, R. (1995). The practice of diplomacy: Its evolution, theory and administration. London: Routledge. Hocking, B. (1993). Localizing foreign policy: Non-central governments and multilayered diplomacy. London: Macmillan. Jo¨nsson, C. and Hall, M. (2005). Essence of diplomacy. Houndmills: Palgrave. Jo¨nsson, C. and Langhorne, R. (2005). Diplomacy, vol. 3. London: Sage. Kaufmann, J. (1996). Conference diplomacy. London: Macmillan. Kurbalija, J. and Slavik, H. (eds.) (2001). Language and diplomacy. Malta: Mediterranean Academy of Diplomatic Studies. Lund, M. S. (1996). Preventing violent conflicts: A strategy for preventive diplomacy. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press. Melissen, J. (ed.) (1998). Innovation in diplomatic practice. London: Macmillan. Murphy, G. N. (1994). International organization and industrial change: Global governance since 1850. Cambridge: Polity Press. Nicolson, H. (1963). Diplomacy. London: Oxford University Press. Plantey, A. (1991). De la politique entre les etats: Principles de la diplomatie. Paris: Pedone. Vilarin˜o, E. (2005). Curso de derecho diploma´tico y consular. Madrid: Tecnos. Watson, A. (1982). Diplomacy: The dialogue between states. London: Methuen. Wellman, D. J. (2004). Sustainable diplomacy: Ecology, religion and ethics in Muslim–Christian relations. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Relevant Websites http://diplomacymonitor.com/stu/dm.nsf/opener?OpenForm – St.Thomas University School of Law Diplomacy Monitor. http://www.Clingendael.nl/cdsp/ – Clingendael Diplomatic Studies Program. http://www.diplomacy.edu/ – Diplofoundation. http://diplomaticmonitor.org – Diplomatic Monitor. http://uscpublicdiplomacy.com/index.php – University of Southern California Center on Public Diplomacy. http://www.academyofdiplomacy.org/ – American Academy of Diplomacy. http://imtd.org/cgi-bin/imtd.cgi – Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy. http://www.unitar.org/diplomacy/ – United Nations Institute for Training and Research.

Direct Action, Non-Violent See Non-Violent Action

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Domestic Violence See Child Abuse

Draft, Resistance and Evasion of Jesu´s Casquete, University of the Basque Country, Leioa, Spain ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction Statemaking and Rejection of the Draft in Europe Draft Rejection in the Era of Mass War

Glossary Conscientious Objector (CO) A person liable to conscription for military service, or to registration for conscription for military service, who, for reasons of conscience, refuses to perform armed service or to collaborate in any way in wars or armed conflicts. Draft (or Conscription) The state’s routine of recruiting able-bodied adult citizens (mostly males) to contribute to the defense of the country for a limited period of time. Pacifism The doctrine opposing all wars and, by extension, all preparations for war. Peace Churches Churches that sustain an uncompromising refusal of violence and war. The main

Introduction The duty to fight and, if necessary, die for the state is said to be the most serious obligation that the status of citizenship entails. Nevertheless, there have always been dissenters who have contested the obligation to defend their countries. Two different means of expressing dissent may be distinguished: resistance and evasion. Although both stances try to avoid the draft, in analytical terms (in practical terms it is not always easy to disentangle one from the other) there is a difference between them. On the one hand, resistance to the draft entails an organized action on the basis of a common belief against the state’s demand that its citizens perform military service. Evasion of the draft, on the other hand, usually lacks any organized or collective character. It is the seeking of an individual solution to the burden of military service. Some forms of evasion to which draftees have resorted in recent history This article is reproduced from the previous edition, volume 1, pp 567–576,  1999, Elsevier Inc., with revisions made by the Editor.

The Future of Resistance and Evasion of the Draft Further Reading

bodies historically are the Mennonites, the Brethren, and the Quakers. Principle of Equivalency The requirement that people refusing military service make some alternative contribution to society. It can take several forms: payment of fines or commutation fees, the hiring of a substitute, performance of noncombatant duties in the military, or, more recently, the performance of alternative civilian service. Resistance to and Evasion of Conscription Resistance and evasion of the draft refers to all efforts to avoid the performance of compulsory military (or, as may be, alternative civilian) service on the part of the people liable to perform such services.

are draft dodging, desertion, simulation of sickness, selfmutilation, migration, purchasing of exemptions, and hiring of substitutes. In what follows, we emphasize on the Western experience of resistance and evasion of the draft. Conscientious objection is the most important form that resistance to the practice of conscription has taken in modern times in Western countries. Although principled resistance to military service is a long-standing phenomenon in Western countries, only in recent decades have the growing figures of conscientious objection made it a major factor affecting the relationship between armed forces and society. Conscientious objectors (COs) can be classified into several subcategories. On the basis of their motivation, conscientious objectors can ground their refusal to perform military service either on religious beliefs (including those coming to their beliefs through historic peace sects, through mainline churches, and through nonmainline denominations) or on secular motives (including those with either political or private motives). In recent decades, social trends such as the growth of individualism and

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the secularization of conscience, along with the spreading of institutional arrangements that lower the costs of becoming a CO, have been chiefly responsible for the exponential rise of resistance to military service. The center of gravity of conscientious objection has accordingly shifted from traditional peace churches to the more inclusive mainstream religious denominations to an everwidening group for whom objection to military service is based solely upon humanistic or private motives. On the basis of the scope of their beliefs, COs can be universalistic or selective. Universalistic COs are those individuals who hold a strong belief that war and killing are wrong in any circumstances, regardless of its expediency. These ‘pure pacifists’ are the kind of COs most likely to be recognized by the state. Selective COs, on the other hand, sustain a qualified condemnation. In their understanding, war and killing are prima facie wrong, but not always so. The target of their objection can either be a specific war, a specific army (e.g., Basques or Lithuanians refusing to serve in the Spanish and Soviet armies, respectively), a specific policy (e.g., Israeli draftees refusing to serve in the occupied territories or South Africans unwilling to collaborate with the policy of apartheid), or a specific type of weapon, primarily weapons of mass destruction such as nuclear weapons. A third taxonomy of COs relates to their degree of willingness to cooperate with the authorities. Thus, noncombatant COs are those individuals unwilling to fight or to bear arms but ready to compromise with the state by fulfilling a military obligation, typically by serving in the branch of the military directly dedicated to saving lives such as the medical corps. The formal incorporation of dissidence in this way ensures the legitimacy of the larger duty. Consequently, noncombatant objectors experience the least friction with the military system simply because they help the system function. The second category of COs includes the group of people who refuse to perform military service but agree to participate in civilian alternative service in public or private agencies. They are known as alternativists. Most typically, they engage in conservation, health, cultural, or social work. Finally, absolutist objectors refuse to follow the call up by taking an unlawful, public, nonviolent, and conscious stance against the draft because they feel that to accept any alternative to military service is synonymous with becoming an accomplice in the working of conscription. From the point of view of sociology of disobedience, this duty to disobey the authorities arises when obligations incurred in some secondary group with claims to primacy come into conflict with obligations incurred in a more inclusive group such as the state. Because their claim to be morally right in disobeying a law that is morally wrong directly defies the authority of the state, absolutists are the COs most likely to be imprisoned.

Statemaking and Rejection of the Draft in Europe Rebellion and Evasion of the Draft in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries The armed forces of the various European countries in the eighteenth century all had their own peculiarities. Nevertheless, they all shared a set of features summarized in the following: 1. All states employed foreign troops in vast numbers. This is especially true for the period between the fifteenth and the seventeenth centuries – the critical period of state formation – when armies deployed throughout much of Europe consisted largely of mercenaries recruited by great lords and military entrepreneurs. However, with the eighteenth century the rising costs and political risks of large-scale nonstate forces led the rulers of these states to rely increasingly on their own citizenry, and to use it instead of foreign mercenaries where possible. The reason was straightforward. As pointed out by Machiavelli at the beginning of the sixteenth century, a state’s own citizens fought more reliably and more cheaply than soldiers of fortune, not to mention that the purely contractual relationship between mercenaries and the crown considerably raised the dangers of foot-dragging, rebellion, and even rivalry for political power. 2. Some people were more likely to be conscripted than others. Recruitment of criminals, vagabonds, and the destitute was standard practice. Although the scope of compulsion to military service varied from country to country, opportunity was usually taken – especially, but not exclusively, in wartime – to channel into the army or the navy men considered socially dangerous and undesirable, whether they were convicted criminals, habitual mendicants, or just serfs deemed expendable by their lords and masters. When war broke out, the convict population became the front line of the military, and when war was over, the troops went back to the prisons and the galleys. 3. Volunteers were welcome in all armed forces, but conscripts were also needed in many instances. The usual method of recruitment was to specify the proportion of liable men they needed, for example, 1 in 24, and then leave the method of selection to the local authority. If one young man was unlucky to be drafted, but at the same time rich enough to pay a substitute or purchase the exemption, then he could evade the draft. The practice of paying a commutation fee and hiring substitutes was a legal one and very widespread throughout Europe until well into the nineteenth century. 4. Force was the prevailing argument used by the authorities both to get draftees into their armed forces and to stop them getting out. In order to prevent desertion – an endemic feature of every country despite all attempts to

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stop it – military authorities resorted to all sorts of measures. Prussian commanders, for example, avoided camping or fighting in wooded, hilly country, and marching by night. Likewise, British sailors were not normally allowed on shore even when their ship was in port, cordons of troops were set round major naval bases, and rewards for desertedtrackers were offered. In spite of all these measures, the desertion rate in Britain was extraordinary: 42 000 out of 176 000 men raised between 1774 and 1780 deserted. Such was the relationship between armed forces and society in Europe in the eighteenth century. However, the scenario changed dramatically with the creation of a standing army by the French Revolution and its principle of ‘nation in arms’. More specifically, the foundations of the modern link between conscription and citizenship lie in France with the introduction of the leve´e en masse in 1793. In March of that year, the National Assembly authorized a nationwide call for 300 000 conscripts. According to the call, unmarried men and widowers without descendants between 18 and 40 years old were liable for conscription. Civil servants, the ‘true patriots’, were exempted. This suddenly imposed grievance became very unpopular. The explanation is straightforward: statemaking efforts (and conscription falls squarely within these efforts) entailed heavy burdens to the population, since the authorities pressed the population in search of money, separated the individual from his/her local community and family obligations, cut and intruded into everyday life of local communities. The population reacted accordingly, often in a violent fashion. So, in revolutionary France, while some departments returned their quotas very quickly, others never returned any at all. All in all, only about half of the 300 000 looked for ever entered service. Resistance to the draft was especially fierce in the west of the country, occasionally reaching the proportion of true rebellions. This was the case of the Vende´e, where some 100 000 men rebelled against the revolutionary government. Although anticonscription riots proliferated all over Europe as recruiting efforts by the state intensified, no nineteenth-century movement against conscription reached such a large scale of mobilization. In this century, oftentimes conflicts around the issue of conscription (as in Germany, France, and Italy) consisted of local opposition to the forced departure of particular individuals. A few years after the first leve´e en masse, in 1798, France became a state committed to military activity driven by its expansionist policy. In that year the National Assembly passed the general Law of Conscription (Jourdan Law), according to which 20- to 25-year-old men had to serve for 5 years (or the duration of the war). Although the revolution had ordained that no replacements or exemptions should be allowed, as early as 1799 that attempt at egalitarian democratic principles was abandoned and

those who could afford it were allowed to purchase replacements out of a pool of former servicemen (avoidance of service by money payment was formally abolished in France in 1872, later than in Germany or Austria, but it continued for another generation in Belgium and Spain). Evasion practices followed patterns that had to do with physical fitness and were well known from previous times: simulation of sickness (in France, as virtually everywhere else, a very large proportion of men liable to the call-up proved physically unfit), self-mutilation of thumbs or hands, or pulling out of teeth (essential to prepare cartridges). Except during brief periods of patriotic enthusiasm, draft dodging and desertion were widespread practices among the poorer strata of the population that could not afford to buy exemption. According to some estimations, evasion practices of these kinds involved more than one-third of the call-up. It is not surprising then that the revolutionary government worried about evasion rates, so much that from 1799 on countermeasures were being taken, the likes of which were to go on until 1814: night raids on houses, the gendarmerie and even soldiers closing escape routes and combing forests, and – probably the most effective device – the seizure of hostages from uncooperative families or the billeting of troops on them until they produced their boy. In spite of all the innovations she introduced, France did not invent conscription in the modern form. This merit should be credited to Prussia after 1815, and then to Germany, which by the last third of the nineteenth century had fashioned a model of mass conscript and reserve army, according to which all young men (with whatever exceptions) went through 3 years of military training and then remained liable to recall until they reached middle age. By the time of World War I, this system had been adopted by the great states of continental Europe – Italy, Russia, France, Germany, and Austro-Hungary – as well as Japan. The underlying principle in all cases was the same: conscription was to be one of the pillars of the democratic states, for it was an instrument for developing social cohesion and political docility of the masses, a school of political socialization, and an essential bond between the citizen and the state. By that time, the state had won the argument over conscription. The general right of the government to require military service from its citizens was not ordinarily at issue. Yet evasion attempts did not disappear altogether nor will they ever. Draftees continued to desert and simulate sickness. Furthermore, emigration (temporary or permanent) became a widespread practice in areas such as Russia, Greece, and Italy. It was to escape conscription that many Russian Jews poured into Britain and the United States in the late nineteenth century. An inquiry among 131 immigrants in the United States showed that 18 of them – 5 Russians and 13 Greeks – had crossed the ocean to avoid conscription. An 1888 Italian law sought to prevent men below the age of 32 from leaving the country.

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Nevertheless, emigration and resistance to the draft was not completely unknown among the Christian peace sects whose members had been leaving their countries because of the draft for quite a long time. The Christian Stand against the Draft When the Roman Catholic Church disintegrated at the Reformation in the sixteenth century, Christendom became divided into Roman Catholic areas, established Protestant areas (mainly Lutheran or Calvinist), and a variety of pacifist Protestants whose common feature was their rejection of the new as well as the old establishments. More specifically, they were divided over the issue of peace and the use of violence as a means of resolving conflicts. To be sure, there were true pacifist individuals in all churches who held the belief that the taking of human life under any circumstances was evil. However, only the third group (which included the Anabaptists, the Brethren, and the Quakers) can legitimately be termed as pacifists. They all rejected the Augustinian doctrine of the just war (further elaborated by Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century), according to which legally constituted authorities are entitled to conduct war for legitimate causes. To them, any notion of justified violence stood against the biblical commandment of ‘‘Thou shalt not kill.’’ These sects developed elaborate beliefs of nonresistance and, over time, established a strong tradition of opposition to the draft and, more broadly, to warfare. Compulsory military service was much less widespread in the principalities and monarchies at the time of the Reformation and immediately after than it became under the later nation-states. During this period, informal arrangements developed between the ruling sovereigns and the dissenting religious sects that opposed the draft. Payment of fines, commutation of military service into other work, and provision of substitutes became established channels of accommodating the will of the authorities and the irreducible pacifist beliefs of the religious draftees. When the situation became unbearable for those sects in their continental European countries, migration, especially to the New World, became a common practice for evading the draft. From England members of the Religious Society of Friends, known as Quakers, arrived in the United States, and politically dominated Pennsylvania for more than 50 years beginning in the 1680s. In the early 1700s the Mennonites (successors of the Anabaptists) and the Amish (a more rigorous splinter group of the Mennonites) arrived in the United States. Some of the Mennonites had migrated to Russia instead, but during the 1870s they moved to America, fleeing Tsarist persecution. Finally, members of the German Baptist Brethren or Dunkers brought their pacifism to America at the beginning of the

eighteenth century. This last group shared with the Quakers an unwillingness to participate in any kind of military activity but, on the other hand, resembled the Mennonites and Amish in remaining aloof from the world. The same was initially true of the Moravian Brethren who first migrated from Moravia to Saxony and then, also in the early eighteenth century, to America. The colonies were very much in need of settlers, especially qualified ones such as these nonresistant Christians, as they came to be known at the time. The legislators as well as the local militia officers of the early colonial days also realized that these men would rather obey the law of God than the law of the secular conscripting authorities. Consequently, a number of colonies provided exemptions from militia training and service for members of the historic peace churches, as well as for smaller denominations whose members stubbornly refused to bear arms. However, these religious COs had to pay a fine to evade the draft or, like other draftees, they could hire a substitute if drafted into temporary units in wartime. Such provisions were enacted by all of the 13 original colonies except for Georgia. This pattern of exemption for members of sectarian churches through equivalency was maintained in both the North and the South during the Civil War.

Draft Rejection in the Era of Mass War There have always been dissenters who have called the draft into question every time the authorities have resorted to this prerogative. Nevertheless, war is often the greatest test of the convictions of those opposing the resort to violence. Furthermore, at wartime dissent may take on a broader character, occasionally giving birth to large-scale social movements against conscription. Our attention in this section will center on three landmark conflicts: World War I, World War II, and the Vietnam War. World War I Prior to the World War I, a considerable number of Europeans were deeply committed to preventing war. Governments did not fear religious pacifism, which might irritate authorities from time to time, but never threatened their power. What they feared most of all was the labor movement, and with good reason. At every congress of the First Socialist International after 1867, and then at all sessions of the Second International after 1889 (in which socialism defined itself as the ‘only and true party of peace’) resolutions were adopted sharply condemning militarism, denouncing modern war as the instrument of competing capitalist states in the imperialist race, and expressing the social democrats’ determination

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to do everything possible to resist a war in which the workers would be the inevitable victims. This self-definition was still adhered to at the end of July 1914, when the leaders of the European socialist parties met in Brussels in a desperate attempt to find a solution to the ongoing crisis. In spite of its antimilitarist conviction backed by millions of followers, socialism was seized with patriotic fervor. The promise of resisting war was thus never fulfilled. Faced with contradictory appeals to nation, on the one hand, and to class on the other, most socialists followed the colors as did almost everyone else at the time. A movement ideologically committed to internationalism and peace collapsed suddenly into impotence, and a wave of patriotism under the ruling classes swept over the parties of the belligerent countries. Next we turn to examine the patterns of resistance to the draft during World War I, focusing on those major contending countries that provided a framework for legal conscientious objection, namely, Britain and the United States. Whereas in countries such as France, Germany, and Russia universal military service was established by the end of the nineteenth century, in Great Britain after 1860 and in the United States soon after the Civil War militia conscription was finally abandoned, and these two countries went over entirely to the voluntary system. The imposition during World War I of compulsory military service for all adult able-bodied males served to reactivate pacifism in these two countries. At the end of this section, mention will be made to the fate of resisters to the draft in other countries. Great Britain

Great Britain entered the war under a Liberal government, many of whose members and followers openly disliked the idea of the draft. However, due to nationalist pressure from Conservative opposition in parliament and from popular demand in society, the draft was finally introduced in 1916. It was the first experience in Britain of national conscription. In the course of the debates on the conscription acts, the government recognized the right of COs to military service to have their scruples respected. The local tribunals created to administer the conscientious objection act were most of the times unsympathetic to applicants’ claims. Members of these tribunals showed themselves more ready to recognize religious imperatives than secular convictions. By proceeding in that way, the tribunals were reflecting public opinion, which tended to regard dissenters as playing the German game and consequently felt that they should not be allowed to put their private conscience before the needs of the nation. Secular objectors were therefore forced to enlist in the military and were liable to courtmartial if they refused to accept military orders. Conscientious objectors (or ‘conchies’, as they were derisively called at the time) who made their way through

the tribunals were mostly assigned to the Non-Combatant Corps (NCC) or to ‘work of national importance’ (employment in agriculture, forestry, food-processing industries, education, hospitals, etc.). Those objectors allocated to the NCC had to wear uniforms and were subject to army discipline, although they were not required to carry weapons or to take part in combat. For these reasons, many objectors considered service in the NCC to be part of the military machine and chose prison rather than compliance. Altogether, about 16 000 young men claimed CO status in Great Britain between the implementation of the draft act in 1916 and the end of the war. In relative terms, they comprised less than 1% of the drafted population. Some 3300 of them accepted service in the NCC; somewhat less than 3000 performed ambulance work or worked under the direct supervision of their tribunals; around 4000 accepted work of national importance; and rather more than 6000 went to prison at least once. Of this last group, 3750 were subsequently employed under the Home Office Scheme, leaving 1500 stubborn absolutists who stood for the right of individual protest against the demands of the state. The remaining objectors compromised in different ways with the authorities. Seventythree men actually died from prison treatment and another 31 were driven mad. Thirty-four objectors were at one time in danger of execution, although no death sentence was in fact carried out. These figures of resistance to the draft show the marginality in numerical terms of the opposition to the draft when compared with the 750 000 men who volunteered in the first 8 weeks of the war and the additional million in the next 8 months. By February 1916, more than 2.5 million men had willingly stepped forward. The major associations in which resisters to the draft were organized were the No-Conscription Fellowship (NCF) and the Fellowship of Reconciliation. In both organizations, the social background of the members was middle class. The NCF was created shortly after the outbreak of the war, and was the most vigorous organization to resist first the introduction of the draft and then its implementation. It consisted of young men of military age who based their case on the dictates of the individual conscience rather than religious command. Its leaders were on the whole without religious ties. On the other hand, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, founded about the same time, was mainly organized by the nonestablished churches. The Quakers, the most visible religious antiwar group within the Fellowship, reaffirmed as a body its opposition to war, but a third of their male draftees performed military service and most of the COs among them accepted alternative service. Small sects, such as Plymouth Brethren, Christadelphians, Seventh-Day Adventists, and Jehovah’s Witnesses were more

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rigorously opposed to the draft. Anglican, Roman Catholic, Muslim, Jewish, and other objectors were few. The United States

The United States entered World War I in April 1917. Within 2 months, the first national draft since the Civil War was passed. The draft required all males between ages 21 and 30 to register for military service. Induction at that time was not regulated by local draft boards. Instead, draftees were inducted directly into the army and subjected to military rules. COs could either opt for noncombatant service, or resist and face courts-martial. The draft was not a popular measure. Of 24 million registrants, there were 330 000 draft evaders reported during the war. Some 3 million may have failed to register. Furthermore, as many as 60% of those registering requested exemptions on mental, physical, occupational, dependency, or conscience grounds. Some local riots also took place. At the start of the war, the government limited exemptions on conscientious objection grounds to members of the traditional pacifist religions whose absolute rejection of war and violence forbade them from participating in the military. However, the Selective Service authorities (the conscription agency) failed to specify which religious denominations qualified. Absolute exemption from military service was not legally possible. Among the 64 700 draftees who applied on registration to be assigned to noncombatant service (against 3 million who volunteered), the local boards certified 56 800 as COs. Thirty thousand of them passed their physical examination, of whom 20 873 were inducted into the army. In military camps, physical coercion and brutality against COs was not infrequent. They were considered as dangerous enemies of the state and treated consequently. Common punishment for COs (and other military prisoners) who would not respond to military orders in the camps consisted of two consecutive weeks in solitary confinement on a bread and water diet in a dark cell, chained or handcuffed to the wall for 9 hours each day, beaten with fists or rubber hoses, scrubbed down in cold showers with stiff brushes until their skin was raw. Wartime repression clearly exceeded that exercised in Britain. There was a widespread feeling that the authorities had endangered American freedoms. The experience of World War I put civil liberties on the agenda and led to the creation of a major watchdog organization, the American Civil Liberties Union. As a direct consequence of their experience in training camps, approximately 80% of the 20 873 inducted certified COs decided to give up their stand as objectors and to serve as soldiers in the army. Nevertheless, 4000 young men reasserted their compromise not to participate in war and obtained legal CO exemption from active combat duty. Three-quarters of these belonged to the historic

peace churches (Quakers, Brethren, and Mennonites). The training camps also held a few young members of two millenarian sects: the Seventh-Day Adventists, and the Russellites, subsequently renamed as Jehovah’s Witnesses. The latter were not ready to cooperate with existing secular institutions, refused to fight for them, and unsuccessfully demanded ministerial exemption on the grounds that all its members were ministers. The uncompromising stand of the Jehovah’s Witnesses was to create a major problem for the authorities during World War II. An additional 15% of the COs in World War I belonged to nonpacifist churches. They were mostly middle-class and well-educated liberals. The remaining 10% fall within the category of objectors who opposed the draft and the war for political reasons. This group included socialists, syndicalists of the Industrial Workers of the World union, anarchists, and some young men of antiAllied ethnic descent who were considered to be dangerous to national security. Ultimately, the armed services convicted 540 COs at courts-martial. These were the absolutist COs who resisted all military authority. They were charged with offenses such as refusing to carry a rifle, refusal to train or follow orders, and failure to wear military uniforms. Seventeen of them were sentenced to death, 142 to life imprisonment, and 345 to jail terms averaging 16.5 years. None of the death sentences was carried out. The imprisoned absolutists were released by the end of 1920, once their offense was deemed to be expunged by the termination of the war. At least 17 of the COs died in jail as a consequence of mistreatment and poor prison conditions. Repression against resisters to the draft among the general population was no less noticeable. Altogether, more than 2100 persons were indicted under the espionage and sedition laws, always for expressing in public opposition to the war, and 1000 of them were convicted. More than 100 were sentenced to jail terms of 10 years or more. Other countries

Apart from the countries of the British Empire, in which the pattern in dealing with COs was more or less the same as in Britain itself, recognition of the right to exemption on conscience grounds was minimal. Where it did exist, it almost invariably applied solely to birthright members of the pacifist churches. Australia was the only belligerent country that fought World War I without any form of conscription. Attempts to introduce compulsory military service through referendums failed. Potential draftees opposing the war and the authorities thus avoided confronting each other. Although they remained neutral, the governments of Denmark (which in 1917 became the first country in mainland Europe that recognized the right of conscientious objection on religious and ethical grounds), Norway,

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Sweden, and the Netherlands, under pressure from ‘consistent antimilitarists’ (mainly socialists and anarchists), as well as from religious pacifists, adopted provisions for religious objectors during World War I. In the Netherlands, most of the absolutists (totaling around 500) who refused to serve were socialists and political or religious anarchists. In Germany, resisters to the draft were either declared to be insane and ordered to undergo psychiatric treatment, or accused of incitement to disaffection in the military, and sentenced accordingly. In France, and despite some tradition of popular resistance to the draft, there was no serious discussion of conscientious objection prior to 1920. The French did not even have the concept in their vocabulary until the 1920s, or in their dictionaries until the 1930s. In that country, the few dissenters were court-martialed as deserters and sentenced to as long as 20 years in prison. In Tsarist Russia, COs were sent to jail for 4–6 years, but they were released by the provisional government after the Revolution. World War II The experience of World War I led to the foundation of several international organizations specifically opposed to war and conscription. One such international antiwar body, based on resistance to conscription, was founded in 1921 when groups from several European countries met in the Netherlands to form Paco (meaning ‘peace’ in Esperanto). The Dutch group was inspired by anarchism, the rest by a mixture of pacifism and socialism. In 1925 the organization, now renamed War Resisters International (WRI), held a conference attended by representatives from 20 countries. However, the WRI’s absolutist position in opposing not only military service but all forms of alternative or noncombatant service limited its following to a small minority (Einstein collaborated with it for a time). Another major organization was the International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR). Founded in 1919, it was an explicitly Christian body, primarily Protestant. The IFOR was a response to the failure of the churches to transcend national interests and an attempt to promote Christian pacifism. Public knowledge of the harsh treatment of COs during World War I contributed to a more liberal policy during World War II, in both Great Britain and in the United States, once again exceptions among the major contending countries in allowing conscientious objection. Such liberalization towards COs was reflected in two changes with respect to World War I. First, COs performing alternative service worked under civilian rather than military authorities. Secondly, both countries recognized sincere religious objectors regardless of the church they belonged to. The recognition of secular COs remained problematic in both countries.

Great Britain

As was the case during World War I, refusal to serve in the military was recognized in Great Britain, but it was once again unpopular, particularly if the grounds were socialist rather than religious. As in previous conscientious objection provisions, objectors had to be opposed to all wars without discrimination (‘selective’ conscientious objection was not allowed). Compared with past experience during World War I, there was less persecution inside and outside the armed forces. Figures of conscientious objection in World War II show that between 1939 and 1945 there were 62 301 COs in Great Britain out of a call-up of about 5 million (i.e., 1.2% of the draft, a slightly higher figure in relative terms than in the first war). Of these, 1704 were women, after single women between 20 and 30 years old were liable for conscription starting in 1942. All in all, there were more than 1000 absolutists. The United States

The United States entered the war in December 1941. Shortly afterwards, the Selective Service Act enabled the government to draft millions of men. Of the 34 506 923 men who registered for the draft, only 50 000 were classified as COs. That means that around 0.15% of the eligible age group requested exemption on conscience grounds. Concerning the motivation of the draft resisters, according to an estimate as many as 93% of the COs claimed a religious affiliation, the only reason that the draft boards were prepared to recognize. Most of them entered the army in noncombatant service. Some 12 000 of them were Seventh-Day Adventists. Another 12 000 COs refused to collaborate with the military in any way, but agreed to work in one of the 70 Civilian Public Service camps now operated by the historic peace churches, and not by the military as in World War I. Although the peace churches provided most of the COs to civilian service (as many as 60% of the total), many of their draft-age young men did not claim CO status, but accepted full military service instead. Ultimately, some 6000 COs were imprisoned for violating the Selective Service Act. The great majority of the imprisoned objectors, more than 3000, were Jehovah’s Witnesses. There were also radical activist COs who based their absolutist stance on secular grounds. Also refusing to collaborate with the authorities in the war effort in any way was a disparate group of Black Muslims, Japanese Americans, Native Americans, and Puerto Ricans. Regardless of the motivation for violating the Selective Service Act, the maximum sentence was 5 years (on average, resisters served 35 months in jail). After World War II, both the United States and Britain expanded their definitions of conscientious objection to include secular reasons, and also set up individual alternative service in various public and private agencies. This policy existed until the end of conscription, which occurred in 1963 in Britain and 10 years later in the United States.

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Other countries

In Germany, the Third Reich regime initially imprisoned COs. After 1938, and particularly after the beginning of World War II, resistance to the draft was punishable by death. At that time, COs were sent to concentration camps and executed. In France before occupation there were perhaps a dozen COs. In the Soviet Union conscientious objection was abolished by Stalin in 1939 on the spurious reason that no individual had applied for it. In Australia, where conscientious objection was acknowledged, 1% of conscripts applied for this status. Vietnam By the time the United States escalated its involvement in the Vietnam War and began a massive male draft in 1964, the patterns of draft resistance had secularized and expanded far beyond the narrow pacifist and religious communities which were dominant before. Opposition to the war mounted along with rising draft calls (100 000 in 1964, 400 000 2 years later) and casualty rates. Supported by a broad network of antidraft organizations, such as the War Resisters League (the American branch of the War Resisters International), the Student Peace Union, Peacemakers, and the Committee for Nonviolent Action, and organizations of students, feminists, civil rights, and many other liberal and radical groups, a social movement against the draft grew in strength. This informal coalition promoted a massive campaign of civil disobedience against the draft. It organized demonstrations, sit-ins at draft induction centers (during the late 1960s and early 1970s, in some instances draft resisters broke into local draft boards in order to destroy draft records) and draft card burning. This last form of expressing opposition to the war, the burning of draft cards, became the most visible and controversial symbol of draft resistance, so that in 1965 a law was passed to stop it. The law established a maximum sentence of 5 years for draft card burners. Thousands of people continued to burn their cards, but only 46 youths were indicted under this law, of whom 33 were convicted. The rejection of war grew as the war developed. The figures on conscientious objection support this argument. As the courts expanded the definition of conscientious objection (in 1970 a court ruled that religious belief was not essential to achieve the status of CO), and as local boards became increasingly sympathetic to CO claims, the number of COs grew. Between 1965 and 1970, more than 170 000 registrants obtained CO exemptions, and only around half of them actually performed alternative service. CO exemptions soared from 6.1% in 1966 to 25.5% in 1970. In addition, between 17 000 and 18 000 members of the armed forces applied for noncombatant status or discharge as COs during the war.

The number of criminal defendants also soared during the Vietnam War. Faced with more than 100 000 apparent draft offenders, between 1965 and 1975 the federal government indicted 22 467 young men for draft law violations. Of these, 8756 were convicted and 4001 were imprisoned. For the first time in American history, there were more secular and members of nonpacifist churches (72%) than members of the historic peace churches (7%). The remaining 21% belonged to the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Nevertheless, in absolute numbers the most common form of expressing disagreement with the draft was evasion. Of the 27 million men of draft age between 1964 and 1973, 16 million (60%) did not serve in the military. Of these, 15 million received legal exemptions or deferments. A further 570 000 evaded the draft illegally: 360 000 were never caught; another 198 000 had their cases dismissed. In addition, an estimated 30 000 to 50 000 emigrated in order to escape the draft, mostly to Canada, Britain, and Sweden. The widespread rejection of the Vietnam War, as expressed in these figures of legal conscientious objection and other forms of evasion (legal and illegal), was consequential in putting an end to this American adventure in Asia. It is fair to say that the end of the war was to a large extent the outcome of the mobilization campaign against the draft and the war carried out by the antiwar movement.

The Future of Resistance and Evasion of the Draft The classical model of armed forces based on mass male conscription (still the dominant practice in all but the English-speaking countries) is contested at both the functional and social levels in the post-Cold War era. At the functional level, the model of military participation based on conscription is ill-prepared to deal with urgent conflicts in today’s world, such as regional conflicts, civil wars, violent ethnic strife, and major military interventions in the so-called ‘military humanitarianism’. The major justification for a mass armed force model since the end of World War II – the likelihood of a large-scale war between capitalist and socialist countries – is gone for good. Moreover, as expensive and ultrasophisticated weapons systems develop, the need for highly trained, long-term, relatively well-paid professionals emerges. At the social level, military service faces a crisis of legitimacy that widens the gap between the armed forces and society. There is less certainty that authorities have the right to compel young men into military service. Popular support for the armed forces is thus no longer a widespread attitude, as it was in the two world wars. Starting in the 1960s, when a cycle of protest spread

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throughout the Western world challenging existing systems of authority (and the military institution was one of the favorite targets of the protest), citizens began to express widespread doubt that the safety of the state was a reasonable motive for their death. These doubts are reflected in the figures for conscientious objection. Over the last two decades, as policies have become more liberal, and given secular grounds for objection the same standing in law as religious grounds, high figures of conscientious objection have become a permanent feature of contemporary Western societies. For example, in the early 1990s, COs account for more than 30% of the draftee population in countries such as Germany and Spain. Society demands a pattern of relationship with armed forces different from the mass army model based on male conscription. These two different although closely linked developments at the functional and social levels have helped build a broad and heterogeneous coalition pushing for an end to conscription in most but not all Western countries, Israel being the major exception. Within this coalition are traditional peace organizations, religious groups of various confessions, political radicals opposed to the military establishment, libertarian conservatives more confident of the market also for defense purposes, policy proponents willing to transfer military spending to social programs, ethnic minorities who oppose conscription into the armies of their ‘metropolis’, young people imbued with individualism and materialism prevalent in Western youth culture, and even some military professionals who dislike the idea of dealing with reluctant draftees. This demand for putting an end to conscription has been successful in several countries: Belgium, the Netherlands, France, and Spain have already announced their move toward a smaller, voluntary, professional force. More countries might be following the example in the near future. There can be no doubt that if the example spreads, then the issue of resistance and evasion of the draft will lose the outstanding place it has enjoyed in recent centuries in Western history.

See also: Just-War Criteria

Further Reading Best, G. (1982). War and society in revolutionary Europe, 1770–1880. London: Fontana. Ceadel, M. (1980). Pacifism in Britain, 1914–1945. Oxford: The Clarendon Press. Chambers, J. W., II. (1987). To raise an army: The draft comes to modem America. New York, NY: The Free Press. Cooper, S. E. (1991). Patriotic pacifism. Waging war on war in Europe 1815–1914. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Eller, C. (1991). Conscientious objectors and the Second World War. Moral and religious arguments in support of pacifism. New York, NY: Praeger. Forrest, A. (1989). Conscripts and deserters. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Goldstein, R. J. (1978). Political repression in modern America. From 1870 to the present. New York, NY: Schenkman. Gross, M. L. (2006). Physician-assisted draft evasion: Civil disobedience, medicine, and war. Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 14, 444–454. Haupt, G. (1972). Socialism and the Great War. The collapse of the Second International. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kiernan, V. (1973). Conscription and society in Europe before the war of 1914–18. In Foot, M. R. D. (ed.) War and society, pp. 141–158. London: Elek. Kohn, S. M. (1986). Jailed for peace. The history of American draft law violators, 1658–1985. Westport, CN: Greenwood Press. Levi, M. (1997). Consent, dissent, and patriotism. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Marwick, A. (1965). The deluge. British society and the First World War. Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company. Moskos, C. C. and Burk, J. (1994). The postmodern military. In Burk, J. (ed.) The military in new times: Adapting armed forces to a turbulent world, p.147. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Moskos, C. C.and Chambers, J. W.,II. (eds.) (1993). The New conscientious objection. From sacred to secular resistance. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Shaw, M. (1991). Post-military society. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Thomson, J. (1994). Mercenaries, pirates, and sovereigns. Statebuilding and extraterritorial violence in early modem Europe. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Tilly, C. (1992). Coercion, capital, and European states AD 990–1992, 2nd edn. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Tilly, C., Tilly, L., and Tilly, R. (1975). The rebellious century: 1830–1930. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Walzer, M. (1970). Obligations: Essays on disobedience, war, and citizenship. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Young, N. (1984). War resistance, state, and society. In Shaw, M. (ed.) War, state, and society. London: Macmillan.

590 Drugs and Violence in the USA

Drugs and Violence in the USA Mark S Gold, University of Florida Brain Institute, Gainesville, FL, USA Steven T Gold, University of Florida College of Medicine, Gainesville, FL, USA Michael Herkov, University of North Florida, Jacksonville, FL, USA ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction Historical Factors of Alcohol and Drug Use The American Experience Epidemiology of Alcohol and Drug Use Epidemiology of Drugs and Violence Neurobiology of Violence and Aggression Neurobiology of Substance Abuse Addiction

Behavioral Manifestations of Intoxication Neurobiology of Substance-Induced Euphoria and Aggression Economic Compulsive Factors of Drug Violence Violence Associated with the Drug-Distribution System Drug Use, Mental Illness, and Violence Conclusions and Recommendations Further Reading

Introduction

nexus. This model hypothesizes that drugs lead to violence through three fundamental mechanisms: (1) pharmacological effect of drugs on the brain; (2) violence associated with the addicts’ attempt to obtain the money needed to purchase drugs; and (3) violence associated with the drug distribution system. To Goldstein’s conceptualization we would add a fourth mechanism: the interaction between substance abuse and preexisting, concomitant, or resultant mental illness. We will conclude by exploring new intervention strategies that offer addicts and their families new hope in treating substance abuse.

A wide variety of substances have been used to achieve altered states of consciousness since the beginning of recorded history. These substances may provide the user with euphoria, relaxation, or other positive feelings. However, each culture, at some point in its maturation, has also become aware that substance use is a doubleedged sword with associated health risks and cognitive impairments, while also increasing social ills such as aggression and violence within the society. The relationship between substance use and violence appears simple, but is in actuality deceptively complex. It is well established that persons under the influence of alcohol or drugs or involved in the illicit drug trade commit more violent crime. Prisons in our country are disproportionately filled with substance abusers. However, support for a linear causal link between drug abuse and violence is elusive. A portion of the problem can be attributed to the fact that a significant portion of alcohol and drug abusers do not engage in violent behavior. Other studies have shown that the user’s expectations of a drug’s effects, personality variables, and situational factors also influence the drug– violence relationship. The purpose of this article is to explore what we believe is a clear, but complex, relationship between substance abuse and violence. We will accomplish this by: (1) providing a brief history of the evolution of substance use with emphasis on American attitudes toward illicit drugs; (2) exploring the associated epidemiology between substance abuse and violence; and (3) examining how drug pharmacology interacts with individual differences as well as social factors to lead to an increase in violent behavior. This discussion will utilize Goldstein’s tripartite model in examining the drug–violence

Historical Factors of Alcohol and Drug Use Alcohol, illicit drugs, and other mood-altering substances have been a vital part of social interaction, medical healing, and religious practices since antiquity. The ancient Greeks were known to ferment grapes into wine. They even had a god of winemaking, Dionysus, to whom they would pray. The Romans worshiped their own god of winemaking, Bacchus, in whose honor they held a yearly feast. This drunken Roman festival serves as the root of the modern word ‘bacchanalian’. Alcohol also has strong traditions in both the Jewish and Christian faiths. Wine is used as part of the communion service for many Christians. Any Sunday-school student can recount Jesus’ first miracle of turning water into wine. Similarly, the Jewish faith regularly uses wine in its religious ceremonies and traditions. From the shared glass of wine at a Jewish wedding to the male child’s circumcision ceremony or bris, where the Rabbi uses wine for its sedative and painkilling effects, wine and its effects remain a central part of the Jewish faith.

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While alcohol finds its roots firmly entrenched in the Bible, it is not the only intoxicating substance with ties to antiquity. The Incas of Peru viewed cocaine as a gift from the gods and were chewing on coca leaves some 3000 years BC. Sigmund Freud advocated the use of cocaine as an aphrodisiac and for the treatment of hysteria, syphilis, and altitude sickness. Natural opiates have been used for at least 3500 years and were usually either smoked or mixed in alcohol for a type of opioid ‘cocktail’. Marijuana was referred to in literature as early as the fifteenth century BC when it appeared in a Chinese medical text for the treatment of a number of physical and psychological ailments. It was first introduced to Western Europe by Napoleon’s soldiers returning from Egypt. References to hallucinogens appear in Sanskrit writings over 3500 years old. Use of these substances is not new. Changes in chemistry and pharmacology have resulted in more potent and dangerous hallucinogenic drugs over time.

The American Experience The evolution of drug use in the United States is chronicled by Yale Historian David Musto. For the most part, humans used various substances for centuries in their natural form or with very little preparation, for example, chewing on leaves, smoking dried plants, etc. However, the advent of organic chemistry in the nineteenth century allowed, for the first time, the isolation of the active ingredients of the various substances, resulting in a more pure and highly potent form of the drug. For example, morphine was isolated from opium in the early part of the nineteenth century and cocaine was extracted from coca leaves by 1860. This new organic chemistry provided a product that demanded a more efficient pathway to enter the body than chewing or smoking. The advent of the hypodermic syringe in the mid-1800s provided a new drug-delivery system that far surpassed the traditional consumption of the drug both in terms of potency of dose and onset of intoxicating effects. In the United States, pharmaceutical companies capitalized on these developments and became increasingly adept at marketing drugs with addictive qualities to the general population. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, drugs like cocaine and morphine were included in a number of over-the-counter remedies purported to cure everything from coughs to pains. In fact, the term ‘heroin’ was coined in 1898 when synthesized acetylmorphine was introduced by the Bayer Company as a cough suppressant. An early advertisement for the product purports that it ‘‘simply stands upon its merits before the profession, ready to prove its efficacy to all who are interested in the advances in the art of medication.’’ In 1886, American druggist John Pemberton patented a concoction of cocaine and caffeine into a

drink. This product, which eventually became known as Coca Cola, was marketed as an ‘intellectual beverage’ and ‘brain tonic’. Ironically, at one time it was marketed as a temerence drink because it did not contain alcohol. The use of drugs was so accepted and widespread that many well-known companies such as Parke Davis manufactured personal ‘emergency kits’ for its drug-using consumers. These stylish containers housed doses of cocaine and morphine as well as hypodermic syringes for immediate drug delivery. This permissive and acceptive attitude toward drug use began to erode near the turn of the century as more Americans became concerned regarding the addictive properties and other deleterious effects of many of these drugs. Despite strong opposition from over-the-counter manufacturers, congress outlawed the use of opium, with the exception of medical use in 1905, a few years prior to the first international drug-control initiative. The 1909 Shanghai Opium Commission brought the international community together in an effort to curb the illicit traffic and consumption of opium. The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 followed the outlawing of nonmedical opium use and was an important step toward eliminating other illicit substances. While the Act did not prevent the use of addictive drugs, it did require accurate labeling for all products sold in interstate commerce. The requirement of accurate labeling diminished if not eliminated the mixing of illicit drugs into everyday common products without the public’s knowledge. This antidrug legislation culminated with the passing of the Harrison Act in 1914. The Harrison Act, named after New York Representative James Harrison, severely limited the import, dispensing, and use of narcotics and cocaine by imposing licensing requirements on manufacturers, distributors, sellers, importers, producers, compounders, and dispensers. The Harrison Act required these parties to register with the director of Internal Revenue, within the Treasury Department, and to pay a gradually increasing occupational tax. Congress used its taxing and interstate commerce power in its efforts to control drug availability and use in the US. In particular, congress wanted to monitor the flow of opium and coca leaves so that government authorities would have records of any transaction involving these drugs. Opium and coca leaves would only be legal for limited medical and scientific purposes. Individuals found in violation of the Act faced a maximum penalty of 5 years and a $2000 fine. Opiates and cocaine were not the only substances that came under government control in the early 1900s. Alcohol, long a part of American culture, came under severe attack as a societal evil. In fact, opposition to alcohol was so strong that Congress, in 1920, passed the 18th Amendment to the constitution prohibiting the manufacture, transportation, sale, and possession of alcohol.

592 Drugs and Violence in the USA

Marijuana represents a somewhat unique chapter in American drug history in that it was introduced into the US much later than the other drugs and after the passage of government legislation restricting drug use. While marijuana cigarettes arrived in the US during the 1920s with the influx of Mexican immigrants, widespread use of the drug did not occur until the 1960s. In response to public concerns over marijuana use, the government instituted the Marijuana Tax Stamp Act of 1937. This Act established government control over the sale and transfer of the marijuana plant and required a government stamp (not available for private use) for the purchase of the plant. Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) was first synthesized in 1938 and originally marketed with the suggestion that psychiatrists self-administer the drug to help them better understand psychosis as well as a drug intended to help patients release repressed feelings and thoughts. It was soon realized that LSD’s side effects outweighed any medical benefits and its use declined. However, the drug found resurgence with the counterculture of the 1960s, with LSD use advocated by such national figures as psychologist Timothy Leary. Societal rejection of alcohol, opiates, marijuana, and cocaine was short-lived. The 18th Amendment was repealed in 1933 with a corresponding increase in alcohol consumption. At present, alcohol is eclipsed only by caffeine and nicotine in terms of substance usage. The opiate problem declined in the US during the 1920s and 1930s until it was mostly confined to the peripheral elements of urban society. However, the last 60 years have been marked with episodes of increased opium usage. For example, 15–20% of American military-enlisted personnel serving in Vietnam, where opiates were readily available, reported becoming addicted. Current statistics from the National Household Survey of Drug Abuse estimate that as many as 2.4 million Americans have used heroin in their lifetime with 455 000 having used it at least once in the last year. The nonmedical use of prescription opioids is now the fastest-growing area of drug abuse. Prescription medications such as Oxycontin now represent the majority of opioid abusers surpassing even heroin. Attitudes toward marijuana were generally favorable during the 1960s and 1970s culminating in the formal recommendation in 1977 by the Carter administration that possession of up to 1 ounce of marijuana be legalized. However, deleterious effects of the drug on cognitive functioning and its association with illegal behavior have begun to generate public backlash as evidenced by the state of Alaska recriminalizing marijuana possession in 1990. Eleven states have current laws allowing for medical use of marijuana with a physician’s recommendation but the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) still considers it a Schedule I substance with no approved use.

Examination of marijuana use among high school students showed a general decline from a high in 1979 to a low in 1992. The 1993 statistics revealed a reversal of that trend with increases in use seen until 1997. A subsequent slower but steady decrease in use was found in the most recent statistics from the 2005 ‘Monitoring the Future’ survey. Cocaine usage prior to the 1970s was mainly confined to people in the art and music industries. Cocaine use continued to increase during the 1970s with the use of powder cocaine representing a sign of elevated income and status. It was a ‘trendsetters’ drug of choice. All of that changed with the synthesis of crack cocaine in the 1980s leading to an explosion in cocaine consumption in the general population. Crack which is much cheaper and more highly addictive became available to elements of society who had never had access to powder cocaine. During the last decade, the American public has become exposed to another drug of abuse, flunitrazepam, better known as Rohypnol. This drug, which is like Valium but 10 times more potent, was first marketed in 1975 by Hoffman-LaRoche as a sedative hypnotic. While widely prescribed in Europe for insomnia, it has never been approved for manufacture or use in the US. The illicit use of the drug came to prominence in the US in the early 1990s, mainly in the south. In fact, Rohypnol use has been identified as Florida’s fastest-growing drug problem. The drug is purported to have obtained its street name of ‘roofies’ due to its association with roofers who came to South Florida to work in the construction industry following several destructive hurricanes. Initially, Rohypnol was classified under the US Controlled Substances Act as a Schedule IV drug (legitimate medical use with low potential for abuse). However, several states including Oklahoma, Idaho, Minnesota, and Florida have reclassified the drug as a Schedule I substance (no legitimate medical value and high potential for abuse) and criminalized its possession and distribution. A recent arrival to the American drug scene is methamphetamine. This drug, synthesized from pseudoephedrine, a common ingredient in many over-the-counter cold medications, has resulted in fundamental changes in the way these medications are manufactured and distributed. The government now limits the quantities of medications containing pseudoephedrine that may be purchased and have moved them behind the pharmacy counter. The history of alcohol and drug use illustrates man’s historical use of substances and how societal attitudes toward drugs have varied over time. Analysis of drug use in the United States illustrates how Americans have wholeheartedly accepted and then vehemently rejected drugs several times during their own brief national history. Dr. Musto discusses how these drug epidemics seem to skip generations, as if the lessons learned by one generation are forgotten and must be learned again.

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Addiction is generally a chronic relapsing disease of pediatric onset. However, intoxication and abuse are likely to occur in all age groups. Drug intoxication can be associated with irritability and violence, and so can drug withdrawal be. Drug seeking can be associated with violence. Not just illicit drugs, but also prescription and veterinary drugs are associated with violence and have become the new objects of desire and competition. However, one thing remains clear: drug and alcohol use is rampant among Americans of all ages. In fact, if the prevalence rates for drug and alcohol abuse were viewed as we do infectious diseases, we would be considered to be within the definition of an epidemic of substance abuse. Next, we will more closely examine the current epidemiology of alcohol and drug use.

Epidemiology of Alcohol and Drug Use Alcohol is by far the most used drug in America with over 90% of Americans reporting use of alcohol sometime in their lives. Over 40% of alcohol users experience some alcohol-related problem in their lives and 10% of men and between 5–10% of women meet criteria for an alcohol abuse or dependence diagnosis. It is estimated that alcohol-related problems cost the US economy $150 billion in 1995, with 60% of the costs associated with lost productivity, 15% related to health costs and treatment, and the remaining 25% linked to a variety of alcoholrelated damages. Underage drinking, which in 2001 accounted for 16% of alcohol sales, resulted in 3170 deaths, 2.6 million other harmful events, and cost $5.4 billion dollars in associated medical bills. Although recent data suggests a welcome trend of declining drug use among all Americans, significant numbers of adolescents and adults still report using illicit drugs. A 2005 Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) survey revealed that 9.9% of 12–17-year-olds were current illicit drug users and 6.8% reported nonmedical use of prescription drugs. Among 18–25-year-olds, 20.1% used illicit drugs and 6.3% used prescription drugs for nonmedical reasons. For adults 26 years and older, 5.8% reported current illicit drug use and 1.9% admitted to nonmedical use of prescription drugs. Although males continue to use illicit drugs at higher rates than females (10.2% vs. 6.1%, respectively), there was no difference in rates of abuse of prescription medications. Drug use varies, with certain drugs increasing in popularity while others decrease, similar to changes in fashion. Marijuana still remains the most widely used illicit drug among all age groups with 6.8% of 12–17-year-olds, 16.6% of 18–25-year-olds, and 4.1% of adults 26 years or older reporting use within the past month. Use of other drugs for Americans aged 12 years and older in the past

month is much less for cocaine (1%), hallucinogens (0.4%), and inhalants (0.3%). One special drug of interest is methamphetamine or crystal meth. Typically only a small percentage of those who admit having used a substance fulfill the criteria for dependence. While only 0.6% of persons aged 12 or older report using the drug, the number of users who met criteria for methamphetamine abuse or dependence increased from 10.6% in 2002 to 22.3% in 2004. Partly as a result of its remarkable abuse potential, this drug has special significance in the present discussion due to its strong association with violence. Not only is there a change in which is the drug of choice at any given time, but there is also a variation in the demographics for who is using which drug. For example, in 1983 the typical caller to the Cocaine National Helpline was a 31-year-old intranasal powder cocaine user, college educated, and employed with an income of more than $25 000. By 1989, the typical caller was less educated, unemployed, a nonintranasal user, and had an income of less than $25 000. Since 1989 these early findings have been replicated and it has become routine to consider crack a drug of the urban poor and powder cocaine as a suburban, middleclass drug of abuse. It is currently estimated that about 2700 people begin using crack each day. This shift is important for understanding the relationship between drugs and violence. We will explore it in more detail below. Phencyclidine-related drugs (PCP and ketamine) were initially used as animal tranquilizers and have a distinctive effect on the user. They are traditionally examined separately from other hallucinogen drugs because of the dissociative effects that differ from those experienced with more typical hallucinogen substances like LSD. PCP use peaked in the US during the late 1970s when 14% of high school seniors reported having used it at least once in their lifetime and 2.4% reported current use. Use of club drugs such as ecstasy, Rohypnol, and gamma hydroxybutyrate (GHB), which are particularly popular among young users, has recently declined with 12-month prevalence rates for high school seniors of 8.2%, 2.5%, and 2.5%, respectively. These drugs also play a role in a consideration of drugs and violence due to their relationship to sexual assault.

Epidemiology of Drugs and Violence There is considerable confusion regarding the terms violence and aggression. Though the terms are often used synonymously, violence traditionally refers to acts against others or self that are designed to cause injury. Aggression is a broader term and can include issues of competition, dominance, and in certain instances, violence. Animal research typically uses the term aggression, while

594 Drugs and Violence in the USA

violence is generally applied exclusively to human studies. We will use both terms in this article as the specific data dictates. Clearly, America has become the ‘land of the violent’. Data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation indicate that 16 692 persons were murdered in 2005, a 3.4% increase from 2004, making homicide the tenth leading cause of death in the United States. Just as with drug abuse, violence is primarily associated with youth, with 31.3% of homicides committed by individuals 24-years old or less. Violence can be directed at others or at self. Suicide is increasing. The association with drugs and alcohol and violence against self or others is also increasing. While violence against others is widely reported in the media, relatively little attention is paid to the enormous amount of violence that persons perpetrate upon themselves in the form of suicide. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reported that 30 602 persons committed suicide in 2004, making it more likely that a person will die by their own hand than by someone else’s. Rates of self-inflicted violence are also associated with youth, with suicide representing the third leading cause of death among 15–24-year-olds. Alcohol, and to a lesser degree other drugs, have become part of human culture. While humans obviously receive pleasure from their use of these substances, alcohol and other drugs also have a deleterious effect on cognitive abilities and a wide range of human behaviors. In fact, recent rises in violent behavior are highly correlated with rises in substance abuse. The association between substance abuse and violence is compelling. Substance abuse is associated with 50% of traffic fatalities, 49% of murders, 68% of manslaughter charges, 38% of cases of child abuse, 52% of rapes, and 62% of assaults. Below, we will examine the relationship between specific drugs and violence. Of all of the drugs, alcohol has received the most attention in terms of its relationship to violence. The data on this relationship clearly illustrate alcohol’s association with violence. Much in this data is associated with the high prevalence of alcohol use compared to that of other drugs. With over 90% of Americans having used alcohol, it is most likely to be the drug used prior to or during a violent event. In fact, almost half of all murderers and their victims were intoxicated with alcohol at the time of the murder. Alcohol association with violent crime, including homicide and rape, is well-documented. Alcohol use appears to be even more closely linked to family violence and is listed as a significant risk factor in domestic homicides. It has been noted that most of the relationship between alcohol and domestic violence involves heavy drinking by male perpetrators with heavy consumption by women not related to their violent actions against their partners. Similarly, half of all traffic

fatalities involve a driver with a blood alcohol level over the traditional legal limit. It was found that one-third of all successful suicides involve the presence of alcohol in the victims system. Ten percent tested positive for other drugs according to the CDC report in 2006. This relationship between intoxication and violence has long been recognized by the legal system. For example, English legal theorist, Sir Edward Coke in the early seventeenth century defined four classes of persons who did not have the mental element non compos mentis to be responsible for a crime. One class was a category of persons who deprived themselves of memory and understanding as a result of voluntary drunkenness. This concept is still recognized by the legal system today and virtually all legal jurisdictions make special allowances, either by statute or case law, for crimes committed by intoxicated individuals. However, the relationship between alcohol and violence is complex. Data has supported that dose and individual characteristics are important modifiers of the alcohol–violence relationship. Low doses of alcohol show no effect on violence and may even result in a reduction in aggression due to its sedating effects. The type of alcohol consumed also seems to be an important factor in modulating violence. Research has shown that nonpharmacological factors, such as the expectation that a person has as to the effect of alcohol, the situational context in which it is consumed, and the person’s disposition, play a considerable role in understanding alcohol’s effects on violence. Use of illicit drugs is also associated with increased violence. Cocaine’s association with violence burgeoned during the 1980s. In that time period, cocaine use was so closely associated with violence that the presence of cocaine in the blood was expected with victims of gunshot wounds. Commission of a felony was similarly highly associated with the presence of cocaine or other illicit drug in the body of the perpetrator. Nearly one in four drug-related emergency-room (ER) visits involved some combination of drugs (mostly cocaine) and alcohol. By 1989, cocaine was the number one cause of ER visits in such major US cities as Washington, New York, Atlanta, and Los Angeles. ER visits for intentional injuries such as gunshot wounds were directly attributed to an increase in the use of crack, rather than due to overall increases in the base rate of violent crime. Similarly, more than 70% of those arrested in major cities, such as New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, tested positive for one or more drugs, usually including cocaine. In 2004, 383 350 emergency-department admissions involved people who tested positive for cocaine. A report by the Department of Justice released in 2006 stated that drug-related crimes accounted for 49% of the federal prison population between 1995 and 2003 strengthening the relationship between crime and drugs in society.

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For a substance to have an effect on behavior it must have an effect on the brain. The dose and speed with which a substance reaches its peak levels in the brain impact the behavioral effects that are observed. Both smoked cocaine and injected cocaine reach the brain very rapidly – in a matter of seconds. By these routes, it is predicted that there would be more effect on behavior and violence in particular. Statistics support that prediction with smoked cocaine (crack) or intravenous cocaine was more often associated with violence than snorted powder cocaine. Closer examination of the ER-admissions data reveal that 37% of those admissions involved crack while only 11% involved powder cocaine. Additionally, the distribution system of crack cocaine is associated with more violence than previously seen with other illicit drugs. In one study it was found that 40–50% of dealers selling crack cocaine in addition to other illicit drugs reported being involved in violence while only 20% of those selling powder cocaine in addition to other drugs reported violent events. The rapid spread of abuse of methamphetamine has also been closely tied to increases in violence. Motorcycle gangs were the initial manufacturers and distributors of meth in the western two-thirds of the US. Drug traffickers from Mexico who previously supplied inner cities with heroin and cocaine have been reported to have begun the distribution of meth as well, bringing them into competition and conflict with criminal elements that previously monopolized the territory, according to a report from the Department of Justice in 2006. Drugs affect behavior in a number of ways. Violence certainly occurs in the drug-intoxicated state. But it can also occur in the craving, drug-deprived state. Craving can be intensified when the supply of drugs or money is exhausted. Cocaine abstinence, in particular, with its anhedonia and depression is generally the time when self-inflicted violence or suicide occurs. Avoidance of withdrawal symptoms has been postulated to be a major motivator for continued drug use. Fear of withdrawal can lead to agitation and panic contributing to instability in the drug abuser and increasing the likelihood of violence. Cocaine and alcohol are not the only drugs linked with violence. In fact, use of almost any illicit substance results in an increase in violence to others or self-directed violence when compared to non-drug-using matched cohorts. The relationship of opioid use and violence has not been as extensively studied when compared to the relationship of cocaine and alcohol. Media representations depict heroin addicts as desperate, crazed individuals willing to do anything to support their consuming addiction. Whatever data do exist concerning the link between opiate use and violence confirm the relationship although many opiate users have criminal histories prior to their initial use of the drug. This fact suggests that opiates may amplify pre-morbid personality

factors but are not the primary cause of the criminal behavior. PCP’s relationship to aggressive, violent, and bizarre behavior is well known. Anecdotal reports from lawenforcement officers describe how PCP-intoxicated persons behave in bizarre and unpredictable ways and seem oblivious to pain. Stories of PCP-intoxicated individuals jumping off highway overpasses, breaking their leg, and still fighting off a dozen arresting police are legion. Much of this superhuman behavior is undoubtedly related to the anesthetic and dissociative qualities of the drug. The drug abuser feels no pain and experiences the event as if he were watching someone else. Violence is exacerbated by the disoriented, psychotic state evidenced by many PCPintoxicated persons. Based upon these findings it can be said that PCP turns otherwise nonviolent individuals to violent behavior simply based upon PCP drug use. While typically thought of as a benign drug, marijuana has a surprisingly high association with violent behavior. Cannabis intoxication and withdrawal are associated with violence depending on the dose of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) delivered to the brain and the emotional state of the person. To a drug-tolerant person, marijuana smoking will not generally increase aggression or violence. By giving a cannabinoid antagonist to a cannabis-dependent person and precipitating withdrawal, aggression does increase. This does not mean that the link between marijuana and violence is always pharmacologically derived. In fact, considerable research indicates just the opposite. Acute marijuana intoxication reduces aggressive response to provocation in animal studies. Anxiety, agitation, and paranoia are found most often in first-time users or when an unusually large dose is taken. While its incidence and occurrence are controversial, a cannabis-induced psychosis has been identified and this and/or drug-related crimes could lead to the high association of marijuana with violence. The mechanism by which marijuana leads to violence is not clear; however, epidemiological data conclusively show an increased relationship between marijuana use and violence. In addition to the information in Table 1, Spunt reports on the link of marijuana to homicide. Their study of 268 persons incarcerated for homicide found that of the prisoners who had used marijuana, many had used it in the 24 hours preceding the murder and that 75% of those persons were under the effects of the drug at the time of the crime. Similar findings of an increase in violence within 24 hours of drug use have been found with domestic violence, with less clear association with use at the time of the incident. Amphetamines have been associated with violence since their widespread use in the 1960s. Its associated slogan, ‘speed kills’, and its prevalent use among outlaw motorcycle gangs have emphasized this point. Amphetamine and its cousin methamphetamine are psychostimulants. While in small doses they lead to loss of

596 Drugs and Violence in the USA Table 1 Prevalence of violence-associated behaviors among substance-using adolescents

Physical fighting Carrying a weapon

Alcohol users (%)

Alcohol nonusers (%)

Marijuana users (%)

Marijuana nonusers (%)

Cocaine users (%)

Cocaine nonusers (%)

51

33

63

39

74

42

34

17

48

22

71

28

appetite and an increase in energy and alertness, with chronic use or in higher doses they lead to excessive agitation and hyperstimulation. The potential of these drugs to cause an irritable, paranoid, and psychotic-like reaction in the drug abuser has been one of the principle reasons for the apparent relationship. However, as noted above with other drugs, persons who commit violent acts while using amphetamines most often have histories of violence prior to the onset of their drug use. The association of Rohypnol and GHB with violence is limited almost exclusively to the area of sexual assault. They have become known as the ‘date rape’ drugs due to their sedative effects and disruption of memory. It is primarily as a result of the abuse of Rohypnol that Congress enacted the Drug Induced Rape Prevention and Punishment Act in 1996. This legislation provides sentences of up to 20 years incarceration for persons who use controlled substances to facilitate a crime such as sexual assault. Research on sexual assault indicates that victims frequently test positive for these substances when special tests are employed. Because they are rapidly metabolized and excreted, tests looking specifically for the minute amounts of these drugs present in a victim hours after an assault must be performed. Simple drug screens will not uncover the typical date-rape drugs. The rise in methamphetamine use has seen a corresponding increase in violence with this drug. Data reported for 2005 revealed that approximately 7% of ER visits involved amphetamine or crystal meth use. Interestingly, for adolescents age 12–17, 69.3% methamphetamine users reported violent behavior, compared to 61.8% of cocaine users and 49.7% of marijuana users. Interestingly while for most drugs males predominate as reported users by more than two to one, for stimulants including amphetamine and meth, females represent almost equal numbers to males seeking ER treatment. Most violence associated with drug use has focused on the male population. The rise of stimulant abuse may make further research on women a productive path. As with drug abuse, young people seem to be the group most at risk for perpetrating or experiencing drug-associated violence. In fact, of all age groups, 16–19-year-olds have the highest victimization rate for violent crimes excluding homicide. One study revealed that 25% of adolescents admitted to an inner-city trauma center had

a positive urine test for some drug, with the majority of positive tests for alcohol, cocaine, opiates, or some combination. This increase in trauma seems to be associated with an increase in high-risk behaviors. The need to go to ‘the bad side of town’ to purchase drugs as well as activities like driving while impaired represent risky behaviors that often land adolescents in the trauma center. Drug use is also associated with perpetration of violence. SAMHSA data from 2004 reveal that while 26.6% of nonillicit drug-using adolescents engaged in violent behavior over the last year, 49.8% of drug-using teens reported violent events. The relationship between drug use and violence from this study appears linear with increased drug use associated with increased violence. While 45.6% of adolescents using one drug reported engaging in violent behavior over the last year, 61.9% of those using three or more illicit drugs had violent events. Substance-abusing adolescents were found, as a group, to be more likely to carry a weapon or get into a physical fight. Thus, adding mind-altering substances to an age group apparently predisposed to violence results in a dangerous cocktail of escalated violent acting out.

Neurobiology of Violence and Aggression Outward Directed Violence All behavior, whether benevolent or malevolent, originates in the neuroanatomy and neurochemistry of the brain. Advances in brain research over the last decade have added considerably to our understanding of the brain mechanisms associated with aggressive and violent behavior. This research has utilized both animal and human models to elucidate the anatomical structures and neurochemical basis of violent behavior. It is beyond the scope of this article to review, in detail, the neurobiology of violence, and readers are referred to other sources for a more thorough discussion of this research. Nonetheless, some review of the anatomical structures and neurochemistry of violence is needed in order to understand the link between substance abuse and violence. Much of our understanding of aggression involves animal research. These studies typically involve development of aggression through manipulating the animal’s brain through psychopharmacology, electrical

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stimulation, or causing lesions to specific brain sites. Compilation of this research reveals that aggressive behavior is modulated by a number of subcortical structures including the medial and lateral hypothalamus, lateral septum, pons, raphe nuclei, olfactory bulbs, and amygdala. Specific damage to these areas can lead to increases in erratic and aggressive behavior. For example, studies have shown that lesions of the hypothalamus of either male or female rats result in increased aggression. It is also clear from animal research that neurotransmitters, especially serotonin, are related to aggressive behavior. Generally, decreases in serotonergic activity leads to an increase in aggressive behavior, while increasing serotonergic activity results in a decrease. It has been known that the serotonin-receptor-5-HT2 antagonists can lead to increased aggression. This role of serotonin in aggression is further supported by the finding that deleting the 5-HT1b gene in mice resulted in a reduced latency of attack and an increase in attacking behavior. These data suggest that the 5-HT1b receptor may mediate the antiaggressive effects of serotonin. This relationship between serotonin and aggression has also been demonstrated in nonhuman primates. Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) tested for the serotonin metabolite 5-HIAA has been found to be lower in dominant monkeys suggesting that there is an inverse relationship between the level of serotonin and aggressive behavior. Research with humans, however, must be confined to noninvasive procedures, autopsies, or studying patients with known lesions. These methods are less precise than procedures in animal research and are confounded by variables such as sampling bias and multisite lesions. For example, nonsurgical lesions such as stroke or head injury most often involve damage to several brain structures making it difficult to attribute behavioral or chemical changes to a single, specific structure. Similarly, persons referred for diagnostic testing may represent a nonnormative subtype because their behavioral changes may make them more likely to be referred for such testing. Still, there is sufficient data in the human literature to point to a relationship between aggression and certain brain structures. For example, imaging studies have revealed a link between temporal lobe dysfunction and aggressive behavior. Research has found that 5 of 14 violent patients had lesions in the anterior–inferior temporal lobe. Similarly, PET scan studies revealed that a sample of psychiatric patients with a history of violent behavior all had decreased blood flow in the left temporal lobe. Other data have shown that electrical stimulation of the amygdala and hypothalamus can result in rage reactions, and tumors in the ventromedial hypothalamus can result in some patients demonstrating uncoordinated aggressive behavior and hyperphagia. Disturbance in the frontal lobes is also closely associated with aggressive behavior. While lesions in the dorsolateral frontal area lead to apathetic behavior, damage to the

orbitomedial frontal lobe has been associated with increases in violent behavior. It is possible that the increase in violent behavior when the orbitomedial frontal lobe is damaged is because this section of the frontal lobe has connections to the amygdala and hypothalamus. Under normal circumstances, activation or deactivation of these structures are the result of the brain’s underlying neurochemistry. While nerves carry electrical impulses they communicate with other nerve cells chemically. Thus, understanding how these structures are linked to aggression requires examination of the neurotransmitters involved in neuronal communication. Many studies link noradrenergic, serotonergic, and dopaminergic system neurotransmitters to aggression. Serotonin and its metabolite 5-HIAA appear to inhibit aggression in a variety of animal species studied. Thus, low levels of serotonin may be associated with increased aggressive behavior. Indeed, there are some data to support this hypothesis. For example, numerous studies have established a link between low levels of 5-HIAA in the CSF and violence, depression, and suicide in humans. Low CSF 5-HIAA levels are believed to reflect a reduction in central serotonergic activity. Research has linked low CSF 5-HIAA with increased irritability, hostility, impulsive behavior, arson, and maternal aggression. Moreover, research has found that low levels of CSF 5-HIAA was linked to an increase in lifetime aggression. Other animal studies reveal an association between other neurotransmitters including norepinephrine, dopamine (DA),

-aminobutyric acid (GABA), and endogenous opioid peptides in aggression. Evidence suggests that DA is involved in aggressive behavior with greater DA activity associated with dominance and aggression. While there have been few studies directly examining the role of the dopaminergic system and aggression, pharmacological data examining the effects of amphetamine (a DA agonist) and the antiaggressive effects of DA antagonists support the hypothesis that dopaminergic activity may underlie some forms of aggression. There is also data to support the role of the noradrenergic system in aggression. Measurement of CSF levels of 3-methoxy-4-hydroxyphenyglycol (MHPG), a metabolite, reveals a positive correlation with aggressive behavior. Consistent with this is the finding that the -adrenergic antagonist, propranolol, may be effective in the treatment of episodic aggressive behavior frequently associated with head injuries. Animal studies link low levels of brain and brainstem norepinephrine with aggression. This drop in norepinephrine is presumably reflective of release of the transmitter within the brain. Self-Directed Violence There are no models of suicidal behavior in animals although research on self-injurious behavior in monkeys

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reveals a link to serotonergic activity. Research in humans has focused on the serotonergic, noradrenergic, GABAergic, cholinergic, and dopaminergic systems, although most research has examined the serotonergic and noradrenergic systems. Postmortem studies of brain tissue of individuals who completed suicide have found reductions of 5-HT or 5-HIAA within the brainstem and, to a lesser extent, the prefrontal cortex. A similar reduction in 5-HT or 5-HIAA is found in depressed patients, schizophrenics, and alcoholics. Data on the noradrenergic system are still equivocal although there is some data to suggest increased binding to -adrenergic receptors in the cerebral cortex of suicide victims, although more research is needed.

Neurobiology of Substance Abuse Alcohol and drugs, once ingested into the body, cross the blood–brain barrier and affect all aspects of brain functioning, including the neurochemistry of the brain structures that have been found to be associated with aggressive behavior. While millions of different chemicals exist, fewer than 25 of them are abused by man. These chemicals, such as opiates, cocaine, ethanol, hallucinogens, and inhalants, while diverse, share the common characteristic of enhancing endogenous brain reward mechanisms through the release of specific neurotransmitters. Alcohol targets the GABA complex, cocaine the DA reuptake transporter, opiates the endogenous opioid systems, and marijuana the endogenous cannabinoid systems. Next, we will briefly examine the effects of various drugs on the brain, specifically examining how they relate to the discussion of the neurobiology of violence. Alcohol (ethanol) affects several neurotransmitter and neuroreceptor systems. In the adrenergic system it increases the synthesis and release of norepinepherine with a corresponding decrease in cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) response to norepinehperine. During withdrawal, humans show a marked increase in CSF norepinephrine and MHPG with return to a normal range over several days. While the acute influences of ethanol on the GABA system have been varied, one consistent finding has been the reduced brain GABA after chronic alcohol administration. The relationship of GABA to alcohol abuse is illustrated by the finding that GABA agonists reduce alcohol-withdrawal symptoms while GABA antagonists produce pharmacodynamic effects resembling alcohol abstinence syndrome. A more controversial relationship is the effect of alcohol on opiate systems. In general, acute alcohol administration decreases the binding of enkephalins to -receptors while increasing -endorphin levels and binding to -receptors. Most germane to our discussion of drugs and violence is the effects of alcohol on serotonin and DA. While some studies show a depletion of brain serotonin after chronic alcohol administration, other studies show no such change.

However, and most importantly, it is apparent that ethanol shifts serotonin metabolism production from 5-HIAA to 5-hydroxyindoleacetaldehyde and 5-hydroxytryptophol. Changes in the serotonin system, especially the CSF levels of 5-HIAA, are linked to increases in both other- and selfdirected aggression. The effect of alcohol on the dopaminergic system is more equivocal and may have to do with the relationship of alcohol dose to the dopaminergic system. In animal studies, it has been shown that low doses of alcohol inhibit activity within the dopaminergic system, while higher doses stimulate activity. There is also evidence of a decrease in DA function during alcohol withdrawal. Administration of alcohol is known to increase the release of the brain’s ‘stress hormones’ specifically corticotrophin-releasing factor (CRF) leading to further activation of the entire body’s stress response. PCP also alters a number of neurotransmitter systems including DA, serotonin, acetycholine, and the ion channel associated with N-methyl-D-aspartic acid (NMDA). There is evidence that endogenous PCP receptors and peptides exist within the mammalian brain. Similar to other drugs, PCP enhances DA action by inhibiting reuptake through binding to the receptor that inhibits the DA transporter responsible for reuptake. PCP enhances presynaptic release of DA as well. The end result being an increase in DA levels in the brain. While PCP inhibits the reuptake of serotonin, it reduces the 5-HT turnover and the CSF 5-HIAA level. Cocaine primarily affects the dopaminergic system within the mesolimbic and mesocortical areas of the brain. This results in an increase in DA levels achieved through cocaine binding to the DA transporter and thereby preventing reuptake of DA. Cocaine also blocks the presynaptic reuptake of other neurotransmitters including serotonin, norepinephrine, and DA. Chemicals that block the release of DA or that cause the destruction of DA-producing cells were found in animals to block the behavioral effects of cocaine and amphetamine. Additionally, chemicals that act as serotonin antagonists inhibit the development of addictive behavior in animals administered with cocaine, suggesting a role for serotonin in the progression of addiction. Marijuana’s active ingredient, -9-THC, has a direct effect on the brain’s endogenous cannabinoid system. The interactions between cannabinoids and central nervous neurotransmitters have received considerable research attention. Results indicate that cannabinoids interact with both the dopaminergic and noradrenergic transmitter systems. The THC enhancement of extracellular DA within the mesolimbic and mesocortical system is believed to underlie the reward characteristics of the drug. Precipitated withdrawal from cannabinoids results in a decrease in DA levels in the nucleus accumbens (NA). More recent evidence shows an interrelationship between the cannabinoid system and the system for endogenous

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opioids leading to conclusions that each plays a role in addictive behavior and withdrawal for the other. For example, it has been demonstrated that an opioid blocker can precipitate signs of cannabinoid withdrawal as well as opioid withdrawal. While the effects of THC on the serotonergic system is less clear, there are numerous studies that serotonergic agonists enhance the effects of THC. Several research studies have established a link between cannabinoids and GABAergic compounds. THC has been found to inhibit the inhibitory effects of GABA on central structures (basal ganglion) in the brain. These effects seem to be dose related in that low doses produce some degree of activation and associated motor stimulation and higher doses result in inhibition. Methamphetamine releases high levels of DA within the brain and is predictably associated with decreased judgment, impulsivity, and violence. Psychostimulants such as amphetamine and methamphetamine are closely associated with the dopaminergic system. The neurotoxic effects seen with these substances leads to the depletion and destruction of DA-producing neurons. It is thought that this damage and the very slow recovery of DA function play a significant role in the depression and anhedonia seen in stimulant withdrawal and abstinence. Recent research reveals decreased serotonin-transporter density in humans in the midbrain, thalamus, audate, putamen, cerebral cortex, and cerebellum. This decreased density was positively associated with length of drug use and magnitude of violence and aggression. Depletion of the serotonin chemical precursor leads to a significant decrease in the euphoria associated with self-administration of cocaine in human subjects. The decrease in euphoria would be associated predictably with increasing the dose of cocaine taken in order to compensate, resulting in further depletion of serotonin transporters leading to a spiraling cycle of decreasing serotonin effects to suppress aggression and an increase in DA effects stimulating aggression. Violence then becomes more likely and pronounced with longer-term cocaine or stimulant addiction. Opioids such as heroin and morphine act upon the endogenous opioid systems of the brain. Activation of the -receptor in the thalamus and other areas is believed to underlie the euphoric effects of these drugs. There is research to suggest that -receptor activation may be linked to the release of DA from the dopaminergic system originating in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and connecting to the NA and frontal cortex. On the other hand, -receptor agonists, often associated with dysphoria, may decrease DA release. Of interest is the finding that in the animals treated with a DA blocker, there was elimination of self-administration of cocaine and amphetamine but animals would continue to administer opiates such as morphine. It is believed that the area of the NA is responsible for this DA-independent effect. Withdrawal from opioid dependence is associated with a decrease in DA

in some areas of the brain but significant increases in others, particularly the prefrontal cortex. It is postulated that this increase accounts for some of the behavioral agitation seen in precipitated withdrawal. Substance abuse not only influences brain chemistry, but in some cases actually fundamentally changes neurotransmitter levels in the brain for a period of time long after drug use stops. Imaging studies of substance-abstinent patients show that for some drugs such as amphetamine changes in brain function recover slowly, if at all. Studies in alcohol and opiates are more encouraging with return of function occurring so long as abstinence is maintained. Relapse rapidly leads back to distortion of function. Withdrawal from the particular substance may also involve erratic behavior, including many of the negative symptoms associated with intoxication. For example, psychomotor acceleration can be a symptom of both intoxication and withdrawal from cocaine and amphetamine use. One crack addict reported ‘‘It doesn’t seem to matter whether you’re on or off crack . . . you’re crazy both times.’’ Also, the biochemical addiction of these drugs in the brain may cause the user to seek out any means possible, including violence, to obtain more of the desired substance. Finally, many drugs may do more than simply alter the release or reuptake of a specific neurotransmitter. There is emerging data that long-term use of certain drugs may actually alter brain structures. For example, studies of methamphetamine and MDMA use in nonhuman primates indicate that the drug has neurotoxic effects and actually damages the axon terminals of serotonin-producing neurons. An analogy with traumatic brain injury has been used to describe the effects of methamphetamine and other club drugs. Few are surprised when a stroke patient exhibits behavioral changes. The long-term effects of these drugs appear to be similar. This damage may lead to increased violence by permanently changing the user’s attitude and behavior in life.

Addiction The cost of alcohol and drugs, along with the associated health, social, occupational, and legal problems, provide a huge incentive for avoiding illicit substances and substance abuse. To understand drug abuse one must understand the tremendous power of addiction. As stated earlier, but worth repeating, of the thousands of different chemical compounds available in the world today, humans consistently abuse roughly 25 of these substances. That only a small number are abused suggests a unique property in those that humans abuse. It is beyond the scope of this article to give a detailed account of the psychosocial and neurobiological process of addiction. However, in addition to references to further enhance

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one’s understanding in this area, we will provide a brief outline of addiction in order to help the reader understand how this concept is related to drug violence. All of the above-mentioned 25 drugs of abuse achieve their effects through crossing the blood–brain barrier and altering the neurochemistry of the brain. The chemical compounds of these drugs create their sensations of euphoria, stimulation, sedation, etc., by affecting neurotransmitter systems within various regions of the brain. The neurologic substrate for addiction is located within the limbic system of the brain where the biologically primitive circuitry for the drive states such as hunger, sex, and thirst are housed. This area is described as the medial forebrain bundle (MFB), and contains a number of structures including the frontal cortex, NA, and VTA. One of most common ways for drugs to achieve their effects on the brain is to block the presynaptic reuptake of neurotransmitters including DA, serotonin, and norepinephrine. The surpluses of these neurotransmitters at the postsynaptic receptor sites in the mesocorticolimbic areas of the brain are responsible for the reinforcing and euphoric effects of the drugs. Brain neurochemistry is further complicated by the fact that most users abuse more than a single drug or may seek to ameliorate some of the unpleasant effects of one drug by concomitantly or subsequently using another. For example, a person may seek to reduce the overstimulated and agitated feeling produced by cocaine with sedating agents, such as alcohol or marijuana. The combined use of cocaine and alcohol is so common that reports show 62–90% of cocaine abusers are also concurrent alcohol abusers. However, concomitant use of these drugs creates a new drug, cocaethylene, with its own unique effects on brain neurochemistry. The brain neurochemical effects seen with drugs of abuse can be followed in the amygdala, thus suggesting that altered neuronal activity in this brain area underlies drug-seeking behavior. Therefore, although the NA plays a critical role in the reinforcing properties of cocaine and other stimulants, the amygdala might be involved in the acquisition of stimulus–reward associations or the motivational aspects of drug seeking. Here, there is a clear interaction between biological and psychosocial processes in that the danger and allure of the streets may actually increase the reinforcing potency of a drug such as crack cocaine. Stress and excitement lead to the release of stress hormones reinforcing the stimulus, in this case both the drug and the setting. Addicts can become conditioned to seemingly benign objects in the environment that have become powerful stimuli for drug craving. Vivid, long-term memories of being high tend to persecute the drug abuser by invoking powerful cravings for the next high. For example, cocaine users describe intense craving for cocaine when cocaine is made available to them or merely seeing people, places,

or things, such as paraphernalia, associated with cocaine use. It has been found that the mere anticipation of taking some drugs is enough to start the changes in brain chemistry associated with the drug’s effects on the brain. Sights, sounds, and smells can all serve as stimulators of the conditioned response in addicts.

Behavioral Manifestations of Intoxication Each drug of abuse has its own particular neurobiological reaction in the brain. However, there are several common pathways within the brain and neurochemical reactions that most drugs seem to share. Thus, it should not be surprising that there is remarkable similarity in behavioral manifestation of various types of drug intoxication. For example, DSM-IV-TR lists mood lability, impaired judgment, and aggressive behavior as symptoms of intoxication with alcohol, amphetamine, cannabis, cocaine, hallucinogens (LSD, MDMA, etc.), inhalants, PCP, and sedative-hypnotics. Additionally, many of these drugs cause perceptual disturbances, increased paranoia, and psychomotor agitation. Effects can vary in length from minutes to hours depending on the substance, route of administration, dosage, and abuse history. Chronic cocaine users develop a paranoia that is difficult to distinguish from a true psychiatric delusional disorder. Amphetamine and PCP users can demonstrate disorganized thinking and psychotic processes similar to those seen in persons suffering from schizophrenia. Given the impairment of judgment, increased impulsivity, distorted thinking, and disinhibition, violence stemming from substance abuse would seem to be a natural consequence of illicit substance usage.

Neurobiology of Substance-Induced Euphoria and Aggression While specific in their neurochemistry, drugs of abuse are used because of their ability to produce a feeling that the user finds desirable, frequently euphoria or high. While diverse in their individual chemical reactions, it is clear from the above review that all of these drugs achieve their results through interaction with one or more of noradrenergic, dopaminergic, serotonergic, or other brain neurotransmitter systems. The end result is that these drugs cause alterations in the neurochemistry of the brain reward centers of the MFB and mesolimbic dopaminergic pathway. The MFB region of the brain, together with the nuclei and projection fields of the MFB, have been found to be primarily responsible for the positive reinforcement associated with drugs of addiction. The MFB consists of a group of interconnected structures within the limbic

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system including the NA and VTA with connections to the amygdala and septal regions. The MFB lies within the limbic system with connections to other limbic structures most often identified as including the limbic lobe, hippocampal formation, amygdaloid nucleus, hypothalamus, and anterior nucleus of the thalamus. These structures are connected through the alveus, fimbria, fornix, mammillothalamic tract, and stria terminalis. The limbic system extends through parts of the temporal and frontal lobes, septum, thalamus, and hypothalamus. Identification of the brain structures involved in drug reward is important in that many of these brain regions have been identified as being linked to aggressive and violent behavior in animals and humans. Thus, the neurochemical reactions that bring the user pleasure may also predispose them for violence. For example, alcohol and drugs also influence brain regions such as the septum and amygdala that have been shown to underlie aggressive and impulsive behavior. Histofluorescence mapping techniques have revealed a close association between the brain stimulation reinforcement region and the mesolimbic DA system. These brain neurochemical effects can be followed in the amygdala, suggesting altered neuronal activity in this brain area underlies drug-seeking behavior. The amygdala receives dopaminergic innervation from the VTA and serotonergic innervation from the midbrain and pontine raphe as well as extensive communication from the NA. Although the NA plays a critical role in the reinforcing properties of cocaine and other stimulants, the amygdala might be involved in the acquisition of stimulus–reward associations or the motivational aspects of drug seeking. Drugs can effect aggression by not only stimulating brain centers associated with aggressive arousal, but by also altering the perceptions and judgment of the user. For example, drugs may act on the septum and amygdala to provoke aggressive response. Activation of the basal ganglia may then lead to increased motor behavior. Mesolimbic influences can lead to paranoid ideation or perception of threat or hostility where none exists. Finally, the effect of drugs on the frontal lobes leads to impairment in the insight and judgment of the user, culminating in an aggressive or violent event. These structures are activated by neurotransmitters that are directly or indirectly influenced by alcohol or drug use. It is clear from the above discussion on neurotransmitters that, in many cases, the same neurotransmitters associated with violent and aggressive behavior are involved in the subjective feelings of euphoria and brain reward. As illustrated above, neurotransmitters such as DA, norepinephrine, epinephrine, serotonin, and GABA are all affected by substance abuse. Not surprisingly, analysis of the neurochemistry of addiction shares many similarities with the neurobiology of violence. One hypothesis of the neurochemistry underlying drug-related aggression is that

repetitive use of drugs and alcohol deplete neurotransmitters such as DA, norepinephrine, and epinephrine in the presynaptic neurons, resulting in an increased sensitivity of the respective postsynaptic receptors. Thus, there develops an enhanced sensitivity to DA in the postsynaptic receptors. An exaggerated postsynaptic response to DA may then lead to suspiciousness and paranoid delusions. Similarly, exaggerated postsynaptic responses to norepinephrine and epinephrine in the hypothalamus, amygdala, and septal regions may lead to increased impulsivity and aggression. There are emerging research data to support this relationship between DA and drug-induced aggression. For example, analysis of striatal DA-transporter density reveals significantly more DA reuptake density and presence of D2A1 alleles in violent alcoholics compared to nonviolent alcoholics leading to the conclusion that DA-transporter density was higher in violent alcoholics than in nonviolent alcoholics or matched controls. Cocaine, amphetamines, and opiates also alter brain neurochemistry and may, in similar ways, set the stage for increased aggressive behavior. Alcohol and cocaine also influence catecholamine and serotonergic activity which is also linked to increased aggression. For example, a study of military personnel revealed a positive correlation between MHPG, a metabolite of monoamines in the brain, and aggression. Alcohol also depletes levels of serotonin and its metabolite 5-HIAA. As previously noted, low levels of this neurotransmitter can lead to a disinhibition of aggressive impulses and an increase in violent behavior. Chronic self-administration of cocaine in yoked animals is associated with addiction and markedly elevated DA and serotonin levels. These brain neurochemical effects can be followed in the amygdala suggesting altered neuronal activity in this brain area underlies drug-seeking behavior.

Economic Compulsive Factors of Drug Violence For everyone, except those victims of involuntary intoxication, the first use of drugs or alcohol is voluntary. There is no innate compulsion or drive in humans for alcohol, cocaine, amphetamines, or other drugs. Clearly, the human body can function in perfect health without the existence of these substances. But for a number of individuals, each successive use of the drug becomes less voluntary and more a response to the drug’s addictive power. Recent research into brain neurochemistry has clearly delineated alcohol and drug addiction as a brain disease. As noted above, alcohol and drugs achieve their clinical effect by targeting the primitive reward centers of the

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brain, such as the MFB in the limbic system. This is primarily achieved through blocking the reuptake of DA into the presynaptic neuron. By preventing DA reuptake, greater concentrations of DA remain in the synaptic cleft with more DA available at the postsynaptic site for stimulation of specific receptors. Mesolimbic DA neurons originating in the VTA and projecting to the NA and other limbic forebrain areas are well-known substrates of reward and reinforcement and primary targets for the action of cocaine and other drugs. These neurons are also being studied as being primarily responsible for craving and relapse on the basis of the effects of repeat administration of drugs and the subsequent withdrawal. Results indicate that there are major and long-lasting changes in these neurons during withdrawal. For the drug user the description of normality changes so that the ‘normal’ brain state is one in which alcohol, cocaine, amphetamine, or other drug is present and the ‘abnormal’ brain state is defined as one where there is a lack of the drug. Withdrawal states from these drugs are extremely unpleasant and are aptly called ‘crashes’ due to the intense and unpleasant feelings experienced. Feelings of drug craving, irritability, dysphoria, impulsivity, insomnia, muscle aches, and nausea and vomiting are reported for a variety of drugs. Thus, the person’s addiction to the drug is based both on reward mechanisms associated with usage as well as neurobiological punishment associated with absence of the drug. These symptoms can last for days to weeks and much of the relapse in substance abuse is associated with attempts to avoid these unpleasant withdrawal symptoms. Thus, the drug user has tremendous motivation to supply his or her brain with the needed drug. With the exception of alcohol and some inhalants, virtually all other drugs must be obtained through illegal means. The costs associated with drug addiction, especially crack cocaine, can be enormous and can quickly deplete the monetary resources of the user. Because drug use has a deleterious effect on employment status, users must seek out financial resources from family and friends. When these sources have been exhausted other mechanisms must be found to meet the brain’s demand for the drug. This last resort almost always involves criminal activity to obtain the necessary funds to purchase the drug. Miller and Gold in 1994 examined crime-related activity in a sample of 200 crack addicts. Their data indicated that 53% of subjects spent more than $200 a week on crack, with 15% spending more than $300 and 14% spending more than $400 a week. However, 53% of the sample reported a total annual family income of less than $15 000 and 38% of the subjects had a family income of less than $10 000. A person who spends $200 a week on drugs would incur an annual cost of $10 400, which is more than the total family income for almost 40% of the sample. These data clearly illustrate how the drug user

comes to believe that he must turn to crime to support his addiction. Crimes committed by drug users associated with their quest to obtain drugs can be grouped into five general categories: (1) theft, (2) robbery, (3) drug distribution, (4) forgery, and (5) prostitution. Thefts and robberies represent a major method of obtaining money to purchase drugs. Inciardi, in a study of 611 adolescent offenders, found that the following drugs were used on a daily or regular basis: alcohol = 47%, marijuana = 95%, and cocaine = 91%. Almost unbelievably, these adolescents accounted for 18 477 felonies, 109 538 property crimes, 43 962 vice crimes, and 257 159 drug-trafficking offenses in the 12-month period preceding the survey. When averaged, these adolescents committed over 700 offenses per subject. While these numbers seem astronomical, closer analysis reveals that over half of the crimes involved drug trafficking and that almost 93% of the crimes could be accounted for by drug trafficking, prostitution, shoplifting, and dealing in stolen property offenses. Nevertheless, this is an astronomical amount of crime for such a small number of adolescents. On the other hand, robberies almost by definition are violent acts. The majority of the robberies in the report represented purse snatchings, but a significant number of incidents involved armed robbery in homes, businesses, and on the streets. Of the 611 adolescents, 59% (361) participated in robberies, the majority of which were committed to obtain drugs. This association is further supported by an examination of the prison population. US Department of Justice statistics for 2002 reveal that 83% of inmates reported using drugs and approximately one-third reported committing their offense under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Twenty-five percent of drug users reported committing their offense to obtain money for drugs. Prostitution is also a frequently used method to support drug addiction, especially among women. In fact, almost 74% of women in their sample who were involved in prostitution indicated that drug use preceded their prostitution activities, suggesting that they began prostitution to support their drug habits. Over 50% of the crack-using prostitutes reported that they were performing sex in exchange for drugs or money to purchase crack. Only 22% of male prostitutes, on the other hand, reported becoming involved in prostitution after their exposure to drugs, suggesting that this group did not appear to trade sex for drugs or at least not at such a high rate as their female counterparts. Hanlon and co-workers examined the criminal histories of drug users over their addiction career. These authors found a high proportion of thefts, violence, and drug-related offenses. Their data did indicate a decrease in criminal activity, both in terms of frequency and profitability of crime, with increasing age. However, their data

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may be confounded by that fact that their subjects were generally older (mean age of 34.6 years) and in treatment at the time of the survey.

Violence Associated with the Drug-Distribution System Violence associated with the selling of illegal substances has been present from the Opium Wars of China through the American Prohibition of the 1920s. In fact, one of the most violent times in American history surrounds the era of prohibition. It was during this time that notorious gangsters such as Al Capone acquired their fortunes and reputations. Bootleg alcohol and private speakeasies emerged to meet popular demand. Even in contemporary society, where the sale of alcohol is legal, profits associated with the manufacture and sale of alcohol are staggering. In spite of this the legitimate alcohol industry spends huge amounts of money to advertise and market their products to underage consumers. Not surprisingly, a similar distribution system has emerged for the dispensing of illegal drugs. Violence has been associated with the production and distribution of drugs such as marijuana and heroin. However, it has been the manufacture of cocaine, and more specifically, its variant crack, that has led to an explosion of violence in the drug-delivery business. In 1990, it was estimated that 80 tons of cocaine were imported into the United States. The illicit profits associated with the drug trade are staggering. For example, a kilogram of cocaine that sells for $1200 in Columbia would have a street value of over $20 000 in the US. If the cocaine is converted to crack (at $5 per vial) the profitability triples to over $60 000. When one multiples the amount of cocaine imported by the potential street value, it quickly becomes apparent that the sale and distribution of cocaine is a multibillion dollar business. It is estimated that if ranked with legitimate businesses the profits of the cocaine cartel would rank the industry as the number seven Fortune 500 company, behind Ford Motor Company and ahead of Gulf Oil. With the amount of money associated with drug distribution, there is an ample supply of willing dealers. Unfortunately, market share is not decided by clever advertising campaigns and business disputes are not settled in courtrooms through legal representatives. Rather, violence is regularly used for regulation and social control in the cocaine business. Part of this has to do with the enormous amount of profits of crack use compared to other drugs. For example, 15 years ago a person may have achieved a weekend ‘high’ by purchasing an ounce of marijuana for around $40. The length of time from inhalation to feeling high would take up to 30 min with clinical effects lasting at least 2–3 hours, thus

providing the addict with a several-day supply of the drug. Crack cocaine, on the other hand, costs between $3–5 a rock. However, while the person experiences the cocaine high in a matter of seconds, the high lasts less than 5 min, leaving the user craving their next use of the drug. It is not uncommon for chronic crack users to consume over $500 a day in the drug. With the profits from crack greatly exceeding that of marijuana, it is not surprising that the crack distribution system would create a scenario for violence. Fagan and Chin have discussed how violence became a common mechanism for regulation and social control in the distribution of crack. New York Police Department officials described the crack industry as ‘‘capitalism gone wild’’ with no legal, economic, or social controls. These authors describe several reasons why more violence was associated with selling crack than other drugs. First, selling of crack takes place primarily in blighted, urban neighborhoods where previously existing social controls had been weakened by years of economic and social decline. Second, the profits from crack caused the development of new drug-selling groups ready to compete with established groups for drug profits. This led to internal violence to maintain control of a relatively new distribution system and external violence to assure market share (turf) and product quality. In a study of drug sellers, only 10% of the dealers who only sold marijuana and 9% of the dealers who sold only heroin reported violence with other dealers. However, over 20% of sellers of cocaine and crack reported fights with rival dealers. While being a drug seller may be profitable, it can be a dangerous career with extremely high mortality rates and short life span. One study reported that of the 414 homicides examined in their study, 179 (43%) resulted from drug trafficking. Of these, 148 (34%) victims were drug traffickers. The most common causes of these murders were territorial disputes, robbing of the dealer, and assaults to collect debts. Of the 522 homicides committed in Baltimore in 1990, 166 (31%) were related to drug trafficking. A tragic consequence of drug selling is the steadily downward trend in the age of the sellers. One study revealed that over 20% of low-income, urban, black males may have been involved in drug trafficking by mid-adolescence. Further, a study of 7573 sixth and seventh graders from the Washington DC area reveal that 5% of boys were involved in drug trafficking and an additional 17% reported being approached to sell drugs. This exposure to the drug culture and associated violence has resulted in the traumatization of a number of urban youth. Exposure to violence and witnessing the death of family and friends, ‘war zone’ climate of many crack neighborhoods, and special vulnerability of adolescence can lead to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

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symptomatology among these youth. It is reported that approximately 10% of adolescents who had witnessed the murder of a friend or relative developed PTSD. Other data have shown that PTSD is 5 times more common among chemically dependent youth than a comparable community sample of non-drug-dependent adolescents.

Drug Use, Mental Illness, and Violence For most of history, there has been a perception among the general population that people with mental illness represent a dangerous, unpredictable, and violent segment of society. In fact, most of the social science research has demonstrated that the vast majority of the mentally ill are actually less likely to commit a violent act than a person in the general population. This, however, is not always the case. Research indicates that there is a positive correlation between mental illness and violence, especially when combined with substance abuse. Prevalence of offenses tends to be highest among those with serious psychopathology,especially schizophrenics using alcohol or cocaine. Results of the NIMH Epidemiological Catchment Area (ECA) study revealed that while only 2% of the nondisordered population had exhibited violent behavior in the preceding year, 13% of schizophrenics and 34% of drug abusers were involved in violent acts. These data additionally established a particularly strong relationship between violence and people with co-morbid psychiatric and substance abuse diagnoses. Schizophrenia is a mental illness which is associated with violence, especially when found with co-morbid substance abuse. A longitudinal study followed substance abusers and nonusers in a community of 103 patients with schizophrenia-spectrum diagnoses. Though any subject with a physical dependency on drugs or alcohol was excluded, the authors found that 13% of subjects were abusing alcohol or marijuana and that 7% manifested polysubstance abuse. Results indicate a strong relationship between substance abuse and violence among the schizophrenics as well. For example, schizophrenics who used multiple substances were 12 times more likely to have engaged in violent behavior than nonusing schizophrenics. Prospectively, substance use led to a 400% increase in the likelihood of future violence. Clinical experience has taught that groups of mentally ill people with diagnoses ranging from mood disorders to personality disorders also exhibit increases in violent behavior when under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Much of this relationship is likely accounted for by the fact that alcohol and illicit drugs decrease judgment, increase irritability, and increase impulsivity in a population already experiencing difficulties in these areas.

Of all the psychiatric disorders, antisocial personality disorder (APD) is most commonly associated with violent behavior. Studies indicate that as many as 70% of prison inmates meet DSM-IV criteria for APD. The co-morbidity between APD and substance abuse is high, with 20% of men and 11% of women in treatment for substance abuse meeting criteria for APD. The relationship between APD, substance abuse, and violence may share a common neurobiological pathway. As illustrated above, disturbance in serotonergic function, especially the metabolite 5-HIAA, has been found to be linked to substance abuse and violence. New research has also found that persons with APD or criminal histories tend to have low levels of 5-HIAA in the CSF. As illustrated above, use of drugs and alcohol may further reduce levels of the serotonin metabolite among this group of disordered patients, thus increasing the likelihood of violence. The implication of these findings in the treatment of violence is clear. The finding that a substantial number of antisocials commit their violent behaviors while under the influence of a particular substance has caused many clinicians to believe that the most effective treatment of APD may be substance-abuse treatment.

Conclusions and Recommendations It is clear from the above discussion that the scientific literature overwhelmingly supports a relationship between violence and alcohol and drug use. While the correlation between drugs and violence can be traced to antiquity, the effects of modern chemistry and more efficient delivery systems greatly adds to this problem. It was not long ago that experts in the area of drugs and violence minimized the role of neurobiology in drugrelated violence. An NIDA monograph on drugs and violence concluded that ‘‘there is virtually no evidence that the pharmacological effects of drugs (alcohol excepted) account for a substantial portion of drug related violence.’’ While not explaining all of the variance associated with drug violence, new insights into the effects of drugs and alcohol on neurotransmitter systems and brain regions often thought to be linked to violent behavior suggests that pharmacological influences may be greater than previously thought. But violence is related not only to the pharmacological effects of the drugs on the brain, but also, as illustrated above, to preexisting personality attributes, situational variables, and factors associated with the drug trade. Despite political claims data from the past decade indicate that criminal penalties and drug-interdiction efforts have done little to curb drug usage and associated violence. While some argue that legalization of drugs would reduce collateral violence, the negative consequences of such legislation could be catastrophic for the society. Clearly, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound

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of cure. While just saying no may be too simplistic in many situations, creating environments where a person can just say ‘no’ is imperative. This includes strengthening of family ties, drug education, and economic opportunity. However, there will always be those who say ‘yes’. And for some of these people saying ‘yes’ leads to a chemical addiction that makes it difficult to ever say ‘no’. For these people, intensive treatment programs that emphasize abstinence and see recovery as a process and not an endpoint are needed. Most professionals in the field agree that violence and antisocial behavior will be best addressed by reducing substance abuse. Treatment requires a comprehensive assessment of the psychobiologic, social, and pharmacological aspects of the patient’s substance abuse. For many patients, drug use has become the focus of their entire life. They become totally preoccupied with drug-seeking and drug-taking behaviors and have forgotten what life without drugs is like. Thus, they come to regard the drugged state as ‘normal’ and may not believe any treatment is necessary. For this reason they may refuse to acknowledge the need for help. Many patients enter treatment only under pressure from family, friends, employers, or the judicial system. In severe cases, the patient perceives such pressure to be a threat from ‘enemies’, which only serves to reinforce drug-induced feelings of suspicion, persecution, and paranoia. The initial contact with a patient may occur after a crash and during the withdrawal phase. The numerous health dangers associated with alcohol, cocaine, and other drugs require that the patients undergo a thorough physical examination. Any medical treatment that helps relieve withdrawal symptoms is important in that many addicts cite unpleasant withdrawal as an important factor in relapse and failure to remain in treatment. Whether it serves as the primary mode of care or as a sequel to hospitalization, a comprehensive outpatient program should include a range of treatment strategies. These include supportive counseling, drug education, peer-support groups, and family meetings. Exercise therapy may also prove to be a helpful adjunct. Because inadequately treated depression is a significant factor in relapse to drug use, severe depression may require psychotherapy and perhaps the use of medications. Regular telephone support should continue for several months. Many treatment centers offer ongoing group-therapy sessions for patients and their families for a period of years following discharge. In all cases, patients should be given frequent urine tests to screen for all drugs of abuse but particularly for their drug of choice. Another crucial element of longterm treatment is participation in a 12-step recovery program. In recent years the medical and psychiatric professions have come to recognize the significant contributions that Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and similar programs can make to the lives of substance abusers.

Members draw strength and security from meeting with others who understand and share their concerns and can offer practical strategies for surviving ‘one day at a time’. Any treatment program that does not embrace the 12-step approach and encourage patients to participate stands little chance of long-term success. Investment in a 12-step program has proven to be a positive marker for predicting future abstinence from drugs and alcohol. In contrast to the treatment of affective and anxiety disorders, pharmacotherapy plays a relatively minor role in treatment of substance-use disorders. The 12-step programs, the most potent cognitive-behavioral approach, are ascendant. However, for certain classes of drugs, new medications provide a powerful weapon both in blocking the effects of the drug as well as reducing cravings and relapse. For example, opiate antagonist drugs such as naltrexone and naloxone can attenuate the brain-reward enhancement produced by drugs of abuse such as opiates, cocaine, amphetamine, ethanol, and benzodiazepines. Use of these new medications with past proven treatments such as 12-step programs provides the best hope for the addict and for society to break the drug–violence connection. See also: Anthropology of Violence and Conflict, Overview; Biochemical Factors in Aggression and Violence; Justifications for Violence; Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Trauma and Mental Disorders; Violence as Solution, Culture of

Further Reading American Psychiatric Association (1994). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders 4th edn. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association. Brown, G. L. and Goodwin, F. K. (1986). Cerebrospinal fluid correlates of suicide attempts and aggression. Annals of the New York Academy of Science 487, 175–188. Collins, J. J. (1990). Summary thoughts about drugs and violence. In De La Rosa, M., Lambert, E., and Gropper, B. (eds.) Drugs and violence: Causes, correlates, and consequences. NIDA Research Monograph 103, pp 265–275. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office. Cartier, J., Farabee, D., and Prendergast, M. L. (2006). Methamphetamine use, self-reported violent crime, and recidivism among offenders in California who abuse substances. Journal of Interpersonal Violence 21(4), 435–445. Comings, D. E., Muhleman, D., Gysin, R., and Flanagan, S. D. (1994). The dopamine D2 receptor gene: A genetic risk factor in substance abuse. Drug and Alcohol Dependence 34, 175–180. De Almeida, R. M., Rosa, M. M., Santos, D. M., et al. (2006). 5-HT(1B) receptors, ventral orbitofrontal cortex, and aggressive behavior in mice. Psychopharmacology (Berl.) 185(4), 441–450. de Boer, S. F. and Koolhaas, J. M. (2005). 5-HT1A and 5-HT1B receptor agonists and aggression: A pharmacological challenge of the serotonin deficiency hypothesis. European Journal of Pharmacology 526(1–3), 125–139. Dupont, R. L. and Gold, M. S. (1995). Withdrawal and reward: Implications for detoxification and relapse prevention. Psychiatric Annals 25(11), 663–668. Eichelman, B. (1992). Aggressive behavior: From laboratory to clinic. Archives of General Psychiatry 49, 488–492.

606 Drugs and Violence in the USA El-Bassel, N., Gilbert, L., Wu, E., Go, H., and Hill, J. (2005). Relationship between drug abuse and intimate partner violence: A longitudinal study among women receiving methadone. American Journal of Public Health 95(9), 1493–1494. Fauman, M. A. and Fauman, B. J. (1976). Violence associated with phencyclidine abuse. The American Journal of Psychiatry 136, 1584–1586. Fils-Aime, M. L., Eckardt, M. J., George, D. T., et al. (1996). Early-onset alcoholics have lower cerebrospinal fluid 5-hydroxyinkoleacetic acid levels than late-onset alcoholics. Archives of General Psychiatry 53(3), 211–216. Flor-Henry, P. (1983). Cerebral basis of psychopathology. Boston, MA: Wright. Friedman, R. A. (2006). Violence and mental illness – how strong is the link? The New England Journal of Medicine 355(20), 2064–2066. Giancola, P. R., Godlaski, A. J., and Parrott, D. J. (2005). ‘So I can’t blame the booze?’: Dispositional aggressivity negates the moderating effects of expectancies on alcohol-related aggression. Journal of Studies on Alcohol 66(6), 815–824. Haggaard-Grann, U., Hallqvist, J., Laangstroem, N., and Moeller, J. (2006). The role of alcohol and drugs in triggering criminal violence: A case-crossover study. Addiction 101(1), 100–108. Hanlon, T. E., Nurco, D. N., Kinlock, T. W., and Duszynski, K. R. (1990). Trends in criminal activity and drug use over an addiction career. American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse 16(3–4), 223–238. Humphreys, C., Regan, L., River, D., and Thiara, R. K. (2005). Domestic violence and substance use: Tackling complexity. British Journal of Social Work 35(8), 1303–1320. Kandel, D. B. and Davies, M. (1996). High school students who use crack and other drugs. Archives of General Psychiatry 53, 71–80. Miller, N. S., Gold, M. S., and Mahler, J. C. (1991). Violent behaviors associated with cocaine use: Possible pharmacological mechanisms. International Journal of the Addictions 6(10), 1077–1088.

Moss, H. B. and Tarter, R. E. (1993). Substance abuse, aggression and violence. American Journal of Addiction 2(2), 149–160. Mulvey, E. P., Odgers, C., Skeem, J., et al. (2006). Substance use and community violence: A test of the relation at the daily level. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 74(4), 743–754. Poklis, A., Graham, M., and Maginn, D. (1990). Phencyclidine and violent deaths in St. Louis Missouri. A survey of medical examiners’ cases from 1977 through 1986. American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse 16(3–4), 265–274. Rainone, G. A., Schmeidler, J. W., Frank, B., and Smith, R. B. (2006). Violent behavior, substance use, and other delinquent behaviors among middle and high school students. Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice 4(3), 247–265. Sekine, Y., Ouchi, Y., Takei, N., et al. (2006). Brain serotonin transporter density and aggression in abstinent methamphetamine abusers. Archives of General Psychiatry 63(1), 90–100. Shaw, J., Hunt, I. M., Flynn, S., et al. (2006). The role of alcohol and drugs in homicides in England and Wales. Addiction 101(8), 1117–1124. Sommers, I. and Baskin, D. (2006). Methamphetamine use and violence. Journal of Drug Issues 36(1), 77–96. Stephens, R. C. and McBride, D. C. (1976). Becoming a street addict. Human Organization 35, 87–94. Valdez, A., Kaplan, C. D., and Cepeda, A. (2006). The drugs-violence nexus among Mexican-American gang members. Journal of Psychoactive Drugs 38(2), 109–121. Vitale, S. and van de Mheen, D. (2006). Illicit drug use and injuries: A review of emergency room studies. Drug and Alcohol Dependence 82(1), 1–9.

Relevant Website http://www.fbi.gov – Federal Bureau of Investigation: Crime in the United States 2005.

E Ecoethics William C French, Loyola University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction Problematic: Unsustainable Human Practices Pushing Ecodegradation and Climate Change Peacemaking, Global Security, and the Prudence Principle Ecoethics: The Core Principles Reformist and Radical Streams Human-Centered Approaches

Glossary Animal Rights A view that employs analogies from human rights claims to argue that we must recognize that other primates, mammals, and some other animal species have inherent value and thus, count as ‘ends-in-themselves’ with certain limited rights of due care and protection. Anthropocentrism Historically dominant Western value scheme that holds that only human life has inherent moral value by virtue of humans’ unique rationality. Animals and plants have only instrumental value by virtue of their service to human interests. Biocentrism Ethical critique of anthropocentric value schemes by appeal to the priority of ecosystems or the global biosphere. Biodiversity Ecological emphasis that ecosystems remain vital and stable through the interactions of diverse species. Climate Change Concern that expanding fossil fuel consumption and other consumptive practices are inducing global warming, with its range of impacts that include: ice cap melting, ocean rise, altered rain and drought patterns, extreme weather events, and an array of climate impacts. Deep Ecology Broad radical environmental movement that critiques shallow, reformist positions and calls for revolutionary changes in modes of production and consumption and for a reduction in human population.

Animal Welfare Approaches Ecological Ethics Ongoing Points of Contention Concrete Spheres of Policy Concern Contributions of the World’s Religions Solidarity across the Generations Further Reading

Ecofeminism Movement that wants to ecologize the feminist movement, enrich the environmental movement with feminist social critique, and expose and dismantle the ideologies that support the domination of women and nature. Ecojustice An ecological expansion of our notion of justice extending its range of concern to human impacts on nonhuman life-forms and ecosystems and to future human and nonhuman generations. Green Taxation and Tax Shifting An attempt to incorporate the hidden ecological and social costs of commodities or fossil fuels into the market price so as to give inducements to reduce their consumption and to jump-start new demand for alternatives. Green tax increases can be made practical political possibilities if they are coupled with income tax reductions so that the overall tax burden is not changed. Prudence Principle Ethical action principle holding that when stakes are high, and outcomes are uncertain, one should always prepare so as to err on the side of safety. Sustainability Human productive and consumptive practices that overburden the carrying capacity of ecosystem resources and structures will inevitably crash into biospheric thresholds and limits and simply cannot be generalized across the world’s populations or sustained over the generations.

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Introduction Ecoethics is an emerging discipline that trains moral attention and critical reflection on the vastly expanded range of human productive and consumptive powers that are causing increasing and perhaps irreparable damage to many of Earth’s ecosystems and the human communities and nonhuman species who depend on those ecosystems’ well-being. Ecoethics ponders the significance of how the rapidly rising human population is so widely transforming natural ecosystems that increasing numbers of animal and plant species are being pushed via habitat destruction into endangerment or extinction. Likewise, ecoethics ponders the fate of both humanity and that of all other species as it confronts rising worries about anthropogenic or humancaused global warming or climate-change trends. Ecoethics, as a discipline, carries a distinctive sense of urgency born out of its attention to the dynamic historical growth of both human population and our surging transformative economic energies across the last century and the rising possibilities these powers bring rising threats of truly significant and irreparable environmental degradation and destruction and climate change in the century ahead. Ecoethics looks back in awe at the ancient evolutionary lineages that have flowered on Earth in a remarkable pageantry of life-forms and looks forward with deep anxiety about the well-being of future human and nonhuman generations. It mourns species lost and rainforests cleared; it frets about aquifers being drained, topsoil run off, glaciers and ice caps melting, desertification, coral reefs bleaching, and human communities damaged. It worries as decade after decade slips by with little change in the pro-growth economic agenda of most national governments and major corporations and the desire for increased income and consumption that powerfully shapes most societies. The twentieth century is a century of high drama and the twenty-first will surely equal or surpass it. The twentieth century saw the power of modern science fueling whole new industrial and technological applications that increased humanity’s heavy and oftentimes destructive impact on natural ecosystems even as this century saw the important new sciences of ecology and ethology – the study of animals in the wild – emerge to increase vastly our understanding of life on Earth. There is some pathos in that the century that most exuberantly embraces the new industrial and economic powers to transform the Earth, simultaneously begins to receive reports from the ecological sciences about the marvelous web of intricate relationships between plant and animal species that together help sustain the complex web of dynamic relationships that sustain all ecosystems and ultimately, of course, all human communities. Just as humanity gets truly potent and aggressive capabilities to transform in radical fashion the vast expanse of Earth’s lands and seas,

we learn from the ecological sciences for the first time truly how life – both human and nonhuman – is sustained on this remarkable blue, green, and white planet. Ecoethics seeks to sustain life – in its grand diversity – on Earth.

Problematic: Unsustainable Human Practices Pushing Ecodegradation and Climate Change Ecoethical concern emerged after the end of World War II as new technologies and industrial innovations gave rise to new types of harm flowing from insecticide use in agriculture, nuclear energy in power generation and weapons advances, new forms of petrochemical effluent and industrial pollution, rising acid precipitation from coal burning, and smog alerts triggered by increasing emissions from expanding auto and truck fleets. In 1962, Rachel Carsen published her influential book Silent Spring calling attention to how the widespread use of pesticides, and especially DDT, in agriculture impacts on ecosystems and poisons species, especially birds. Cases such as the 1978 Love Canal toxic scare, the industrial poisoning disaster in 1984 at Bhopal, India, the fire at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in 1979, and the disaster in 1986 at the Chernobyl nuclear power station, near Kiev, sensitized a generation to the rising scale of environmental pollution rendered possible by new industrial, technological, and agricultural practices. Popular recognition of other ecological concerns emerged in the 1980s and 1990s. Scientific studies began to raise the specter of gradual global warming and climate shifting occurring due to increases in human-caused greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide (CO2) given off by fossil fuel consumption, whose scale has accelerated globally across the last two centuries. Likewise, the discovery in the winter of 1987 of a huge hole in the ozone (O3) layer over Antarctica drew world attention to the role the O3 layer in the stratosphere plays in sheltering us from solar radiation and to the way increasing chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) used in refrigeration, air conditioners, aerosol sprays, and in the production of Styrofoam deplete the O3 shield and cause rising skin cancer rates. The last four decades have also seen increasing concern about the many natural wilderness areas and forested regions being cleared for farming, ranching, road networks, and new settlements. Growth in human numbers and in economic activity and power push for the transformation of complex natural ecosystems into ecologically much simpler agro-ecosystems often specializing in vast swaths of monocrop cultivation. Food production for human communities increases but the destruction of the natural habitats of wild animal species pushes these species toward endangerment or further into

Ecoethics

the abyss of extinction. Many worry that the widening scale of tropical rainforest clearing occurring in Central America, the Amazon Basin, Central Africa, India, Indonesia, and the Philippines is especially tragic for it both hammers the planet’s ecological zones that sustain the greatest diversity of animal, plant, and insect species and it greatly reduces a natural biomass sink that is able to sequester CO2 from the atmosphere. Increasingly, people around the world have become aware of the changed conditions of life on Earth. Where once we viewed nature, generally, as a vast and stable grounding for human existence, now the very stability of the planet’s natural systems and climate patterns appear to be rendered problematic by the vast upsurge in human numbers, industrial powers, economic productivity, and globally rising expectations of rates of consumption. History has accelerated in the twentieth century, pushed forward by rapid population and economic growth. In 1900, humanity numbered roughly 1.6 billion and by 2000, roughly 6.1 billion and the current mid-level estimate by the United Nations is that by 2050 human population will stand at roughly 9.1 billion. Likewise, the twentieth century witnessed a vast juggernaut of at least a 50-fold advance in world economic production and consumption. Together, these trends have escalated humanity’s destructive impact on the planetary ecosystem to historically unprecedented thresholds. ‘Sustainable development’ has become a key goal articulated in ecoethics, for it calls for economic development that respects the planetary limits and the needs for sustainability in all spheres of human action and practice. While some worry that the phrase is often used as a smoke screen to hide a ‘business-as-usual’ pro-growth agenda, still the goal of ‘sustainability’ lays out clear ethical and policy markers. Human practices – in agriculture, manufacturing, logging, transportation, and in individual and family consumption – that are unsustainable over the long haul, bear witness, will sooner or later overwhelm basic biological, ecological, or resource limits of the planetary ecosystem and in so doing cause immense damage to ecosystems, animal and plant species, and to human communities. The call for ‘sustainability’ catches how a rapidly expanding and robustly consuming human population is bumping up against the shear ecological constraints of Earth’s life-support systems. Overchopping of trees, overfishing, or overhunting will soon push across critical thresholds and insure greatly diminished tree, fish, or animal populations and, of course, greatly diminished human takings. The ‘sustainability/unsustainability’ axis thus provides a crucially important metric for evaluating diverse spheres of human productive and consumptive activity and for evaluating trends. A few examples will highlight the significance of the concern for sustainability. Currently, the United States with roughly 5% of the

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world’s population emits almost 25% of the world’s CO2 emissions – a key greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming potentials. What happens as the advanced economies of Europe, Japan, and others are rapidly being joined by high-fossil fuel consuming economies of China India, and others? Humanity’s fossil fuel use coupled with massive deforestation has pushed atmospheric concentrations of CO2 from a preindustrial revolution level of roughly 280 parts per million (ppm) to, in 2005, a level of 380 ppm. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – the most authoritative voice on these matters – worries that these numbers could rise as high as 450–550 ppm by 2050. What will be the geophysical outcomes? Rising sea levels? Habitat impacts and plant and animal extinctions? Extreme weather events? Or take another example. The economic rise of China is a remarkable historical event and it highlights in stark relief the issue of planetary sustainability. China has roughly 1.3 billion people and the world’s fastest growing economy. If the average Chinese person were to start consuming seafood on par with the average Japanese person, then it would require the entire world catch of fish to feed this emerging Chinese appetite. If China were to begin to consume on a per capita basis like the average American there would be planetary ecological havoc. This both tells us something morally important about China’s emerging burdens of ecological responsibility and America’s current burden of responsibility for its current practices of overconsumption. Clearly, as the advanced economies of the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan, the European Economic Community, and others are joined by rising economic giants like China and India we will witness an increasingly huge burden on the ecosystems of the planet.

Peacemaking, Global Security, and the Prudence Principle Ecoethics as a discipline is directly related to peace and conflict studies. The environmental history of this century charts the course that humanity has taken in putting ourselves increasingly in conflict with our planet’s habitat requirements, environmental structures, and climate patterns that have given sustenance, nurture, and indeed, given evolutionary form and biological structure to the wide diversity of animal and plant species and whole ecosystems. One of the most glaring divides between peoples is the chasm between the global rich and the poor. Generally, pollution, soil erosion, species extinctions, and their attendant harms fall heaviest on the world’s poor, for the rich have better means of protection, alternatives, or escape. Irresponsibility to natural ecosystems almost

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always carries harm and loss most directly to people most closely dependent for their livelihood and health upon those habitats. Human actions that do violence to natural communities usually entail violence being transmitted through the medium of nature to other humans, especially to the poor. One can better grasp the security threats posed by planetary ecological degradation when one uses the analogy of ‘superpower’ taken from international and strategic studies to highlight nature as a vast system of productive and potentially destructive power. Nature is surely a ‘superpower’ in the positive sense that the productivity and consumption of all peoples is ultimately derived from the originating productivity of the planetary ecosystem. Likewise, actions or policies that simplify or destroy natural habitats, incur massive biodiversity loss, deplete the O3 shield, or force climate change will cause a series of natural planetary or ecosystem reactions that can redound back destructively on humanity. The human casualties thus generated by nature’s ‘kickback’ capacity suggest that we need to recognize nature’s potent ‘retaliatory capacity’ in the face of human abuse. Understanding nature as a superpower suggests that the century ahead will be dominated by a superpower clash between the agenda of the burgeoning global economy – surging with population, economic growth, and dreams of increased income and consumption – and the constraints of the global ecosystem. It likewise suggests that national governments err when they narrowly define national security threats as threats only posed by hostile nation-states and their military arm. To the contrary, it suggests the need to broaden our lens about what sort of threats might genuinely and deeply hurt the health and well-being of the national community and to recognize that ecological degradation and climate change pose threats of such a scale that they deserve recognition as genuine threats to both national and global security. Governments have long applied the prudence principle to justify expenditures of national treasure to ensure national protection in a context of uncertainty regarding a potential threat. Many people hold that it is wrong to be asked to make economic sacrifices at the present time when the prognoses regarding future climate change and biodiversity loss potentials are so uncertain. But needing to act in a context of incertitude is not unusual. When the stakes are high and outcomes uncertain, most people and nations opt to reduce risk. People buy home insurance not because of any certitude about the occurrence of a future fire, but out of a current certitude that a future fire is possible. In terms of threat assessment and response it is the mere possibility, not the certitude, of the threat that matters, both morally and emotionally. Prudence suggests that when the stakes are as high as planetary-wide security, the possibility of future ecological degradation should

justify the expenditures necessary for a timely and forceful action to insure global well-being in the future.

Ecoethics: The Core Principles There are five overarching ethical principles that govern most of ecoethical reflection: (1) the prudence principle of threat reduction, (2) the principle of responsible sustainability, (3) the principle of respect for human rights, (4) the principle of expansive moral considerability, and (5) the principle of ecojustice. The prudence principle has been described above. The principle of responsible sustainability holds affirmatively that the expanded range of human powers to act requires a corresponding extension of the range of human intention and attention to avoid the possible ranges of damage that might flow from our expanded range of powers. It primarily functions to highlight humanity’s increased powers of agency and to place a higher burden on us to be highly intentional about the impacts that flow from our action. The Iroquois Nation exemplified respect for this principle by their traditional notion that tribal decisions must be taken with an eye to their potential impact seven generations hence. The principle of respect for human rights functions primarily to affirm the equal intrinsic moral worth of each human being. It, thus, serves both to highlight the equality of respect owed to each person without regard to their wealth, poverty, gender, race, or national identity even as it affirms positively that all humans have a fundamental right to an unpolluted and ecologically sustaining environment. Negatively, it holds that each person has an entitlement not to have themselves or their family environmentally poisoned or caused harm through anthropogenically caused ecological patterns of degradation or climate change. Similarly, it pushes toward an expansion of direct concern for the well-being of future human generations and the well-being of the planetary ecosystems and the stability of the climate patterns that will be critical to the health and sustenance of those future persons. The principle of expansive moral considerability holds that in making a decision one must ‘consider’ – take into account, seriously assess, and give serious consideration to – the ‘interests’, ‘capacities’, ‘vulnerabilities’, ‘needs’, and ‘value’ – of all living entities and ecological wholes that might be impacted by a decision and forthcoming action or policy. This principle expands the moral sweep of the concern for human rights to affirm the moral importance of considering closely the intrinsic moral value of animal life, plant life, and that of ecological wholes, like a forest ecosystem, a bioregion, or a sea. Practically, this functions to interject a pause in the decision-making process whereby one is obligated to expand one’s range of assessment of stakeholders beyond

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the human-centered and present-generation default of modern Western ethics. This principle of expansive moral considerability turns the moral decision process into a two-stage affair. The first stage attempts to be as inclusive as possible in trying to identify all the relevant stakeholders and values involved. First, you have the expansive question of ‘who or what deserves moral consideration?’ This question is about the evaluations of intrinsic value, basic needs, and fundamental vulnerabilities. The second stage moves to the question of ethical prioritization and ranking, moral decision making, and action. At the second stage, it may be appropriate to give high priority to protecting human life and weighing human life above that of various animals or plants. The principle of expansive moral considerability thus functions to expand our attention to the intrinsic value of nonhuman life-forms. This helps free us from the biases built into the reified anthropocentrism of modern Western ethics even as it separates the issue of moral prioritization at the point of decision and action, off from the push to broaden our recognition of intrinsic value beyond the human. The principle of ecojustice grows out of an effort to engage traditional Western ethical reflection about the scope of justice with contemporary global ecological concerns. Whereas historically justice concerns concentrated on human relations with other humans, the principle of ecojustice has been suggested by many as a fruitful way to expand the traditional sphere of justice concerns (as the impact of human actions on other humans) to consider ‘justice’ in a broader ecological frame that recognizes our complex interactions with the planetary ecosystem. ‘Ecojustice’ does important work by expanding our range of concern both ecologically and temporally. ‘Ecojustice’ expands our ‘justice’ concerns beyond the human, to engage the deep value of nonhuman lifeforms and ecosystems of Earth and also beyond the needs and lobbying of the present generation’s concerns to anticipate the needs of future human and nonhuman generations who have no voice to make their case: We must be their voice.

Reformist and Radical Streams There are reformist and radical streams of ecoethics. The reformist project draws on traditional categories, principles, and perspectives from philosophical and religious traditions of ethics and attempts to stretch these terms to respond to new environmental concerns and responsibilities. Many Western ecoethical reformists believe that while environmental concerns are gravely significant, they can best be dealt with by holding onto our traditional ethical concentration of attention on human rights, intrinsic value and interests, and informing our understanding

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of the human as inextricably conditioned by the wellbeing of the ecosystems and climate stability of the planet. In this way, ecoethical reformers can acknowledge the revolutionary character of modern and contemporary history and still argue that our traditional Western moral traditions are both relevant and sufficient to engage responsibly with these current, massive challenges. The radical stream of ecoethics, however, tends to hold that the revolutionary character of the environmental thresholds that humanity is crossing demands a strong critique of Western human-centered ethics and a more thorough-going expansion of a recognition of the intrinsic value of both humans and all nonhuman life-forms with whom we share this planet. The radical stream believes that traditional Western human-centered ethical emphases on the value of human life and interests is a big part of our global problem and argues that we need to think more radically about affirming the intrinsic value of both animal and plant species and also extend our care widely to future human and nonhuman generations. Each of the five core ecoethics principles, noted above, are interpreted in both reformist and in more radical ways. Concerns about prudent action, insuring sustainability, the importance of human rights, an expansion of justice out to nonhuman life-forms and to future generations – all of these build from quite traditional moral concerns enshrined in Western ethics. While ecological concern is currently understood on the global spectrum as progressive politically, in important ways ecoethics – both in its reformist and radical streams – is deeply conservative. It draws from basic conservative concerns of conservation, preservation, and the support of human well-being.

Human-Centered Approaches Western Anthropocentrism Historic roots

Dominant ethical traditions in Western culture have emphasized the value of human life and have failed to voice much concern for the value of other forms of life or the natural environment. Certainly, different voices – both philosophical and religious – have at times drawn attention to the need not to be cruel to animals and the importance of caring for them, but the ethical weight has fallen most consistently on a strong affirmation of the uniqueness of human life, its high value, and the moral centrality of its protection. Affirmations of humanity’s unique rationality, capacity for language, or possession of an intellectual soul have each grounded, at various times, an ethical emphasis on the inherent value of human life. The ancient Hebrews affirmed both animals and humans as God’s beloved creatures, but humanity was

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said to be created alone in the ‘image of God’ and to hold ‘dominion’ over other living creatures. By emphasizing God’s transcendence the Hebrews split the sphere of the sacred off from the world of nature. Still, their acknowledgment that the Earth is the Lord’s checked their understanding of their dominion over nature from sliding into a warrant for complete domination. Dominant schools of Greek philosophy stressed the purposefulness of nature with its unity, order, and teleology, and the distinctiveness of human rationality to discern nature’s order. Stoic thought held that the natural universe constitutes a vast community and that humanity must cohere our actions to the universe’s order. Still, the Greek tendency to underscore humanity’s rationality tended to justify a belief in human superiority over the rest of nature and a moral justification for humanity’s use of animals, plants, fields, and rivers. Aristotle illustrates this view in his Politics where he states, ‘‘Plants are created for the sake of animals, and the animals for the sake of men. . . .’’ The early Christian communities generally followed the Hebraic understanding of humanity’s God-given dominion over the rest of nature. As Christianity spread throughout Greece and the Roman Empire, however, it picked up Neoplatonic philosophical and religious emphases on divine transcendence from the physical world of mundane matter, flux, and darkness. Christians followed the general Hebraic view that nature is created by God and thus is good, but over time Christianity came to stress humanity’s distinct rationality. A heightened anthropocentric concentration of moral attention went hand in hand with a corresponding ethical depreciation of the value of nonhuman creation. Various theological schools in Medieval Christianity came to develop a more robust appreciation for the doctrine of creation and the essential goodness of nature, but still this did not displace the dominance of the anthropocentric scale of value enunciated by Aristotle. Martin Luther (1483–1546) and the other Protestant reformers focused on the problem of justification of a sinful person before God. This new emphasis in theology intensely scrutinized human emotion, action, belief, and behavior, but its intense focus on one’s relationship with God and one’s human neighbors left little moral energy to attend to possible human obligations to the natural world and its nonhuman species. Modern intensification

The rise of modern science in Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries intensified a sense of human separation from, and superiority over, the rest of nature. Francis Bacon (1561–1626), Rene´ Descartes (1596–1650), and Isaac Newton (1642–1727), along with other scientists, mathematicians, and philosophers, gave impetus to a new understanding of nature as a vast machine. As the

mechanical model took hold, ancient notions of nature as an organic whole animated by inherent, vital energies pushing growth and motion toward certain ends gave way. Where the new philosophy was allowed to account for the motion of human bodies via appeal to mechanism, the essential core of the human – mind and soul – were excluded from mechanistic explanation. Thus, the human was understood as radically distinct and unique in a world understood as a vast field of machines and inert forces. By its sharply drawn divide between humanity and the rest of nature, this new mechanistic philosophy gave potent sanctions for scientific experiment, technological transformation, and industrialization. Modern ethical anthropocentrism was given its classic expression by the great German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1803), as he responded to the new sciences and stressed the radical differences between human and nonhuman life. For Kant, only rational beings deserve the designation of ‘persons’, while other living beings lacking rationality, such as animals or plants, are properly classed as ‘things’. While persons are, ethically speaking, ‘ends-inthemselves’, ‘things’ have value only as a ‘means’ to the service of human ends. Persons enjoy inherent value, while animals and plants have mere instrumental value – value derived from their usefulness in serving human interests and goals. While Kant explicitly rejects cruel actions toward animals, his conceptual framework defines animals, plants, and the rest of nature as a sphere of things devoid of intrinsic moral value or worth in themselves. Kant and other enlightenment philosophers applied the notion of rights to humans because of humans’ unique rationality. Animals and plants, however, devoid of rationality, seemed to lack subjectivity and agency and thus, could not be the bearers of rights. By taking humans as the paradigm case of moral value, enlightenment liberalism provided a powerful rationale for extending rights and affirming the dignity and equal moral worth of classes of humans heretofore excluded, such as peasants, slaves, and women. However, by enshrining rational agency as the litmus test for admission into the moral community, liberalism provided an easy conscience for not extending direct moral concern to nonhuman life.

Anthropocentrism Environmentally Informed Modern environmental awareness has contributed directly to the recognition that human life, rights, and welfare are threatened by water and air pollution, soil erosion, habitat loss, species extinction – the disruptions that may flow from climate change. While many argue rightly that environmentalism requires a radical critique of the anthropocentric ethical tradition, it is nonetheless clear that concerns for human self-interest and welfare, once informed by the findings of the ecological sciences,

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have been historically the most potent rationale for environmental protection legislation. In the 1960s, the rise of ecological science with its close attention to the complex interrelationships between humanity and the rest of nature broadened our understanding of how environmental trends and developments could impact heavily on human well-being. While the ecological sciences are encouraging many to hold that animals and even plants have significant inherent value deserving of direct moral respect and care, still appeals to human welfare hold potent moral force in pushing for environmental protection and policies aimed at promoting ecological sustainability.

Animal Welfare Approaches Many ecoethicists worry that human-centered approaches to environmental ethics and policy are theoretical halfmeasures doomed to trying to protect nature while, at the same time, theoretically undercutting the generation of any direct sense of obligation to nonhuman nature or sense of close connection to the natural world. These ecoethicists argue that we can no longer hold human life alone among all the myriad sorts of life on Earth as having inherent moral value. They advocate a shift from human-centered to biocentric ethics and propose we recognize inherent value not just in human life, but in animal and plant life as well. For these theorists, ecoethics is primarily an extension project, taking the established moral consensus about the important moral status of human life and extending the border of the class of beings and entities that are said to have inherent value or moral rights or to be deserving of direct moral consideration. History of Emerging Attention to Animals The Scottish moralists – Lord Shaftesbury (1671–1713), Francis Hutcheson (1694–1746), and Adam Smith (1723– 90) among others – placed ‘sympathy’, ‘sentiment’, and feelings of compassion at the center of the ‘moral sense’ and thus helped pull ethical theory away from its intense focus on rationality as the key to value. British utilitarians, such as Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832), picked up this ethical emphasis on ‘feeling’ and centered their new theory on the concern to maximize pleasure and to minimize pain and suffering. The range of direct moral compassion, Bentham believed, should extend not just to rational beings, but should be expanded to include the entire class of sentient beings, including any being capable of experiencing pain or pleasure. In England, the impact of the utilitarians’ reform agenda pushed many to join movements dedicated to the ending of cruelty to animals, along with parallel

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reformist efforts to eliminate slavery, promote the enfranchisement of women, and regulate child labor practices. In 1824, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was formed and it began to work for the elimination of blood sports like bull-baiting, bear-baiting, and dog- and cock-fighting in addition to passing anticruelty legislation for domestic animals and pets. In the first half of the nineteenth century, such sentiments crossed the Atlantic and, in 1866, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) was founded. Contemporary animal welfare debates are informed by the scientific study of animals, especially, animals observed in their home habitat. By the 1950s and 1960s, the emerging science of ethology, the study of animals in their interactions in the wild, gave new appreciation for not only the complex ways animals interact with their habitat, but also for their often formidable powers, adaptive behaviors, and complex sociality. Primate specialists broke new ground in studying chimpanzees in Tanzania and mountain gorillas in Rwanda and Congo. Other ethologists explored chimpanzees’ ability to learn and use American sign language. These and other important studies have contributed greatly to our understanding of the complexity of many species behaviors, social relations, levels of cognition, and interactions with their environment. Utilitarian Animal Welfare Ethics Animal welfare ethics was widely popularized by Peter Singer’s 1975 book Animal liberation, which develops the utilitarian ethical insight that moral consideration must be extended to not just rational humans, but all sentient life forms, that is, all those capable of experiencing pain or suffering. Since the beginning of this century, mainstream animal welfare societies had focused their attention on humane treatment of cats, dogs, horses, and wild animals, but Singer and others began to examine the inhumane treatment of animals in modern agricultural production and laboratory testing. Singer understands the exclusion of moral concern for animals, what he dubs ‘‘speciesism,’’ as directly parallel to other forms of unjust exclusion found in racism and sexism. He holds that the ‘‘basic moral principle’’ is the ‘‘equal consideration of interests’’ and believes that it should be extended to all beings with the capacity of having interests, that is, to all animals that enjoy sentience. The equal consideration of interests, for Singer, does not entail equal or identical treatment or the extension of equal rights to members of different species. He does not argue that human life and animal life have equal moral value. Singer’s goal is not to diminish the value of the human, but to extend our recognition of value to animals, who by virtue of their sentience have significant interests

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that impose strict duties, on humans, of moral consideration and care. Where Singer acknowledges that it is appropriate to give moral priority to the human in most cases where we are forced to save either a human or an animal, he still believes that it is morally wrong to allow minor human interests to override the major interests of a sentient animal. Accordingly, Singer argues that many widespread human uses of animals are morally wrong, including our current factory farm methods of raising animals for meat, our use of animals in many scientific and industrial laboratory experiments, our hunting and trapping of wild animals, and our use of animals in circuses and rodeos. For certain tribal communities, Singer holds that killing animals for food may well be a necessity and therefore, may be morally justifiable, but he holds that citizens in most industrialized societies can easily sustain themselves through a healthful diet without resorting to the use of meat supplied via factory farm techniques. Animal Rights Approach A number of theorists have come to join Singer in his rejection of the abuse of animals in factory farming, meat consumption, hunting for sport, and use of animals in laboratory experiments, but they also believe that utilitarianism is not the best ethical theory for supporting moral respect for animals. For utilitarians, the main harm of the factory farming system is not so much that it kills animals, but that it causes animals to suffer both in life and in death. Many theorists suggest that deontological traditions of ethical reasoning based on the acknowledgment of strict duties actually articulates better the sorts of obligations and care we owe animals. This approach has been articulated most forcefully by Tom Regan, an American philosopher, who radically revises Kantian ethical reasoning to argue for the inherent value of higher animals and the legitimacy of ascribing rights to such animals, especially the ‘‘right to respectful treatment.’’ Whereas Kant held that only humans have inherent value, Regan argues that all beings that are ‘‘subjects-of-a-life’’ have an ‘‘experiential welfare’’ and thus inherent value that deserves respect. Whereas for Kant the moral community consists of rational humans understood as ‘ends-in-themselves’, for Regan, the borders of the moral community are expanded to include both rational moral agents and human and nonhuman nonagents, ‘moral patients’ – human infants, young children, the mentally deranged, and normal adult mammals. Individuals with inherent value cannot be treated merely as ‘means’ to some other ends but must be regarded as moral ends-in-themselves. Thus, such individuals are owed ‘respectful treatment’ as a matter of strict justice. This duty is a prima facie duty, not an absolute duty, for it exists in the company of other such duties that

can, under certain circumstances, legitimately override it. For example, in a case where a lifeboat will only sustain four individuals, yet four humans and a dog are crowding on, Regan thinks it morally justified and not speciesist to push the dog off. He holds that the death of a normal human poses a ‘‘greater prima facie harm’’ (by foreclosing greater opportunities) than the death of the dog. In practical terms, Regan’s animal rights approach holds that vegetarianism is morally obligatory and calls for the end of factory farming, which ‘‘violates the rights of farm animals.’’ Likewise, he is against the use of animals in scientific, educational, or commercial testing procedures and is against sport hunting and trapping because these, he believes, all violate the rights of animals. Regan and other deontological or rights-based theorists believe that their rejection of the use of animals in laboratory testing is on firmer ground than any utilitarian rejection of animal testing, because, for utilitarians, if the overall consequence of animal testing would produce the ‘‘best aggregate balance of good over evil,’’ then the testing of animals must be judged morally obligatory.

Ecological Ethics Ecological ethics has developed as moral reflection has attended to three historic developments: the Darwinian Revolution, the rise of the ecological sciences, and the growing visibility of significant cases of ecological degradation. Darwin’s theory of evolution based on the principle of natural selection was first promulgated in his classic work The origin of species in 1859. This book provided a persuasive account of the evolution of discrete forms of life via advantageous adaptations to the conditions and resources of their natural habitat. Darwin drew attention to the historically dynamic exchange between and among individuals, species, and environment. Likewise in 1871, in The descent of man and selection in relation to sex, Darwin explicitly focused on how humanity is subject to the same evolutionary laws governing the rest of nature and that we, like all other animals, have descended from simpler living forms. In stressing our kinship with other apes Darwin forced us to take seriously our animality as an important component of our humanness. The rise of ecological science in the twentieth century offers a new model for understanding the natural world and humanity’s place within it, and in so doing, challenges the grounds of the traditional anthropocentric restriction of ethical concern solely to matters of human life and well-being. Just as ethology insisted on examining animals in interaction with natural habitat, ecology came to focus on humans, animals, plants, and the nonliving natural environment as a complex system of interaction and interdependency. From its origins, ecology focused on the whole system of complex interrelations that sustain

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individual organisms. The term ‘ecology’, like the term ‘economy’, is derived from the Greek word oikos, meaning house. Ecology, as Barry Commoner notes, is the ‘‘science of planetary housekeeping’’ for it studies the patterns, relationships, and structures that sustain species diversity and the richness of life on Earth. While animal welfare ethics concentrates on the value of animals, ecological ethics expands the circle of moral consideration further, to include plants and nonhuman natural entities such as river systems and ecosystems. Some believe any ethic that extends direct moral concern to all living entities should be understood as an ecological ethic, while others would reserve the label of ecological ethics only for those ethical approaches that both extend moral concern to all living entities and place a moral priority on the well-being of whole ecological systems – natural communities or aggregates such as habitats, ecosystems, and species. In what follows we distinguish between individualist ecological ethics that extend the range of care to all living beings but continue with an individualist analysis of moral worth, and holistic ecological ethics that both extend the range of care and places priority on the common good of the ‘whole’ over that of individual entities or ‘parts’.

Individualist Ecological Ethics Much of ecological ethics draws its inspiration from the remarkable vision of Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965), a Swiss physician, philosopher, theologian, and musician, who developed an influential philosophical ethic centered in a ‘reverence for life’. Where utilitarians such as Bentham and Singer would draw the line of moral consideration to include only animals with the capacity of sentience, Schweitzer felt that all entities that are alive – animals, plants, insects, and simple organisms – deserve our reverence and moral respect. Others have followed Schweitzer’s lead in extending moral concern beyond the sphere of humans and animals. Kenneth Goodpaster, for example, holds that all living entities have interests in ‘‘remaining alive’’ and these interests are morally significant and deserve moral consideration from humans. Still, he acknowledges that not all that lives shares the same level of moral significance. As one contemplates a path of action, one must directly consider all the sorts of living entities impacted on by one’s action. However, it remains appropriate that in some circumstances there may be morally compelling reasons to still opt for a course of action that will kill or injure certain living beings. Schweitzer and Goodpaster both wish to expand our moral concern beyond a focus on humans or sentient animals to consider the inherent moral value of plant life, insects, and earthworms. However, Schweitzer and

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Goodpaster, like many animal welfare ethicists, continue to focus on individual living organisms. While their analysis is helpful as far as it goes, yet their general approach fails to engage questions of the moral value of ecological communities or ‘wholes’ such as species or forests, marshlands or other ecosystems.

Holistic Ecological Ethics The land ethic

Aldo Leopold is considered by many to be one of the major contributors to ecological ethics. After training and work in forest management, he became a professor of wildlife management at the University of Wisconsin. In 1947, Leopold brought his ruminations about the need to extend ethical consideration to the natural environment to completion in his seminal essay The Land Ethic, the final chapter of his book, A sand county almanac. Our relation to land, he notes sadly, typically remains governed by strictly economic considerations of profit, a perspective that entails ‘‘privileges but not obligations.’’ All ethics, he believes, is rooted in a ‘‘community instinct in-the-making,’’ and he calls for recognition that we are part of the broader natural community and owe it duties of care for both its well-being and our own. ‘‘The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land.’’ He believes that ecological awareness requires dethroning the human from a traditional status of ‘‘conqueror of the land-community’’ to that of ‘‘plain member and citizen of it’’ holding ready respect for one’s nonhuman ‘‘fellow-members’’ and for the entire natural community as a whole. Whereas most of us in urbanized and developed economies have been trained to view humans as active and nature as the passive field of resources awaiting our manipulation and use, Leopold applies ecological insights to describe nature as a dynamic field of energy exchanges that make possible the sustenance of all life-forms including the human. He writes of ‘‘the land pyramid,’’ whose base is the soil system that in conjunction with the layer of plants captures solar energy and harnesses it for growth. The ecosystem functions, for Leopold, as a ‘‘fountain of energy’’ circulating vital power up from soil through food chains and returning it back to soil as plants and animals die and decay. This ecological perspective suggests directly, for Leopold, a key ethical rule: A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise. (Leopold, 262)

Likewise it underscores why ecology has been called the ‘subversive science’ and why ecoethics likewise is in some ways a subversive ethics. Western anthropocentrism to this day, draws energy from the Aristotelian, Platonic,

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Medieval, and Enlightenment philosophical privileging of the grand metaphysical and societal hierarchy of elites over commoners, the wise over strong backs, men over women, and humans over all other life-forms. Ecologists like Leopold present us with a potent shift of perspective. An ecological perspective, rather than privileging the higher attends to the way ecosystems function and the way food chains work. In fact, the planetary life-system works from bottom up. The primary producers who capture and utilize the Sun’s energy are the photosynthesizing grasses and plankton. When, like Kant, one starts with distinctive rationality as the key category, then one’s attention becomes captured by humans and the remarkable fellow primates and dolphin high up on the ‘chain of being’. But when one adopts an ecological frame, one’s attention is captured first by the biotic base of grasses and plankton that photosynthesize, and in so doing, give energy and life to the planet. Deep ecology

Rooted in a strong critique of human-centered ethics, deep ecologists call for a broadening of empathetic identification with the entire Earth community and all of its members. Concerned about surging ecological degradation and species extinction rates, deep ecologists advocate a significant lessening of humans’ destructive impact on the natural environment by radical alterations of humans’ productive and consumptive practices and a reduction in human population levels. First outlined by Arne Naess, a Norwegian philosopher, and developed by George Sessions, Bill Devall, and others, deep ecology seeks to move beyond shallow, reform environmentalism based on traditional humancentered concerns. The proponents of deep ecology understand it as an evolving movement open to many insights from many communities and cultures around the globe. The movement’s fundamental norms are ‘Self-realization’ and ‘biospherical egalitarianism’. The first refers not to the little self of each individual but to the great Self of the entire Earth community, the global ecosystem including all its members. Deep ecology is committed to an expansion of our sense of identification with, and participation within, the huge living system of this Self. The second norm, ‘biospherical egalitarianism’, asserts a requirement for a deep and equal respect for all forms of life. This norm flows out of the heightened sensitivity of deep ecologists to understanding all living beings – including humans – as thoroughly interparticipating in a dynamic and complex web of ecological relations that sustains each individual. All living entities – even the ‘lowest’ and simplest plants and animals – contribute to ‘the richness and diversity of life’ and to the stability of the global ecosystem. Accordingly, it seems inappropriate to the deep ecologists to hold that some life-forms have

higher or lower inherent value than others. Still, while deep ecologists hold ‘in principle’ to biospherical egalitarianism, in practice, they acknowledge that some killing and suppression of certain living entities is often necessary. The primary national and international agenda, deep ecologists believe, must shift from ever-expanding profit and growth to ecological sustainability and genuine quality of life concerns. They support decentralization of political and economic power and grass roots efforts to promote policies of ecological sustainability. Deep ecology is as concerned about preserving human cultural diversity as it is concerned about preserving biotic diversity. It encourages people of diverse cultures, religions, and philosophies to provide distinctive and particular grounding and rationales for deep ecological principles and perspectives. Thus deep ecology sees itself as a looseknit global movement enriched by the distinctive contributions of a wide range of religious, philosophical, and political traditions. Ecofeminism

Beginning in the mid-1970s, different feminist theorists began to probe the historical and conceptual linkages between the oppression of women and the domination of nature and to draw attention to women’s distinctive potential for promoting ecological care for the Earth. Just as there are liberal, radical, and socialist streams of feminism, there are diverse streams of ecofeminism. Yet, all ecofeminist thinking shares the view that the heritage of sexism is interconnected with the ideological heritage supporting the human domination of nature. Ecofeminism seeks to broaden the agenda of feminism by showing how a concern to overcome sexism necessarily requires a concern to overcome the ideology of the domination of nature, an important ideological support for sexism. Likewise, ecofeminism hopes to remind the ecology movement that it is not simply human-centered thinking, anthropocentrism, but more specifically malecentered thinking, androcentrism, that lies at the core of our ecological problems. Ecofeminists believe we cannot begin to respond adequately to the core forces that continue to energize the domination and degradation of the natural world without first dismantling male-dominated patterns of reasoning, privilege, exclusion, and hierarchy. Feminist scholars have been leaders in unmasking the ethical distortions rooted in historically reified understandings of nature. Central to the ecofeminist vision is a powerful sense of our interconnectedness with nature and our common solidarity with other humans and life-forms. Against liberalism with its stress on individualism, personal agency, and rights, many feminists highlight relationality, community, and caring responsibility. Ecofeminists pick up this stress on familial and social relationality and enrich it

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with an emphasis on our complex interrelationality with the rest of the Earth community. Given feminists’ sensitivity to how value hierarchies have been used to justify patriarchy and sexism, it is not surprising that ecofeminists are deeply suspicious of value hierarchies in ecological ethics depicting humanity as ‘higher’ or primates as ‘higher’ than other living species. Indeed, ecofeminists often join deep ecologists in noting how the simple grasses, plants, bugs, and plankton are more important, ecologically speaking, than the so-called ‘top’ predators and primates. Ecofeminists often construe nature as the ‘web of life’ and stress the weave of relations that sustain the threads and species. Many worry that talk of animal rights simply drags in the individualist bias of liberal traditions of rights language at a time when we need more holistic understandings of nature and relational accounts of our ethical responsibilities. Ecofeminism is a broadly global movement too. In much of the two-thirds world, women do a significant amount of, and often the bulk of, agricultural work, and they have a direct appreciation for how both family and village well-being directly depend on the protection of the local and regional environment and on its ecological sustainability over time. For example, as Vandana Shiva and others have noted, it was a group of engaged women leaders in the Gharwal region of Indian Himalaya who played a critical role in developing the Chipko Movement, the tree hugging resistance movement seeking to protect the local forests via Gandhian techniques of nonviolent resistance to logging companies who had been given licenses by the distant central government in Delhi to cut down local forests that had, down through the centuries by custom, been reserved for serving general village needs.

Ongoing Points of Contention There remain two major fault lines in ecoethical theory along which disagreement erupts. First, there is the tension between animal welfare ethics, which focuses on the value of discrete individual animals, and holistic models of ecoethics, which place the moral priority on the wellbeing and stability of ecological ‘wholes’, such as ecosystems and species. Second, there is the fault line between those espousing different sorts of species-ranking procedures and those arguing for biospherical or ecological egalitarianism. Classic anthropocentric ethics and newly emergent animal welfare ethics are both comfortable with enunciations of value-rankings for members of different species based on their levels of complexity of experience and subjectivity. Many deep ecologists, ecofeminists, and others resist such assertions of different relative value because they believe that such claims erode the direct

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respect and moral consideration owed to every living animal or plant. Where animal welfare theorists tend to focus on the rights and intrinsic value of each human and animal, often, they have little to say about the interests or inherent value of an animal species, in general, or of an ecosystem, the sustaining habitat of individual animals. Some animal welfare ethicists are concerned that by focusing centrally on the good of species and ecosystems, holistic ecological ethics will allow an easy overriding of the rights and interests of individuals. They worry that an ‘‘ecological fascism,’’ as Thomas Regan put it, will ensue where the good of the aggregate or whole will too easily trump the rights of individuals. While the concern to maintain vigilance regarding the value of individual animals and humans is an admirable moral agenda, it would seem equally admirable to give some direct moral accounting of the interests of ecological wholes, such as species, wilderness regions, and ecosystems in their own right rather than derived from their support of individuals within. To focus exclusive moral attention on the worth of individuals seems to fly in the face of the most central insights of the ecological awareness emerging over the last 50 years regarding the complex ecological interrelationality that sustains all life on Earth. Against those who believe that there exists a necessary ethical choice between individualism and holism, some ecoethicists are attempting to argue for a pluralist ethical view that attends seriously to the value of both individuals and of ecological wholes. Like a good toolbox, ethics, they remind us, must have different tools for different jobs. Likewise, the crude moral hierarchy of classic anthropocentrism must be critiqued, but that does not require that one opt for a flat-out egalitarian position that affirms the moral equivalency of worms, humans, lichens, and wolves. Between crude anthropocentric value-hierarchy and equally unhelpful biospherical egalitarianism, as number of ecoethicists, such as John Cobb and Lawrence Johnson, are attempting to articulate critical ranking procedures that heed the full seriousness of all living entities’ interest in life and well-being and also the significant anatomical, behavioral, and experiential differences between and among members of different species. Such ranking approaches attempt to provide some concrete guidance for decision and action that is often missing from egalitarian-based schemes.

Concrete Spheres of Policy Concern While much energy in ecoethics is devoted to exploring the moral status of animal and plant life and to critiquing anthropocentrism, there are many spheres of environmental concern and policy analysis that engage ethical

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reflection. While some worry that environmental concerns will pull moral commitment and energy away from pressing human rights and social justice issues, most activists and ethicists now see that ecological degradation hits the world’s poor the hardest. Thus, many now see a close convergence between concerns for social justice and for ecological sustainability. Quite helpfully, Dieter Hessel and others have argued for a call for ‘ecojustice’ that broadly integrates both spheres of concern. Thus, while much policy debate remains attentive to biocentric insights and values, still much of it also remains governed by human-centered concerns for present and future human well-being. Population Growth Human population growth roughly quadrupled in the twentieth century surging from roughly 1.6 billion people in 1900 to roughly 6.1 billion in 2000. According to the most recent United Nations population projection global population will most likely rise to 9.1 billion by 2050. It is estimated that 96% of this growth in numbers will occur in developing countries – African and Central and South American nations, India, Indonesia, and others. Population growth soared in the twentieth century and continues to do so in the twenty-first due to medical advances, improved sanitation, and expanded food production, which have made possible heightened human longevity and lower infant mortality. Controversy surrounds the best way to achieve population stabilization. China’s notorious one child per family policy slowed its population growth via coercive measures such as enforced sterilization and abortion. This approach has proved deeply unpopular in China and has been regarded as a violation of basic human rights by many around the world. In recent years, the very notion of ‘birth control’ for many has become associated with governmental agendas that too narrowly target birth reduction and too crudely pressure, manipulate, or coerce people. At the International Conference on Population and Development held in Cairo in September 1994, a new program of action was endorsed that seeks to place birth limitation strategies within a much broader agenda aimed at increasing family and women’s healthcare opportunities, increasing girls’ educational opportunities, empowering women’s employment opportunities, and promoting investment in rural development. When girls are given expanded access to elementary, middle, and high school opportunities and see employment and life-opportunities before them, they typically delay marriage and have fewer children. Likewise, when families are made to feel more secure through better healthcare and employment prospects, they tend to embrace birth limitation voluntarily. Such approaches, rather than employing

top-down models of pressure, shift to strategies that empower girls and boys, families and whole communities. Birth limitation issues remain culturally and morally contested even as they remain of critical importance for future ecological sustainability. The key ethical issue is how to increase access to birth limitation in a way that promotes family and women’s empowerment, is culturally and religiously sensitive, promotes justice for the poor, and balances attention to population growth in developing countries with a sustained and robust critique of the ecologically disruptive consumption explosion in the developed countries and visible among the elite classes and emerging middle classes of most developing nations. Consumption Growth and Wealth Disparity Humanity’s remarkable surge of production and consumption shows no sign of slowing down. Population growth surges and the onrush of the economic juggernaut of the expansion of the global economy is ubiquitous in our daily lives. Together, these place increasing stress on the global ecosystem by pushing wilderness development, forest clearing, soil erosion, species extinction, and climate change. The bulk of ecological degradation is caused by the world’s wealthiest one-fifth – the global consumer class – and the poorest one-fifth. Where the global poor act out of necessity, the global rich do not, and that makes all the difference in terms of moral culpability. The United States, for example, with just 5% of the world’s population produces roughly 25% of the gross world product, consumes roughly 25% of the world’s oil production, and accounts for almost 25% of the world’s carbon emissions which increase global atmospheric concentrations of CO2 and increase threats of global warming and climate change. Much of America’s high per capita fossil fuel usage occurs because the United States has allowed its transportation mix to become excessively dependent on the automobile and light trucks and its urban and regional planning to promote zoning patterns that encourage sprawling suburban growth. In 2003 in the United States, there were 214 million motor vehicles while the world fleet soared to 800 million with roughly 12 million being added each year. Among the major countries the United States, Canada, and Australia – all relatively auto centered in terms of transportation – emit the highest CO2 on a per capita basis per year. In 2003, the average citizen of the United States emitted 19.8 metric tons of CO2 while the average for most European countries was half that figure. The average citizen of the United Kingdom emitted 9.4, the average German 9.8, the average French person 6.2, the Italian 7.7. For the developing world the average is, of course, lower still. The average person of China emitted, in 2003, 3.2 metric tons, the

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average for Brazil was 1.6 while for India it stood at 1.19. Huge wealth and consumption disparities across the globe obviously exist and these highlight how those citizens in the affluent, auto-dominated societies of the United States, Canada, and Australia bear such a high burden of responsibility for contributing so disproportionately to climate change potentials. These rates of consumption disparity pose significant moral issues about the ecological unsustainability of common consumer habits in industrialized countries and the middle class and wealthy elites in developing countries. Habits of high meat consumption impose heavy ecological impacts via the transformation of forest and jungle regions for increased cattle ranges. As more wilderness and jungle are turned into range and farmland, increasing numbers of wild species become endangered or extinguished because of the diminishment of their natural habitat, and the threat of global warming is increased as jungle and forest biomass that serves as a sink for sequestering atmospheric CO2 is reduced. Increasingly, overfishing is depleting both ocean and freshwater fish stocks. A recent important study concludes with alarm that if current trends of fishing in the oceans and seas continue, then we will likely see a collapse of all the world’s major fisheries by 2050. Increasing population growth and agricultural irrigation needs threaten many regions with water shortages as aquifers are drained and river waters diverted. Concerns for social justice as well as ecological sustainability require high-consuming nations to develop policies that sharply constrain their overconsumption and heavy negative impact on the global ecosystem and redirect their energies to developing ecologically sustainable means of production and modes of consumption. It is the globe’s affluent overconsumers who most bear a heavy moral responsibility for changing practices to ensure the protection of Earth’s ecosystems and climate stability. Habitat Destruction and Biodiversity Loss Surging growth in human numbers and in production and consumption increases the pressure of human encroachment on wilderness regions globally. Almost half the forest area that once covered the planet has been cleared, and current rates of deforestation are alarming. As more natural ecosystems are converted into human-dominated ones, more of the planet’s basic food energy is diverted from sustaining a wide diversity of animal and plant species to sustaining the hugely increasing numbers of one dominant species, namely the human. Accordingly, species extinction rates are soaring. Many ecologists refer to our current age as the ‘sixth extinction’ event. In Earth’s long history, there have occurred five other mass extinctions, but ours today is the first for which humans bear the direct burden of responsibility.

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The World Conservation Union estimates that roughly 12% of bird species around the globe are endangered or face an immediate threat of extinction. Among the world’s mammals, 23% are currently threatened. Among the primates – monkeys, apes, lemurs, chimpanzees – almost half are currently listed as ‘threatened’. Thirty-seven percent of hoofed mammals – camels, deer, antelope, rhinos, horses – and 46% of fish species are now threatened. For at least three-quarters of these threatened mammal species, the key factor in pushing their decline in numbers is habitat loss. Plant diversity is important for its agricultural and pharmaceutical potential and for its basic foundational role in ecosystems as food for diverse animal species. Plant and animal species together perform myriad and often unnoted services within the ordinary functioning of local ecosystems. These services range from improving the fertility of soil, to manufacturing oxygen, to stabilizing and filtering watersheds, and degrading corpses back into nutrient cycles. Genetic, species, and ecosystem diversity are precious resources that have evolved down through the eons and they hold the fundamental biological capital of the planet. Biodiversity loss constitutes an irreversible diminishment of the vitality and stability of the planetary community and a direct loss of the biological database on which researchers might develop whole ranges of new medicines, biochemical agents, and food types. Climate Change and Global Security For the last 30 years, there has emerged a rising recognition that increased fossil fuel consumption is forcing more CO2 into the atmosphere even as agricultural production is emitting increasing levels of atmospheric methane (CH4) and industrial processes are emitting CFCs, O3, and other gases that threaten to trap more of the Sun’s heat, thereby, threatening global warming trends with their attendant climate change impacts. At the same time, humanity is surging our fossil fuel consumption and CO2 emission, our advancing jungle and forest clearing are diminishing the planet’s biomass that sequesters carbon from the atmosphere. In 1995, the United Nations-sponsored IPCC (consisting of a network of 2500 of the world’s top atmospheric scientists) announced that there is evidence of a ‘‘discernible human influence on global climate.’’ In their latest 2007 report, the Panel has increased their expression of confidence that signs of global warming are now being plainly observed. They project that atmospheric CO2 levels will reach roughly 500 ppm by the end of the twenty-first century, approaching a doubling of the level of atmospheric carbon before the industrial revolution. They have calculated a number of scenarios characterized by different national and societal policy changes. In their best case scenario, Earth, by the end of the century, will see an average rise of surface temperature of 1.8  C (3.2  F)

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with a likely range of 1.1–2.9  C (2–5.2  F). Such warming levels could be disruptive enough but the IPCC worries most about its worst-case ‘high warming’ scenario in which average temperature, by 2100, would rise to a range between 2.4–6.4  C (4.3–11.5  F) with a ‘best estimate’ of a rise of 4  C (7.2  F). With a broad consensus, the bulk of top climate scientists fear that such ranges of planetary-wide warming will spur glacier and ice cap melting and ocean expansion that will cause rising sea levels to inundate low-lying island nations and coastal populations. In addition, such warming will disrupt many ecosystems and natural habitats as rising temperatures or shifting weather and moisture patterns will mean that certain species of plant life will no longer face the conditions that originally made its niche a hospitable home. If niche conditions change too markedly and rapidly, then many plant species will simply dwindle into extinction unless they are able to migrate via windborne or animal-borne seeds spreading gradually to new ecologically more suitable, environmental niches. In this way, changing climate patterns will be disruptive to plant species and to animal species that depend on the diversity of plant species for food and shelter. Because hurricanes draw their strength from the warmth of surface air, warmer ocean waters will increase the wind velocity and destructiveness of such storms. Just as some nations and peoples bear a greater burden of responsibility for climate change dangers due to their greater emission rates of greenhouse gases, it is likely that certain nations and peoples will bear a greater vulnerability to the impact of climate change. Wealthy Holland can afford to build-up its sea wall of dikes, while Bangladesh and the Maldives, off India’s coast, in their poverty cannot. Large counties with a broad diversity of species will enjoy significantly greater flexibility to adapt to mounting climate change impacts. If a staple crop grown in one agricultural region is hurt via climate change, a nation with some diversity of agro-ecosystems will have some biotic insurance policies to fall back on. Small countries with only one or two major ecosystems will be more vulnerable to climate change because they lack those insurance policies allowing adaptation. Many ethicists believe that justice calls for countries that consume high levels of fossil fuel to take the lead in mitigating climate change threats by restricting their fossil fuel use and patterns of greenhouse gas emission. Many advocate conservation strategies that shift habits of transportation from high airplane and auto usage to a greater reliance on more energy efficient modes of transit such as rail, bus, bicycling, and walking. At the same time, many argue for the importance of halting deforestation and for the need to make a major commitment to reforestation efforts. The goal is for both developed and developing nations to shift to a solar-power and wind-power

economy of renewable energy that gives off no greenhouse gas emissions. Many argue that the market prices of commodities like gas, coal, water, electricity, and food must reflect more accurately the full range of ecological and social costs that flow from their production and consumption. Accordingly, many environmental economists call for ‘green taxation schemes’, for example, on the use of coal, oil, or gas prorated to the amount of carbon emitted and thus, generating a pool of funds that could be used to mitigate the negative impacts of fossil fuel use in contributing to climate change in the first place. The goal of green taxation schemes is to generate disincentives for fossil fuel consumption and incentives for energy conservation, greater research funds for solar and wind alternative sources, and for policies that would promote shifts to solar, wind, and biomass energy alternatives. These taxes, as consumption taxes, are regressive in that they hit the poor and rich with equal weight. Therefore, some system of subsidy to those with small incomes must be joined with the green taxes so as to offset the taxation burden on those of modest means. Also, because schemes that seek to impose new taxes are notoriously unpopular, most environmental economists believe that green taxation schemes can only be made politically feasible if such schemes are combined with simultaneous reductions in other taxes so that tax reductions in say the ‘income tax’ area will offset the tax increases imposed on fossil fuel costs.

Contributions of the World’s Religions If the heart of our unfolding ecological drama lies in the need to restrain human practices that are ecologically unsustainable, then, the remedy lies in empowering broad regional, national, and global movements committed to ecological security, habitat and climate stabilization, and social justice. The global effort to achieve ecological sustainability will draw from the distinct traditions of philosophical and religious ethics in two ways. First, the global ecoethical conversation will be enriched by the distinct philosophical and religious ethical emphases of the diversity of the world’s peoples. Where the West has been dominated by anthropocentric ethics, Asian, African, and Indigenous traditions have often included animals within the moral community and plants and ecosystems within a sphere of reverence and embodied respect. Much can be learned by listening to the wisdom of other cultures. Second, global ecoethical response must occur through empowering local and national movements that work for ecologically sustainable practices and public policies. The slogan ‘‘Think globally, act locally’’ – requires that the energy of diverse cultural and religious traditions will need to be tapped to

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provide vital impetus for change. People may well be more engaged to push for ecosustainability if they come to see how new ecological responsibilities connect to their own deeply held traditional moral perspectives and religious beliefs. Even as biodiversity tends to stabilize and vitalize an ecosystem, so too the world’s cultural and religious diversity can be a powerful force for moral vitality and global responsibility. It is not surprising that many scientists view the world’s religions as potentially important sources for inspiring their membership to engage in the challenge of protecting Earth’s ecosystems. Ecologically concerned Muslims note how the Earth and all in it belong to Allah, the sovereign creator, and not to humans. Humans may use the Earth to our betterment, but acts of ecosystem abuse are failures to act with requisite piety (taqwa). Jews and Christians, too, understand that all of God’s creation is loved by God and is good and worthy of respect and care. The ethical imperative to ‘‘love thy neighbor’’ suggests to many Christians today that they need to recognize animal and plant species and future generations as ‘neighbors’ whose well-being needs to be secured. Judaism’s bal tashhit, the injunction against wanton destruction, is seen by many to apply to practices that promote ecological degradation. Indeed, Jews committed to the need for tikkun olam, the repairing of the world, see this in new ecological ways. Asian religions and the religions of indigenous peoples also offer important energies for ecological responsibility. Buddhist emphases on interconnectedness and the necessity of compassion for all sentient beings directly engage ecological concerns. Likewise, the Noble Eightfold Path, with its emphases on ‘‘right livelihood’’ and ‘‘right mindfulness,’’ offers means for overcoming egoist and consumerist drives. Hindu traditions and rituals stress a sense of divine immanence in mountains, rivers, cows, and trees. Reflection on dharma (righteousness, duty, justice) is being expanded today by a growing number of Hindus to include environmental responsibilities. The Chipko movement, for example, whose name is derived from a verb meaning to ‘hug’ or ‘embrace’, is inspired by these views as it gathers women’s groups to link arms around trees in the Indian Himalayan region to prevent them being chopped by developers. Jainism, with its traditional insistence on ahimsa (nonviolence or noninjury) likewise draws close attention to our actions and impels a potent concern for the entire community of life. So, too, the close sense of kinship with Earth and animals held by the Maya of Guatemala and Mexico, the Lakota of the North American Plains, the Nuer of Sudan, and the Ashanti of Ghana contains an energy of significant ecological potential.

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Solidarity across the Generations Ecoethics seeks to support the values of ecological sustainability, social justice, planetary security, and prudence, but it derives much of its emotional energy and commitment from a critical sense of time and history. It is most sensitive to how we – our generation – have been deeply gifted by previous generations of humans and nonhuman life-forms stretching back through human and evolutionary history. We have inherited a world rich with life and beauty but one that is increasingly vulnerable. We cannot return that gift to previous generations. All we can do is act in gratitude to them and seek to pass on their gift to future generations. Ecoethics begins with a sense that the planetary stakes are high, time is short, and our responsibilities extensive. See also: Animals, Violence Toward; Climate Change: Cooperation and Human Security; Sustainable Development

Further Reading Attfield, R. (2003). Environmental ethics: An overview for the twenty-first century. Cambridge: Polity Press. Beatley, T. (2000). Green urbanism: Learning from European cities. Washington, DC: Island Press. Brown, L. R. (2006). Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a planet under stress and a civilization in trouble. New York: W. W. Norton. Callicott, J. B. (1994). Earth’s insights: A multicultural survey of ecological ethics from the Mediterranean basin to the Australian outback. Berkeley: University of California Press. Coward, H. (ed.) (1995). Population, consumption, and the environment: Religious and secular resources. Albany: State University of New York Press. Curtin, D. (2005). Environmental ethics for a postcolonial world. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Goodpaster, K. (1978). On being morally considerable. Journal of Philosophy 75, 308–325. Gore, A. (2006). An inconvenient truth: The planetary emergency of global warming and what we can do about it. Emmaaus, PA: Rodale. Johnson, L. E. (1991). A morally deep world: An essay on moral significance and environmental ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Leopold, A. (1966). A sand county almanac. New York: Sierra Club/ Ballantine. Naess, A. (1989). Ecology, community and lifestyle. Rothenberg, D. (ed.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Oelschlaeger, M. (ed.) (1995). Postmodern environmental ethics. Albany: State University of New York Press. Peterson, A. L. (2001). Being human: Ethics, environment, and our place in the world. Los Angeles: University of California Press. Regan, T. (1983). The case for animal rights. Los Angeles: University of California Press. Schmidtz, D. and Willott, E. (eds.) (2002). Environmental ethics: What really matters, what really works. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Shiva, V. (1989). Staying alive: Women, ecology and development. London: Zed Books. Singer, P. (1975). Animal liberation: A new ethics for our treatment of animals. New York: Avon Books. Stark, L. (2007). State of the world 2007: Our urban future. New York: W. W. Norton. Warren, K. J. (2000). Ecofeminist philosophy: A western perspective on what it is and why it matters. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.

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Economic Causes of War and Peace Jon D Wisman, American University, Washington, DC, USA ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Overview A Brief History of the Economic Causes of War and Peace Is War Natural? What Economists Have Had to Say about War and Peace

Glossary Financial Capital An ownership claim on real wealth. Stocks, bonds, bills of exchange, and money are examples. Free-Rider Problem Within a market economy, the problem of not being able (without undue costs or appeal to government) to exclude someone from receiving benefits that others have paid for. It results from the failure of markets to efficiently allocate resources in certain instances. Game Theory A procedure for mapping the strategies and corresponding payoffs available to competing participants such as two firms, a firm and a union, or two nations where their decision making is interdependent.

Overview On the most general level, it is hardly surprising that economic forces have been significant in setting the stage for war and peace, since humans are necessarily and fundamentally economic beings. In order to survive and reproduce in a world of scarcity, humans must struggle with nature to meet their needs. But this very condition of scarcity also establishes a reason why groups of humans might fight for limited resources. Yet even though economics and war seem related, no general theory of war and peace has evolved that is widely embraced within the economics profession. This may be due in part to the fact that economists are generally concerned with resource allocation through peaceable means – especially markets – and have not given a great deal of study to the economic causes of war and peace. And, those who have attempted to develop broad general theories of war and peace have not managed to convince their colleagues – much less the wider body of scholars who study the domain – of the explanatory power of their approaches.

The Socioeconomic Dynamics of Peoples at War and Peace The Socioeconomic Dynamics of Peace Creation Further Reading

That is, the effectiveness of one agent’s strategy, depends upon the decisions taken by the other agent. Gene-Culture Co-Evolution An evolutionary theory that argues that genetic change and cultural change mutually affect each other. This is the dominant view among evolutionary biologists of how the human species has evolved. Negative-Sum Game Where the sum of losses exceed the sum of gains for all parties taken together. War is typically an example of a negative-sum game. Neolithic Revolution The beginning of humanity’s adoption of agriculture about 10 000 years ago. It was the greatest economic revolution in human history. It was a precondition for the evolution of civilization.

During the earliest part of human existence economic surpluses were extremely meager such that war offered limited economic benefits. However, with the rise of agricultural society, war came to offer more substantial economic payoffs to the victors. Indeed, for likely victors, war could be more economically beneficial than economic production. Yet war is a negative-sum game. That is, the economic gains of the winner are less than the losses to all participants taken together. Therefore, peace has always offered a higher collective payoff. There has always been an economic motivation for peace. Where the outcome is obvious, it may be better for the likely losers to bribe the likely winners not to attack. It must be emphasized, however, that because humans are social beings, the motivations for war or peace are more complex than such mere calculation of advantage. Indeed, as society became more complex, so too did these motivations. In any event, the evolution of capitalism eventually changed the equation: economic production came to offer

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greater benefits than waging war. The economic benefits of peace increased. The technological sophistication and social coordination that accompanied the maturation of capitalism made war increasingly destructive. Indeed, the level of destructive capacity of potential combatants eventually came to mean that even a victor would lose economically. Yet even as war became ever more destructive, and hence ever more economically irrational, it continued all the same. However, in the latest chapter of humanity, a major war has come to mean potential species suicide, and this, combined with the critical selfinterested individualism that ever-expanding capitalism nurtures, provides grounds for optimism that major wars belong to the past. Yet if the threat of major wars seems attenuated, this does not appear so true of local and more limited wars, especially in the less-developed world. Participants in these wars have often been funded and armed by the world’s major powers. These wars are often driven by population pressures, ethnic hatred, and a struggle for control over resources. Also, the superpowers, following their own geopolitical and economic interest, have frequently intervened militarily in the internal workings of Third World nations. Some of these external incursions have been especially violent and costly in terms of human lives, some major examples being the US in Vietnam, the Soviets in Afghanistan, and more recently the Russians in Chechnya and the US in Iraq. To gain a broad appreciation of the manner in which economic forces have generated the conditions for both war and peace, it is useful to survey broadly the history of humanity. To make this task manageable, this history will be divided into several stages of economic development. Surveying this history will constitute the first part of this article. The second part will examine the question of whether war is natural. Part three will briefly survey the spectrum of theories that economists have formulated concerning war and peace. Part four will focus on the social dynamics of peoples at war and peace. The concluding section will look at the future potential for peace from an economic perspective.

A Brief History of the Economic Causes of War and Peace As human culture has evolved, the specific economic causes of war and peace have not only varied, they have also become increasingly complex. Consequently, a useful overview of the topic can be gained by briefly examining war and peace over the historical stages of economic development. As will become evident, for much of human history – indeed until

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rather recent times – there was no clear distinction between an economy and warfare. War and Peace among Hunters and Gatherers Hunters and gatherers were typically nomadic. They would hunt and gather an area until it was fairly well picked over and then move on, often following the migratory patterns of animals. Because of their nomadic ways, foragers could not accumulate significant material wealth. What material wealth they might possess would be in the form of crude primitive weapons and tools, perhaps clothing and hides for shelter, and ornamental jewelry. Such meager material wealth offered groups little incentive to attack so as to steal others’ possessions. This does not mean, however, that hunting and gathering peoples did not war with each other. Indeed, the personal and social skills necessary for bringing down prey were highly suited for war. And there were motivations for belligerence toward other groups. They might fight for women, or for hunting and gathering rights to specific territories. Until fairly recently, the dominant view was that such warring was quite limited in scope and damage was unlikely to be severe. The reasoning was that unless there was a shortage of promising hunting and gathering territory, groups would not so readily risk death in battle. An economic form of reasoning was believed to have prevailed, one balancing the risk of death from starvation against death in battle. And because groups could usually move on to other territories, conflict was believed to have been more in the form of bluffing, an attempt to convince the opposing group of their fighting superiority and their willingness to do battle. This highly ‘economistic’ view is now challenged. Evidence suggests that warfare in pre-agricultural societies was incessant, driven more by the sexual rewards of being a successful warrior than by economic advantage. Those warriors who had succeeded in killing an enemy sired more children, thereby passing more of their genes into future generations. In this manner, a genetic proclivity for warlike behavior was presumably selected. This proclivity would work even should a warrior be killed. Most hunter–gatherer societies were patrilocal. Wives are sought from outside the band and moved to live with the husband’s family. This means that most of the males in the band were relatives. Thus if one were killed, some of his genes would still pass into future generations. Interestingly, our closest primate relative, the chimpanzee, whose genome is 99% identical to ours, are also patrilocal and share our earlier propensity for murderous raids on other groups. None of this, of course, negates the economic benefits of successful warfare. Annihilating one’s enemies meant reduced competition for scarce resources.

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To minimize risks, such warfare was apparently carried out as raids, ambushes, and surprise attacks. The ideal was to gain or protect territory and to annihilate or exterminate the opponent so as to preclude revenge. According to anthropologist Lawrence Keeley, 65% of pre-agricultural societies were at war continuously, and 87% fought more than once a year. They killed their enemy, taking no prisoners, excepting perhaps women. It has been estimated that about 30% of males were killed in warfare (about the same rate as for chimpanzees). War and Peace in the World of Early Agriculture Although the adoption of agriculture – the so-called neolithic revolution – is typically dated to about 10 000 years ago, it did not begin of a sudden. Groups planted crops at first to supplement food from hunting and gathering. Nor was agriculture chosen because it seemed to be a superior mode of existence. In fact, evidence suggests that given the choice, hunter–gatherers will not voluntarily adopt agriculture. Instead, it is generally believed that the adoption of agriculture was forced by the decline of productivity in hunting and gathering as populations expanded. It was over-hunting and over-gathering, perhaps combined with climatic changes and new technologies, that made necessary the adoption of agriculture. Agriculture means greater human command over the physical world. Rather than foraging for food, humans gained a greater degree of control over their food sources. But agriculture introduced a new problem of major importance. Agriculturalists do not live hand-to-mouth. Instead, they invest long periods of labor in their future food supply. They must await the harvest, or wait until their animals have birthed young and nurtured them to an independent age. The problem is that marauders can sweep in and steal the harvest or poach their herd animals. And after they have done so, the victims are highly vulnerable to starvation. Consequently, the adoption of agriculture created a need for effective defense. Agriculturalists needed to defend their investment in their future food supply, even to their deaths, since they would likely starve if the marauders should win. The existence of a saved food supply, whether in grains or animals, made war far more economically attractive. Harvests and herd animals could present all but irresistible pickings. Agriculture created greater differentials in group sizes, division of labor, and technological sophistication. Clear military superiority could well enhance the chances of plundering raids, or the ability to withstand such raids. Yet if agriculture created surpluses worth stealing, it also greatly increased the potential benefits of trade. A proclivity for trust and coordination was rewarded with the economic benefits of increased trading.

Humans were encouraged to calculate the costs and benefits of cooperation with nonkin others. Pastoral Nomadic Horsemen and Continual War One form of agriculture – pastoral nomadism – became especially prone to warlike behavior. Pastoral nomads herded animals from one grazing area to another. Once horses became domesticated and nomads began moving about on horseback, they became ferocious warriors. Their wealth was in their herd animals, and the skills they needed to develop to protect this wealth against both animals and other groups of humans kept them continually prepared for combat. Their equestrian skills gave them the capacity to strike with lightning speed and terrifying effectiveness. Virtually all adult males would serve as warriors. Thus they had two principal means of acquiring their needed resources: They could tend and breed their herds and they could attack agricultural settlements or other nomadic bands to steal all that was worth carrying off. Their economic well-being depended upon both. Not surprisingly, then, the skill and courage required for attack made war a noble activity within their cultures. Yet their mobility posed serious limits to their economic and cultural development. Without giving up nomadism, they could accumulate only limited wealth. Because of their nomadism, they could not develop a high degree of division of labor or specialization. Consequently, they typically remained poor and illiterate. Nevertheless, their aggressiveness had serious economic consequences. It was to severely retard economic development in many areas of the world, such as Eastern Europe, which suffered continual waves of nomadic attack from the East. Because of their mobility and military skills, they were all but impossible for more settled powers to constrain or control. War and Peace and the Rise of the State As agricultural settlements grew, defense became increasingly specialized. Social power came to be based increasingly on political relations as opposed to kinship relationships. Sociologist Max Weber saw this evolution of the state as a consequence of a group gaining a relative monopoly on violence. In a similar vein, economic historian Douglass North has developed a theory of the state according to which a group with a comparative advantage in violence specializes in offering defense in return for a portion of the output of all producers. This group becomes the state. It should be noted that from the vantage point of economic science, the state can be viewed much like a monopoly business firm, albeit one with unique characteristics. An implicit contract exists between the state and its subjects: in exchange for protection from both external

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and internal aggression, subjects provide the state with resources in the form of tribute or taxes. Its superior fighting power, and hence its high degree of monopoly on violence, gives the state the temptation and potential ability to extract a maximum of taxes from producers. However, the state’s ability to exploit the people within its domain is checked by the threat of revolt and the availability of substitutes. If the state’s tax burden is deemed excessive, subjects might be tempted to give their allegiance to a rival group offering to provide protection for less. They might even prefer the assumption of power by a foreign force. Paradoxically, peace is necessary for economic progress, yet peace can make despotism more readily possible. If a state faces no serious internal or external competition for the allegiance of its subjects, then these subjects have no recourse to substitutes. If the state has no internal competitors, then it need not be so solicitous of its people. If no external competition is in evidence, then factions of subjects cannot flirt with foreign powers in a manner that places checks on the sovereign’s power. Thus, without internal or external substitutes, the state can more readily oppress its people. Its people have no other defense options. A classic example is pharaonic Egypt. With a sea to the north, deserts to the south and east, and semiarid lands to the west, Egypt was relatively well insulated from external aggression. Also, with periodic exceptions, there was little or no internal competition. Consequently, the power of the pharaohs was nearly absolute and their exploitation of their peoples supposedly quite extreme. A second example is that of Rome. The Roman state developed military technology that was superior to that of other states and peoples. Yet more importantly, it developed the economic power and highly sophisticated social organization that gave it clear military superiority over contending political entities. The consequence was that competing political powers were typically defeated. The evolving Roman Empire had, then, two sources of income: It could tax its own citizens, and it could demand tribute from conquered peoples. The Roman state developed a fairly high degree of monopoly power over violence for a theretoforeunparalleled geographic range. This high degree of monopoly resulted in the pax romana, a degree of peace in the Empire that enabled the growth of trade and economic development. This economic dynamism increased the tax base and hence the revenue accruing to the state. Yet the far-flung nature of the Roman Empire meant that internal competition for power was ever-present. This placed a check on the ability of the state to exploit not only Roman citizens but also others within the Empire.

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Eventually, however, Rome lost its comparative advantage in violence. The challenge was both internal and external. Internally, factional fighting weakened the state. Externally, political contenders, adopting similar technology and organization strategies, succeeded in opposing Roman forces on the frontiers of the Empire. If the state is viewed as a unique type of economic agent, then like all other economic actors, the state will attempt to maximize its income. But its power to do so, as noted above, is constrained by the availability of substitutes. If an internal or external contender offers protection for less, then the ruled may switch allegiance. It is for this reason that rulers, like all economic firms, will constantly strive to eliminate all competition. The invasion of the Roman Empire by ‘barbarians’ offered peoples in the Empire substitutes. The invasions may have been successful in part because the invaders offered a better deal – better protection for less taxes or tribute. Once a state is weakened by competition, it may find itself on an ever-accelerating decline. The dynamic works as follows: An attack means that more resources must be allocated to defense. At some point these increased costs will force the state to increase the amount of surplus it takes from its citizens. It must increase taxes, tribute, or confiscations. Such highly unpopular measures cause allegiance to waver. In addition, if the state takes more, economic incentives may be impaired. Why work hard to create a large harvest or amass a large stock of animals if the state is likely to take them away? Instead of putting their wealth into productive assets, people have an incentive to convert it into nonproductive forms of property, such as precious metals, that can be hidden from a confiscating state. Obviously, such behavior reduces a society’s potential economic output, and thus is also likely to erode the state’s revenue base, handicapping its chances of amassing the resources necessary for fending off contenders for power. Ideology can, of course, play a significant role. The state would wish that subjects express ‘product loyalty’. If possible, the state could be expected to appeal to higher motivations such as defending the ‘fatherland’ or ‘motherland’. It would wish to convince its subjects that its cause is the will of a god or gods, a just cause against the forces of evil. Typically a priestly class helped create and maintain such state-supportive ideology. Rulers might even portray themselves as gods, as was the case with Egypt’s pharaohs, or divinely chosen, as was the case in much of medieval Europe. A state’s capacity for waging war is constrained by the amount of surplus output that can be produced. For instance, if people faced such material hardship that they would have to expend absolutely all of their energies producing for bare survival, then no one could be freed from production to engage in fighting. By contrast, if 90% of the population could produce enough subsistence for

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the entire population, then conceivably 10% could engage in fighting. Of course, the amount of surplus created by those in production limits not only the capacity for waging war, but also the size and luxury of the governing or priestly classes. The Rise of Capitalism In premodern agricultural societies, war was frequently a more promising route to wealth than economic production. The spoils of war could potentially make the victors instantly wealthy. The two principal factors of production and hence the two principal forms of wealth were land and labor. Both could be obtained through military conquest. To be useful, conquered land had to be controlled and defended against competing forces. Captured peoples could be returned as slaves to work the land of the victors. Indeed, the taking of slaves was an especially good economic coup. Those taken would typically be old enough to work. The conquered peoples had paid the substantial expense of raising them to that age. Thus the capturing of adults to serve as slaves was a better deal than domestically breeding and raising slaves until old enough to work. Hard work in production, saving, and investment, by contrast, could promise to improve one’s lot, were it not for the fact that brigands or the state stood too frequently ready to take it all away. Indeed, a principal reason why economic development has been so slow to evolve in human history is that property rights have been too fragile. The superiority of war over economic production was expressed in the status relationships of premodern agricultural societies. The highest prestige was held by those in government or in military service. Frequently, the two were indistinguishable. In fact, the only acceptable careers for the nobility were in politics and the military. As the Marquis de Vauvenargues put it in the mid-eighteenth century, ‘‘a man of quality, by fighting, acquires wealth more honorably and quickly than a meaner man of work.’’ Those in production, by contrast, typically commanded little if any esteem. Those in agriculture – the overwhelming majority of the people – were generally not free, being tied to the land as slaves, serfs, or in debt bondage. Those in crafts, although generally freer than cultivators, had relatively little prestige prior to the rise of capitalism. In most premodern societies, those in trade and finance were especially looked down upon. Indeed, their domains were viewed with such disdain and distrust that they were frequently not accepted as full members of society. Instead, trading and banking functions were often performed by metics or resident aliens. Incidentally, the state periodically found it ideologically useful to blame society’s ills on these metics, making it easier to confiscate their wealth.

The slow rise of capitalism in Western Europe became one of humanity’s great watersheds. It set in motion forces that would create not only unparalleled wealth, but also the eventual promise of an end to war. As nation-states evolved in Europe, fueled by the new technology of gunpowder that could lay waste to feudal castles, and by the wealth of expanding trade and commerce, these states found themselves in the unique political situation of a general balance of power. After the fall of Rome, no single political power succeeded in conquering and sustainably controlling all of Europe, not that there were not notable attempts such as those of Charlemagne, Napoleon, and Hitler. This prolonged general balance of power was unique to Western Europe and helps explain its economic success. The consequence of no one power being capable of establishing hegemony over Europe had three major related consequences. First, nations faced the constant insecurity of being attacked by other more or less equally insecure political entities. This nation-state competition created an arms race in which to fall too far behind meant possible conquest by a more advanced enemy. This competition also placed a premium on improving the economic foundations of military might. Second, nation-states had a collective interest in no single power becoming overly strong. Alliances would thus form to preclude an already strong nation from becoming yet stronger by annexing a neighboring territory. Third, nation-state competition made it more difficult for individual nation governments to suppress new ideas, practices, and technological progress. Repressed or fearful intellectuals could often flee to neighboring states to find sanctuary. Some of the best-known examples of this were Re´ne´ Descartes, John Locke, Voltaire, and Karl Marx. In addition, intellectuals, unable for political reasons to publish a work within their own nation, often successfully sought publishers abroad. European nations that attempted to repress technological innovations frequently were forced to relent. A striking example was France’s attempt to outlaw the printing press in order to protect the livelihood of copyists. The consequence was that authors sent their manuscripts abroad for publication, thus not only outflanking the prohibition, but also depriving France of an important industry. Eventually, France was obliged to permit the evolution of printing within its own borders. While capitalism made states stronger by strengthening their economies, it also tended to weaken states’ ability to act tyrannically. It did this by dividing authority or power into two spheres: the political and the economic. As capitalism evolved, the state was forced to withdraw progressively from intervention in the workings of the economy. Although this withdrawal has never been total and there have been reversals, it has generally meant that

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the political sphere occupies itself with the functions of statecraft such as waging wars, making and maintaining alliances, maintaining order, and promulgating laws and regulations (setting the rules of the game). The second sphere of power and authority is the economy. It concerns itself with production and distribution, both of which came increasingly to be ruled by market forces. States discovered, and are still discovering, that economic dynamism is frequently better promoted by leaving most economic matters to the workings of this market sphere. The market sphere grew to serve as a countervailing power to the political sphere. The evolution of capitalism has slowly replaced the premodern logic of economic reward. The potential for attaining wealth through war has declined as the technology of destruction has become ever more sophisticated and widely dispersed. The increasing cost of this technology, along with the rising amount of destruction of wealth that it promised, reduced the probability that the spoils of war could make war economically worthwhile. Further, under capitalism, growing productivity in agriculture meant that this sector would decline in relative importance. With the exception of a few natural resources such as oil and minerals that are highly unevenly dispersed geographically, capturing land promised too little in terms of wealth. Two forces were also generated to serve against the capturing of labor in the form of slaves. First, the growing sophistication of production technology made the use of bonded/slave labor less productive. Second, markets work best if all are free to enter and exit them without coercion. The expansion of markets helped increase the value of freedom generally. Slavery came to be seen as morally wrong. The logic of reward shifted from war and violence to peaceable production. And, although the potential risks and rewards of a military career would continue to confer social prestige upon its practitioners, leaders in production found their social standing continually improving as capitalism evolved. The fuller manner in which the maturation of capitalism favored production over war can be seen by examining the changing relative importance of the factors of production. Economists have long identified the three major factors of production as land, labor, and capital. As agriculture declined in relative importance, so too did land. As manufacturing and services increased in relative importance, capital became increasingly important. The traditional aristocratic class held its wealth in and derived its power from land. As land’s relative importance declined, so too did the power, influence, and status of the aristocracy. The bourgeois class, by contrast, holds its wealth in and derives its power from the ownership and control of capital. The rising importance of capital

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resulted in the ascendancy of bourgeois power, influence, and values. Unlike land, capital is fairly mobile. Machines can be moved. But even more mobile is the ownership claim on capital, financial capital, which provides the capitalist class with great power vis-a-vis the state. Because this wealth is highly mobile, it can more readily escape the control of any particular government. This was noted by Montesquieu in the early eighteenth century. He wrote of how, with the evolution of a form of financial capital, the bill of exchange, ‘‘the richest trader had only invisible wealth which could be sent everywhere without leaving a trace . . . a contrivance which somehow lifts commerce right out of [the ruler’s] grip.’’ The market sphere came to serve as a countervailing power to the political sphere. If government threatened capitalists’ freedom or wealth, capitalists could threaten to flee with their wealth to friendlier locations abroad. Because military strength ultimately depends upon economic power, governments had to be careful not to frighten off capital. They had to provide capital with security. Social thinkers were beginning to recognize that this new economy promoted nondespotic government. For instance, in the mid-1760s, political economist James Steuart observed that a ‘‘modern economy . . . is the most effectual bridle ever was invented against the folly of despotism.’’ As governments became increasingly aware that military strength was dependent upon economic strength, property rights were established that provided producers with greater assurance that their property was secure. Property came to be better protected by more clearly defined and better enforced laws. Note, for instance, the concerted efforts to eliminate piracy on the high seas. The state also offered greater assurances that property could not readily be confiscated by the state itself. Note here, for instance, the protections against confiscation provided by the US Constitution. The consequence was, of course, the unleashing of private incentives, greater economic dynamism, as well as more enduring domestic peace. Just as the rise of the nation-state centralized political power, the evolution of capitalism served to socially disperse power. The rising wealth of the bourgeoisie prompted this class to demand a share of political power. At times this demand expressed itself violently, as in the English Glorious Revolution and the French Revolution. But more frequently, political rights were acquired slowly, bit by bit. With the rise of industrialization and extensive urbanization, the working class also began to demand not only better wages and living conditions, but also political rights and a share of power. Although their struggles were often violently crushed by states representing the interests of capital, for the most part workers gained rights slowly, progressively. Considerably later, women and minorities

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would also petition for their share of political power. The upshot has been that over the history of capitalism, power has come to be evermore widely shared. As a result differences have come to be resolved more frequently within a peaceable political arena as opposed to through civil strife or civil war.

Is War Natural? Is warlike behavior part of the very nature of human evolution? Evolutionary, anthropological, archeological, and historical evidence suggests that war and warlike behavior have been an ever-present part of the human experience. As social animals, it would appear that humans have always divided themselves into groups with radically different attitudes toward members versus nonmembers. Violence against members has been discouraged, often by violent punishment. Violence against nonmembers, by contrast, has often not only been tolerated, but encouraged and rewarded as well. War as Economic Behavior As we saw earlier, in a world of scarcity social groups struggle against each other, perhaps war with each other, for control or possession of limited resources such as, first, women and hunting and gathering territories, and later, cultivable land and slaves. War, then, can be a form of competition for command over scarce resources. Anthropological studies have found that in general, the scarcer resources are, the greater the likelihood of war. But where resources have been abundant and widely distributed, competition has been rarer. Much has been made of a number of societies, such as the Bushmen of Africa’s Kalahari Desert, or the Eskimos, that have been relatively peaceable. Clearly resources were not abundant for such peoples. But what explains their peacefulness is that they were uniquely situated in territories where competition through war for scarce resources could not have paid off. Because global human population has been rising ever more rapidly since the beginning of the adoption of agriculture, all societies would ultimately face others in competition for scarce resources. The central problem of the science of economics, the problem of scarcity, has meant that human groups were bound to war against each other whenever the payoff was adequately attractive. War as Evolutionary Strategy War would also seem natural from an evolutionary perspective. Groups that were most successful in increasing their command over scarce resources would have a

survival advantage that would permit them to increase their populations, and thereby pass on their genes or culture to more progeny. Evolutionary biologist David Barash addresses the naturalness of war by noting the fitness argument: ‘‘The fitness of individuals within a group suffers most when that group is forced to share resources with individuals of another group. The personal fitness of these individuals could therefore actually be increased by warfare, provided that the cost of waging war is less than the benefits received.’’ Thus from both economic and biological vantage points, it would appear that at least in the early history of humanity, war was not the consequence of some selfdestructive passion run amok. Instead, it would appear to have been critical to the very process of human social and cultural evolution. Indeed, Darwin and others since have suggested that the evolution of human intelligence is linked to the pervasiveness of warfare in the human experience. Barash suggests that ‘‘Our most dangerous predator may well have been ourselves, and selection would have favored those individuals whose brains were large enough to permit them to enter into workable alliances and to coordinate defense – and aggression – against other groups.’’

What Economists Have Had to Say about War and Peace Although war made sense from an economic perspective until fairly modern times, economists have had relatively little to say about it. Indeed, until fairly recently, most economists who expressed an interest in the economic aspects of war and peace were outside the mainstream of the profession. War and peace have simply not been given enough attention within the profession for a general consensus to evolve as to their causes. In this section, the major contributions will be briefly surveyed. Heterodox Economic Thinking on the Causes of War and Peace Early modern economic thinkers, Adam Smith and the classical school, generally believed that commerce, and this evolving system that was to be called capitalism, would engender greater peace among nations. They did not greatly expound on the topic. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, however, were of a different mind. They saw war as part of the process of what they called primitive accumulation in the early evolution of capitalism, whereby violence was used by the capitalistcontrolled state to expand profitable opportunities. At the turn of the nineteenth century, theoreticians of imperialism – some Marxist, others not, believed that imperialism in search of resources and markets was

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necessary to avoid economic stagnation. State capitalist rivalry for imperial domains would likely lead to war. Two non-Marxist heterodox economists who discussed war were Thorstein Veblen and Joseph Schumpeter. Both essentially viewed participation in war by capitalist societies as irrational: Veblen saw such participation in war as a cultural perversion, stemming from an earlier predatory stage from which humanity might never escape. Much of his biting pessimism was grounded in the proclivity of humans to ‘‘sink their force in the broad sands of Patriotism.’’ Schumpeter also saw war as atavistic behavior, and optimistically as something that capitalistic rationality – which he saw much in the manner of Max Weber’s spirit of capitalism – would move us beyond. More recently, a group of neo-Marxists, often referred to as the monopoly capital school, adopted a Keynesian inadequate-aggregate-demand framework. Keynes had argued that government spending is necessary to maintain adequate aggregate demand to prevent an economy from falling into recession or depression. The monopoly capital school argued that the capitalistcontrolled state could only spend on those activities that might enhance capitalist profits, and the spending which was most easily justifiable to the greater public was on war. Consequently, they argued that capitalist states were destined to maintain warlike postures towards other states in order to maintain profits and avoid economic crises. Since the early 1960s, attention has also been focused on what outgoing President Eisenhower termed the ‘‘military–industrial complex.’’ The general idea has been that the military and industries that benefit from military spending work together to generate public anxiety concerning external threats to the nation and its interests. This view often shared much with monopoly capital theory, as well as the long-standing charge that, because war frequently is good for the armaments industry, and profits generally, capitalism as a system is prone to war or warlike behavior. Most economic research in this area has been descriptive and not highly theoretical. It has also been performed by mainstream as well as heterodox economists.

Mainstream Economic Theories of War and Peace When mainstream economists have taken up the topic of war, it has usually been in terms of viewing state actors in the same manner that individual behavior is viewed. That is, they have extended the neoclassical economic model to an analysis of the behavior of rivals in war. Central to this model is the assumption that actors are rational, selfinterested maximizers, and that decisions are made at the margin.

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War and warlike behavior are depicted as rational for one or more parties. By rational it is meant that war follows some sort of at least rough and ready calculation of the estimated costs and benefits of varying degrees of warlike behavior. These calculations include assessing the rationality of bluffing, or mere warlike behavior that can not only be rational, but even superior to actually going to war. For instance, a weaker power, knowing it would lose a war, might nonetheless pretend that it would fight if provoked. Only by threatening the stronger power with losses might the weaker discourage the stronger from actually attacking. Mainstream economists have also taken note of the parallels between the strategies employed by a small number of firms within an industry (e.g., duopolies and oligopolies) and the behavior of states in potential military competition (incidentally, the famous early nineteenth-century German military theoretician, Carl von Clausewitz, had also compared war to business competition). The models of game theory especially have been used in trying to better grasp the options available to military rivals. Within such models, war is viewed as a negative-sum game. That is, whereas war might be rational for one or more parties, it is irrational for all participants taken together. It might be tempting to think of it as a zerosum game, whereby whatever one participant wins, the other loses. But war is in fact a negative-sum game because the gains of the winners will be less than the losses of the loser. War costs resources, and thus if war could be avoided, these resources could in principle be allocated to meet other needs. The particular strength of this sort of modeling is that it makes clear how we would expect rival parties to behave in their strategies toward one another on the field or at the bargaining table. In fact, this basic framework of analysis has been widely used by noneconomist students of international relations and politics such as Robert Gilpin and Bruce Bueno de Mesquita. Although this model possesses considerable explanatory power, its limitation is that it focuses on individual decision makers as rational, self-interested maximizers. It ignores and thus sheds no light on how individuals are socialized, on how their preference functions are formed. It does not tell us how or what individuals come to understand as their self-interest. Moreover, although the model of rational maximizing behavior may characterize the strategies rivals adopt toward one another, it appears limited in two interrelated senses. First, it presumes that the self-interest of political leaders and their constituents are essentially the same. Second, when it comes to actual conflict, the model of rational maximizing behavior does not seem to fit the

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varied accounts we have of how individual participants behave in battle. More to the point, it would appear that when members of one side behave as purely self-interested actors, they decrease their side’s chances of success. The reason, of course, is what economists call the free-rider problem. If individuals self-interestedly shirk their fair share of the battle effort, a breakdown in cohesion threatens. Success in battle, and especially extraordinary upsets where a physically weaker side trounces a stronger opponent, typically is found to involve a certain esprit de corps – an especially strong commitment on the part of individuals to the group – precisely what the mainstream model has difficulty explaining. This suggests, then, that whereas war may be rational for a group, it requires nonrational motivation on the part of individual actors, especially those who do the fighting. But if this is the case, how might it have come about in terms of human evolution?

The Socioeconomic Dynamics of Peoples at War and Peace As noted above, war and warlike behavior are understandable from both evolutionary and economic perspectives. Through evolution, war and warlike behavior appear to have been selected. Some evolutionary biologists and ethnologists argue that this selection was genetic. Others, perhaps wishing to hold out for greater optimism, suggest that it was not genetic, but instead that such behavior has been culturally selected. But the dominant view among evolutionary biologists and ethnologists today is what they term ‘gene-culture co-evolution’, by which they mean that there are, as Charles Lumsden and Edward Wilson have put it, ‘‘reciprocal effects of genetic and cultural change within the human species.’’ Cultural change prompts genetic change and vice versa. Group Commitment Just as warlike behavior appears to have been selected, so, too, it would appear, have two correlative social tendencies: The first is the extraordinary commitment of members to the group during war or its threat. This is hardly surprising, since a group for which such commitment was weak would be at a severe disadvantage in a struggle for resources, and therefore would be at a disadvantage in terms of survival, in terms of passing its members’ genes or culture on to progeny. It is even plausible that our very sociability, at least to some extent, was selected for as a result of the benefits of social cohesion during threats from external aggressors. Evidence of this group commitment under threat is everywhere in our cultural history: War occasions the

most splendid acts of heroism. It is during war that individuals most readily sacrifice their lives for others. Nietzsche and many others since have noted that men are more tightly bonded together in combat than at any other time. This bonding appears to be pleasurable. Indeed, there appears to be an exhilaration in identifying with a group in conflict with others. We also see this proclivity for group commitment in sports. For instance, rarely is anything really to be gained by spectators if their team wins, yet at times there is actual carnage among spectators not content with the outcome of the game. Clearly something other than rational self-interest is at play here. Indeed, evolution may have selected a tendency always to locate an external foe. Societies rarely seem to be without one. Thus, for instance, is it more than mere coincidence that in the US the two great political purges of the twentieth century came in the wake of each of the two World Wars, when new serious external threats had yet to be clearly identified? If such a tendency always to locate an external foe had been selected in evolution, the payoff would be the social cohesion that would better enable society to minimize the free-rider problem. Loyalty to Leaders The second corollary of warlike behavior that appears to have been selected has to do with the degree of loyalty given to leaders when the group is threatened. Such loyalty would enable a more coordinated, quicker response to an enemy attack or change in strategy. In fact, it seems that leaders rarely achieve as high a degree of loyalty from their followers during peace as during war. As biologist John Alcock has put it, ‘‘paradoxically, war depends on the cooperative, group-bonding, authorityaccepting aspect of human behavior.’’ Because leaders more readily receive stronger loyalty and respect from followers when external aggression threatens, they face an all-but-irresistible temptation: They can benefit if they can convincingly keep alive a perception of an external threat. They might even be expected to craft measures against other powers that will provoke a limited amount of real threat. Hegel made note of this phenomenon when he wrote that ‘‘peoples involved in civil strife . . . acquire peace at home through making war abroad.’’ Loyalty to Leaders in Modern Times As to the social functioning of loyalty to leaders, an important difference exists between early human society and quite recent history. Most of our human past occurred prior to the adoption of agriculture. Presumably, during this long period of human evolution, a tendency for group commitment and loyalty to leaders in times of danger was

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being selected for. Note that during war leaders were the most vulnerable to injury or death. They were literally leading the band into battle. Hence, any temptation to reap loyalty and respect by showing courage before the enemy had to be tempered by the risk of serious injury or death. Since the adoption of agriculture, however, human society has become progressively more complex: differentiated in terms of economic function through the division of labor; and stratified with respect to wealth, status, and power. There are two consequences of this that are of interest for grasping the nature of modern war. First, what is rational for certain segments of society is no longer necessarily rational for all. Some may disproportionately reap whatever benefits there might be from war, whereas others, especially those who go to the front lines, may disproportionately bear the costs. The second consequence of this explosion in social complexity is that there has been a decreasing cost to leaders of yielding to the temptation to seek the loyalty and respect of followers by keeping alive the perception of a threat of external aggression. As societies have become increasingly complex, their leaders have progressively retreated from the front, such that failure in war has generally become personally less costly to them. This does not, of course, imply that leaders could with impunity maintain loyalty by generating external hostilities. If they pushed too hard, a catastrophic war might result, robbing them of power and even life. On the other hand, if members of the group view the alleged threat as either not real, or as not sufficient to merit the cost, then the leader loses credibility and possibly also power. In the US during the Vietnam War of the late 1960s, this appeared to have been the fate of President Lyndon Johnson, and the Iraq war appears currently to pose the same threat to President George W. Bush. It may be the case that leaders do not always consciously and in a calculatingly rational manner weigh the political benefits against the costs of warlike behavior. Such behavior might come forth spontaneously, in a manner akin to group commitment or the followers’ allegiance to the leader. Ideology also comes into play. Since the evolution of complex language, ideology is likely to have been important in maintaining group cohesion and effectiveness in warlike behavior. But in the earliest eras of human history, a threat was generally visible for all to see. In more modern times, by contrast, a threat may be protracted or not always clearly in evidence. Here ideology becomes more critical for maintaining loyalty both to the group and to the leader. Indeed, ideology production becomes an industry, keeping alive depictions of enemies as not actually or fully human; or as godless; or as advocates of barbarian social institutions; or as people of an Evil Empire or members of an Axis of Evil or as terrorists.

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Alternatively, a society’s ideology may vest its distant leader with supranatural powers such as quasi-godhood, divine status, or divine rights. In modern times there is reason to believe that it has been during periods of economic instability that leaders have been most tempted to use the external threat strategy to achieve support. During economic crises, leaders would be most tempted to craft limited measures against another power in order to provoke a manageable amount of real threat. The reason is that beyond providing for defense and domestic law and order, the most important criterion for judging leadership today is its ability to maintain material or economic prosperity. A number of events in recent times lend support to this hypothesis. World War II grew out of the worst economic depression in the history of capitalism. By contrast, a widespread peace movement and detente came forth during the extraordinary worldwide economic progress of the 1960s. When economic dynamism began to falter in the 1970s, detente began to be drowned out by rattling sabers. Note also that during the 1960s there was widespread confidence in governments’ ability to use Keynesian tools to insure macroeconomic stability, whereas during the late 1970s and early 1980s laissez faire doctrine resurfaced, arguing that governments are essentially powerless to stabilize economies. There are many examples of how the threat of foreign aggression has served to legitimate political power. For instance, the rise of the first socialist country following upon the Bolshevik Revolution provided the capitalist power elites in Western countries with a powerful ideological tool for delegitimating the progressive aspirations of the working class. The foreign threat was far more than just an enemy country, it was an insidious ideology – communism. Communism was likened to a metastasizing foreign cancer that was ever-threatening to enter all parts of the social body with disastrous consequences. It was godless, soulless, and if not successfully fought, it would make slaves of everyone. Progressive ideas were readily depicted as communist-inspired and those who advocated them as secretly working for the worldwide communist conspiracy. The Bolshevik Revolution granted capitalist interests an ideal foreign enemy. This foreign threat was continually used to legitimate intervention in the internal affairs of Third World countries. Communism had to be stopped from expanding into other parts of the world, even if it meant overthrowing democratically elected governments, propping up dictators, or backing death squads. A second successful, long-lasting modern example of how the threat of foreign aggression served to legitimate political power was the Soviet Union. From 1917 until its fall, it was relatively easy for the Soviet power elite to maintain the credibility of a constant external threat. No sooner had the Bolsheviks taken power than England,

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France, and the US set out to undermine the socialist experiment, especially by arming and financing the White Russians. Throughout the 1920s there was a perceived threat that the socialist experiment would be undone by hostile capitalist countries. So strongly did Stalin feel this that in 1931 he announced: ‘‘We must make good this distance (to become a first-rate economic and political power) in ten years. Either we do so, or we shall go under.’’ His words were to be prophetic – the Germans crossed Soviet borders 10 years later. And then, at the end of World War II, the US dropped atomic bombs on civilian populations in Japan, suggesting to the Soviet peoples how ruthlessly inhumane the capitalist US might be in the pursuit of its interests. In good part due to geography, few peoples have suffered the ravages of war as much as the Soviets – 20–30 million perished during World War II. Consequently, in a sense, the Soviet political elites had it made. They could justify the lack of democracy or civil rights, and the sorry state of their economy, as necessary for defense in an aggressively hostile capitalist world bent on their destruction. The same dynamic may well explain Fidel Castro’s prolonged dictatorial control of Cuba. Since his revolutionary assumption of power, the US has maintained a highly visible hostile stance towards his rule, supporting an invasion by counterrevolutionaries, maintaining economic sanctions, and, it has been rumored, planned or supported assassination attempts. A more contemporary example is what occurred in the wake of 9/11. George W. Bush assumed the US presidency in early 2001 with what many judged as inadequate electoral legitimacy. And the economic conditions during his first years in office were disappointing. Most visible was the sharp collapse of stock market prices: During Bush’s first 2 years in office, the S&P 500 declined by 33%; $4.9 trillion in equity assets evaporated. Unemployment during this period increased by 40%, from 4.2% to 6%. Between January 2002 and January 2003, the dollar declined by 20% against the Euro. Such conditions would usually result in low popularity ratings. And President Bush’s ratings were quite low until the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, DC. In the ensuing 2 weeks, as Americans joined in solidarity, his popularity rating soared. Within the US he came to be widely seen as a great leader. And thereafter, the threat of terrorism was used to legitimate considerable restrictions on civil liberties.

The Socioeconomic Dynamics of Peace Creation As noted earlier, the evolution of capitalism made economic production more profitable than war. Indeed, as it made war ever more destructive, it eventually made it

economically unprofitable even for the winner. Capitalism generated and fed upon evermore sophisticated technology and evermore sophisticated social coordination. The two world wars of the last century – separated by a mere quarter century – made strikingly clear capitalism’s destructive potential. Approximately 8 million died in World War I, approximately 50 million in World War II. And then the cost of a major war between the US and the USSR became potentially infinite. The threat of species extinction as a consequence of a US–Soviet war meant that leaders were once again on the front lines. They would also perish in a full war. Their ability to play the external threat card to rally support was constrained. And in spite of slogans such as ‘better dead than red’, popular support for a major war was unlikely to materialize. Quite convincingly, sophisticated atomic weapons and the means of delivering them over great distances are widely credited with effectively ending major wars. When viewed in the full sweep of human existence, there is an interesting sense in which humanity has come full circle. In its earliest history as hunters and gatherers, war did not have a very high economic payoff. There were simply too few material benefits to win from military victory. Warlike behavior in the form of bluff might pay off, but actual combat with the threat of serious injury or death was not generally a good risk from an economic point of view, although as noted earlier, there may have been attractive sexual payoffs for warring individuals that augmented their potential for passing their genes into future generations. Today major war has again become a poor economic risk. Destruction might be total. But even if more limited, it is likely that no power would win economically. It would appear that there is no remaining economic rationale for war. However, it is not just the threat of species suicide or the lack of an economic payoff that is turning peoples in the advanced wealthy nations against war. Capitalism has set in motion a number of dynamics that serve to increase the probability of peace. Capitalism took war to its necessary conclusion. It produced the wherewithal that enabled total war and ultimately total destruction. But capitalism has done more than this to give peace a chance. It has changed how people think about the world and themselves. It has made them evermore critically minded. The most frequently noted consequence of capitalism is that it has brought forth a level of affluence that even the most starry-eyed of past visionaries could hardly imagine. Less noted is that as people become materially wealthier, they come to value their lives more. Note for instance that with ever-greater wealth, people generally become more cautious. They eat more healthily, they smoke less, drink less, wear seat belts, and in general

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place a higher value on personal safety. This latter point is strikingly obvious to anyone from a rich nation who has the opportunity to drive on the roads of a relatively poor country. With so much more to lose, increasingly wealthy populations might be expected to show less willingness to engage in war. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels argued that under the regime of capitalism, ‘‘all that’s solid melts into air.’’ Economist Joseph Schumpeter referred to this dynamic character of capitalism as ‘‘creative destruction.’’ What these social thinkers were alluding to is the tendency of capitalism to destroy all traditional social institutions, beliefs, and attitudes. Believing that the ‘dead weight of the past’ fettered human progress, they by and large thought this was a good thing. However, not all social thinkers have been so sanguine. Capitalism has acted as a ‘corrosive acid’ upon the extended family, traditional communities, rigid class distinctions, and the authority of traditional religions. In doing so, it has thrust humans into social worlds where they sense themselves as increasingly alone. Capitalism means that individuals relate to each other not as traditional norms dictate, but as markets dictate. And in markets, individuals are encouraged to be rational and calculatingly self-interested. The increasing intensity of competition has meant that those who are most successful in pursuing their own self-interest become wealthy, the least successful, poor. Traditional values such as honor, glory, courage, patriotism, and sacrifice for the greater good of the whole have suffered as people become evermore calculating of their own narrow self-interest. The downside of all this is all too obvious and is widely lamented. A clear upside, however, is that individuals are less willing to sacrifice themselves or their economic well-being in war. In pre-capitalist societies, a religious framework served as the central referent of all behavior and understanding. The evolution of capitalism slowly eroded religion’s dominance, and with it the promise of an afterlife. This loss in belief in an afterlife increases the value of this worldly life. Loss of one’s life in war means loss of one’s total personal existence. Finally, for reasons discussed earlier, capitalism has tended to decentralize political power. It has, especially in its advanced form, provided a fertile ground for democracy. Yet ironically, democracy increases the ease with which a leader might lose power, and thus might enhance the temptation to rattle sabers. The 2003 US invasion of Iraq in the wake of the terrorist attacks of 9/11 seems to confirm this point as well as cast a shadow on optimism as to the end of wars. However, because a democratic society is, by definition, a more open society, claims about threats can be more openly challenged. Perhaps not surprisingly, then, empirical studies have found no significant differences in the involvement of democratic versus nondemocratic states in war. Yet democratic states have not warred

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against each other. During the Cold War, both the US and the Soviet Union propped up totalitarian regimes around the globe in a quest to hold them in their respective spheres of influence. Since the end of the Cold War, both capitalism, and to a lesser extent democracy have been rapidly spreading around the globe. But the record so far has been mixed. Authoritarian regimes repressed the violent expression of ethnic differences, and their sudden demise in some areas of the world has created a sesame in which ethnic violence has exploded. The lesson appears to be that democracy is far more complex than political freedom and the vote, and that consequently its peace-bearing benefits flow more readily from a slow relaxation of authoritarianism that provides adequate time for complex democratic institutions to evolve. However, although it may be the case that in the longrun capitalism and democracy evolve together within a nation, it is not so clear that they do so in the international sphere. Globalization has increased the gap between the rich and poor nations, leaving the latter, some contend, in yet more hopeless straits. To many, the failure of the Doha trade talks reveals advocacy for freer trade to be little more than a ruse of the wealthy nations for capturing yet greater shares of the world’s wealth and income for themselves. The go-italone political and military actions of the only remaining superpower have left serious doubts as to whether the world can generate sufficiently sophisticated international cooperation to effectively address severe environmental threats or the spread of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. Ideologically, capitalism appears to be the only remaining viable economic system. However, at present, it does not appear to promise the democracy of nations that the promise of world peace requires. See also: Colonialism and Imperialism; Economic Conversion; Economic Costs and Consequences of War; Economics of War and Peace, Overview; MilitaryIndustrial Complex, Contemporary Significance; Military-Industrial Complex, Organization and History; Trade Wars (Disputes)

Further Reading Alcock, J. (1978). Evolution and human violence. In Farrar, L. L., Jr. (ed.) War: A historical, political and social study, pp. 21–27. Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio Press. Barash, D. (1979). The whisperings within. New York: Harper & Row. Barash, D. P. (1994). Beloved enemies: Our need for opponents. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. Barash, D. P. (ed.) (2000). Approaches to peace: A reader in peace studies. New York: Oxford University Press. Crumm, E. M. (1995). The value of economic incentives in international politics. Journal of Peace Research 32(2), 113–130. de Mesquita, B. B. (1981). The war trap. New Haven: Yale University Press. Gellner, E. (1992). An anthropological view of war and violence. In Hinde, R. A. (ed.) The institution of war, pp. 62–72. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

634 Economic Conversion Gelven, M. (1994). War and existence. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press. Gilpin, R. (2001). Understanding the international economic order. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Keeley, L. H. (1996). War before civilization. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Levy, J. S. (1989). Domestic politics and war. In Rotberg, R. I. and Rabb, T. K. (eds.) The origin and prevention of major war, pp. 79–100. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mueller, J. (1989). Retreat from doomsday the obsolescence of major war. New York: Basic Books.

Neild, R. (1995). Economics and conflict. In Hinde, R. A. and Watson, H. E. (eds.) War: A cruel necessity? The bases of institutional violence, pp. 126–207. London: Tauris Academia Studies. North, D. (1981). Structure and change in economic history. New York: Norton. Shaffer, E. H. (1996). Peace, war and the market. Canadian Journal of Economics 29(2), 639–643. Stone, G. R. (2004). Perilous times: Free speech in wartime. New York: W.W. Norton and Company. Tullock, G. (1974). The social dilemma: The economics of war and revolution. Blackberg: University Publications.

Economic Conflicts See Trade Wars

Economic Conversion Bernard Udis, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA Peter Almquist, US Department of State ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction: What is Conversion? Magnitude of the Problem Today The Economics of Conversion

Glossary Corporate Culture A general term for the elements of decision making, perspective, judgment, and procedure within a company, usually historically established, that characterize the particular company and distinguish it from others. Demilitarization The fact or process of converting a nation’s economy, or the production of a particular company, from an emphasis on military weaponry to civilian or consumer goods. Diversification In this context, the process in which a company oriented toward military production enters a new civilian market without necessarily leaving the existing military market; contrasted with ‘conversion’ in which the company replaces a military market with a civilian one. Economies of Scale In strict usage, a term which refers to a physical relationship in which increases in physical inputs lead to more than proportional increases in output. However, increased output may lead to reduced costs for a variety of other reasons. Thus, volume economies often result where increased cumulative output leads to learning economies on the  The views expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Department of State or the U.S. Government.

The Role of Government Conclusions Further Reading

part of labor resulting from increased experience. Larger outputs also permit the spreading of fixed costs leading to lower fixed costs per unit of output. Technically, it is incorrect to lump these phenomena together and label the package as economies of scale since this ignores the distinction between short- and long-run periods. Economies of Scope A term which describes a situation where savings derive from a firm’s producing a variety of different products rather than their separate production by different firms. This often permits a fuller utilization of productive factors. Multiproduct firms often reflect the presence of economies of scope. Oligopoly An economic condition or entity in which a few companies dominate a large market; that is, trade is less concentrated than in a monopoly but there is a lack of general competition. The production of US military aircraft can be regarded as an oligopoly. Transaction Costs Likened to friction in mechanical systems, they emerge from ‘planning, adapting, and monitoring task completion’ (Williamson, 1979). They may have a significant impact on decisions within a firm about what should be produced ‘within’ the firm and what should be purchased from outside vendors.

Economic Conversion

Introduction: What is Conversion? This article discusses economic conversion, as well as why it (and its close relative, diversification) is an analytically challenging issue; why conversion has proven difficult in practice; recent experience in the United States, Western Europe, China, and Russia; and the role of government policy. Economic conversion (or, more commonly, simply ‘conversion’) has come to mean different things since Isaiah’s vision 2700 years ago of a world in which people would ‘‘beat swords into ploughshares, spears into pruning hooks.’’ Conversion has been used to describe retraining demobilized soldiers, applying military technology to civilian needs, reusing military bases for civilian purposes, applying military equipment to civilian uses, or even development of ‘dual-use’ technologies. Its most common meaning and the focus of this article, however, is the redirection of industrial resources (such as personnel, skills, machinery, technology, and funds) from serving a military market (mainly weapons-related) to serving civilian markets. In general, conversion efforts are linked with reductions in domestic military spending (after all, firms are unlikely to withdraw by choice from a sector of the market that is stable or growing and in which they have been successful). The enterprises responsible for military production, whether private or state-owned, have a variety of responses to such reductions, from closing subsidiaries that are no-longer profitable to increasing efforts to export military goods and technology. Their responses will have implications for political leaders who must deal with issues such as unemployment, retaining a defense industrial base, and weapons-export decisions. If it were easy to shift to civilian markets, conversion could provide an alternative to the social disruption (such as layoffs) and security problems (such as proliferation of weapons systems or technologies) of reducing defense spending. Process or Policy Conversion is an especially complex subject because it is at the intersection of different analytic disciplines and policy communities. For some, conversion simply describes an economic process of responding to market changes. As defense procurement declines, companies respond in predictable ways: seeking alternative markets, redirecting or shutting down production lines, retraining or laying off redundant workers, and so on. For others, conversion is a policy goal, desirable because it ‘demilitarizes’ the economy, frees resources that can be used to address other social needs, or provides a way to retain skilled labor in existing firms. In making the case for conversion advocates make several arguments,

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many of which are politically or economically controversial: defense spending is less productive economically than other types of spending; a large national defense industry is no longer necessary, making it an expensive luxury; pressure to keep such industries alive will translate into foreign arms sales, perhaps to unstable regions or to rogue nations; a large defense industry will often be perceived by other states as a real or potential threat; arms control efforts are more difficult when they mean job losses; the government should not allow defense enterprises to fail because of the danger of losing talent; and defense industry workers deserve special protection against job losses. In other words, there are those who describe the process of conversion and those who prescribe a policy of conversion. Levels of Analysis Further complicating the issue of conversion are the different levels of analysis. Analyses of conversion vary from micro – at the level of the individual worker or firm – to macro – focusing on national policy to aid the conversion process through monetary (central bank) and fiscal (tax and expenditure) policy. It is important to be aware of these different levels, because an apparent success at one level can obscure what is actually taking place at another. For example, a decline in the proportion of a company’s output going to the military may reflect simply closing (rather than converting) a subsidiary or the acquisition of a civil subsidiary; no conversion takes place but the balance in the company’s annual report between military and civil work changes. Diversification, whether through acquisition of a new subsidiary or indigenous development, and conversion are related but quite different concepts. Both deal with problems of adjustment following significant reductions in military spending and the subsequent release of resources, financial, human, and physical capital (plant, equipment, and materials) with minimum dislocation and wastage. However, conversion, in the narrowest sense, focuses on ‘in-place’ adjustment in which one bundle of resources previously devoted to production for military purposes is refocused to produce civilian goods and services, transforming the same land, plant, equipment, labor force, management, and materials that had previously created weapons or other military system components into a producer for the civil sector. Diversification, in contrast, means entering a new market without necessarily leaving the old. While conversion implies substituting the civil market for the military, diversification implies adding the civilian market through, for example, acquisition of a new (civilian) subsidiary. In some discussions, diversification is also used to describe adding additional military markets through exports. Diversification into civilian markets can be an important part of the conversion process, helping an enterprise acquire

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experience, expertise, and market share. However, output for the military customer may continue or even increase in absolute terms as a firm diversifies, even though the military ‘proportion’ might decline. A Difficult Process Conversion provides a challenge to scholars and policymakers. In general, studies show that under some circumstances some companies can successfully diversify into other areas, including from military to civilian. Some individuals can apply the same skills used in the defense industry to equally desirable civilian jobs. Some technologies originally developed for the military can find civil markets or be used to produce for the civil sector. However, studies also suggest that the very characteristics that contribute to military production may impede success in the civilian market. Most efforts at diversification from military to civilian markets, regardless of country, have been difficult or unsuccessful, making firms and governments wary of such an undertaking. Skilled defense workers generally have a difficult time finding comparable jobs in the civilian sector, if only because the sector may already be saturated. As a result, the implications for government policy are ambiguous, and depend more on existing views toward industrial policy and intervention in the market than on the specifics of conversion. US Reconversion after World War II The successful conversion efforts in the United States after World War II were the result of specific circumstances that highlight the changes that have taken place since that time. On the supply side, many of the principal producers of war material had historic markets to which they were able to return. Indeed, it is for this reason that the term used to describe the situation was not ‘conversion’ but ‘reconversion’, emphasizing a return to their traditional activities. The shift of major vehicle producers in the United States, such as Ford and General Motors to the production of military aircraft was facilitated by the government’s use of emergency powers to prohibit the production of new passenger cars during the war. In addition, the long years of denial of desires for consumer goods resulting first from the Great Depression and later from shortages of such items, buttressed by the large accumulation of savings, led to an explosion of consumer demand at the war’s end. Even then, despite the favorable conditions, not all efforts at conversion were successful. In the United States, and to a lesser extent elsewhere, World War II involved the sudden redirection of civil industry to serve the military needs of the country for a relatively short period of time. In the course of the Cold

War (which lasted more than 40 years), specialized defense companies developed because of the increased peacetime spending on military technology. Such companies cannot ‘return’ to recent prewar civil production. As a result, the post-Cold War conversion was quite different and, in many ways, more difficult than the post-World War II experience.

Magnitude of the Problem Today One might view the magnitude of the conversion problem to be reflected in the size of the share of total sales revenue of supplier firms derived from military customers. A useful table highlighting this information appeared in the 26 June 2006 issue of the trade paper Defense News. It presented a ranking of the world’s largest 100 defense firms by defense sales revenue in 2005 together with the percentage that such revenue constitutes of the total sales revenue for those firms in that year. Several interesting facts are revealed in that table. One is the geographical distribution of the producers: 43 are located in the US and the remaining 57 are located elsewhere. The UK leads with ten; followed by Russia with nine; Japan seven; France and Germany five each; Israel four; two each for Australia, India, Spain, and Sweden; and one each for Brazil, Canada, the Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, South Korea, and Switzerland. The inclusion of the Netherlands is misleading for the listing represents European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS), registered in the Netherlands for legal purposes but actually a partnership of firms in Germany, France, and Spain. In terms of spread throughout the distribution, when broken into deciles in decreasing order of sales size to the military, the US was represented by firms in all ten groups, followed by the UK in seven, Japan in five, France and Israel in four, and Germany in three. Companies from the remaining countries were represented in only two or one of the decile groups. While the overall mean share of total sales to the military was 55.6% for the entire sample, the degree of military dependence varied widely with the absolute size of total military sales revenue. For the largest 50 firms, military sales revenue accounted for 50.8% of total revenue, while for the bottom half of firms, military dependence averaged 60.4%. Of the 50 largest defense suppliers, seven reported dependence in the 90–100% range with one firm at 100%; among the bottom half, 14 had defense dependence in the 90–100% range with four firms reporting 100%. It would appear that larger firms had a more diversified customer base with, possibly, a corresponding lesser conversion problem. Geographically, of the 50 largest military suppliers in the 90–100% dependency range, four were in the US, and one each in France, Russia, India, and Israel. Among the

Economic Conversion

bottom half of firms in the same level of dependency, the US and Russia each accounted for four, Israel for two, and one each in France, Norway, Germany, and Australia.

The Economics of Conversion Market Loss at the Firm Any market adjustment, including defense conversion, will be more easily accomplished when the level of economic activity is high and the available supply of labor and other resources are nearing complete utilization in meeting the demand for goods and services in the aggregate. Under such circumstances, resources newly released from the military sector would more easily find employment elsewhere, other things remaining unchanged. In the following discussion, however, emphasis will be focused on microeconomic considerations surrounding an individual firm’s response to a loss of some fraction of its traditional market. Decisions at this level in response to changes in purchases of military equipment lead to adjustment problems confronted by individuals and communities. Figure 1 presents a schematic representation of the resource reallocation process triggered by reductions in defense expenditures (the most likely motive to undertake conversion). It traces the direct and indirect consequences of such cuts as they reverberate through the military, defense industries, and their network of suppliers with consequent local, regional, and international implications. Much of the conversion literature focuses on public policy options and the possible role for government in spurring or facilitating conversion. However, diversification in general, and conversion in particular, are probably shaped principally by private decision making at the level of the firm in market-based economies; in such economies an optimal policy probably involves some mixture of private and public policies, even if the latter are essentially permissive in nature. In practice, how different countries have addressed the issue of conversion has varied with the degree of dependence on the market. In this sense, adjustment to reduced military spending in market economies is not different in kind from other changes in demand in a dynamic market setting, whether a decline in demand for automobiles (due to trade policies), lumber (due to environmental policies), or tobacco (due to health policies). Like reductions in military spending, each of these examples involves changes in public policy. The principal difference in conversion is the nature of the customer (typically one government buyer) and the type of market this creates. Several options are available to military producers experiencing a decline in domestic defense spending. In general, the producers must find new markets for existing products, new products for existing markets, or new

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products for new markets (See Figure 2). For the defense enterprise, finding new markets for existing products typically entails expanding military exports. Finding new products for the existing domestic defense market might require further concentration on core competencies and a focus on innovation to increase the likelihood of capturing a larger share of a declining market. The riskiest strategy may be the third: seeking new products for new markets. These approaches (and a firm may try more than one, simultaneously or sequentially) are targeted at replacing declining domestic markets and represent logical attempts to retain or expand economies of scale or of scope and to minimize transaction costs. The search for market expansion, however pursued, involves serious consideration by an organization’s top management of its core competencies and how and where they should be utilized. As a result, firms are constantly reviewing the boundaries that determine which activities should be conducted within the firm, which outside it, and why. A moment’s reflection should indicate the importance of these questions to the issue of conversion. What is conversion, if not a consideration of what activities might be undertaken within the defense firm (or plant) facing drastic reduction in military contracts? In addition to cost considerations, however, product design, market considerations, and profitability are also important ingredients in the success of conversion attempts. As noted previously, however, most efforts at conversion narrowly defined have failed. Under these circumstances, many firms have turned to export expansion, international collaboration, and mergers and acquisitions. Defense conversion is difficult for the same reasons that any economic change is difficult. But these challenges are compounded by the unique position of the defense sector within each country: how the sector affects politics and how politics affect the sector. In the following sections, we will focus on the general problems affecting conversion efforts and some of the varieties of experience in different countries. We will begin by discussing some of the general obstacles and difficulties encountered in attempting conversion and diversification and developments in export efforts by defense firms. Thereafter, we present specific illustrative cases and experiences in the United States, Western Europe, Russia, and China, and we conclude with a discussion of the role of government and general conclusions. Obstacles to Conversion Conversion is nothing new to the defense industries. Many firms and governments have explored or pursued conversion efforts, especially with the winding down of the Cold War from the late 1980s. Global defense spending (in dollars in 1994) peaked in 1987 at about $1.3

638 Economic Conversion

Cuts in defense spending Impact on defense industries, research agencies, and industries supplying armed forces:

Armed forces cuts in: • Military manpower (numbers, skills) • Civilians employed by forces • Base closures

• • • •

Job losses Plant closures Effects on supplier network Conversion/diversification

Location effects (towns, regions, rural areas)

Release of resources for other uses: • Manpower – which skills? • Land • Facilities (bases, plants)

Problems • Entry into new civil markets • Unemployment of labor and capital • Time period of adjustment

Public policy • Assisting reallocation of resources • conversion • Retraining • retooling

Private policy • New start-ups • Conversion (redeployment of existing assets) • Diversification (new investment)

Unrelated conversion or diversification

Related conversion or diversification • Horizontal (dual-use) • Vertical

Figure 1 Derived from Sandler, T. and Hartley, K. (1995). The economics of defense. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, and Leech, D. P. (1993). Patterns of diversification. Supporting material for Adjusting to the Drawdown: Report of the Defense Conversion Commission. TASC Report TR-582341 1. Washington, DC: Defense Conversion Commission.

trillion, then fell to a low of about 750 billion in the mid1990s, returning to about $1 trillion in 2005. The decline is reflected in the loss of nearly 10 million defense industry jobs worldwide, from the 17.5 million peak in 1988 to the 7.5 million in 2003. In addition to shedding employees, defense firms also undertook a process of consolidation, mergers, and restructuring that resulted in

a smaller number of larger corporations and holding companies. The deep declines in spending provided a strong incentive to convert; the limited successes in doing so, especially when compared with alternatives such as exports or consolidation, reemphasize the difficulties of conversion. But what are these difficulties, and where do they originate?

Economic Conversion

Technology

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Market Traditional

New

Declining sales to domestic markets

Exports

Traditional

Inc

rea

sin

gr

New Innovation in core competencies (‘hunker down’)

isk

Diversification and/or conversion

Figure 2 Effect of Technology and Market on Ease of Conversion.

As noted earlier, conversion successes (defined as substituting a civilian market for a military one with minimal changes in personnel, technologies, etc.) are relatively rare. Indeed, entering a new market is almost always difficult for any firm. But beyond the general challenges associated with entering new markets, there are crucial differences in the nature of the military and civilian markets that profoundly affect the firms themselves. The fundamental difference between military production and civilian production has been, and remains, that the former is driven mainly by performance requirements set by (typically) a single buyer, while the civil market is driven mainly by costs (determined by constantly changing market pressures). The emphasis on performance (quality) for military hardware, the associated escalating costs, and the radically changed geopolitical situation following the Cold War have led to a situation in which military production has dropped sharply compared to the mass production of traditional military products during World War II and the Korean War. Instead of annual outputs in the thousands, as during the wars of the mid-twentieth century, output fell to the hundreds and, in some cases, the tens.

give up the culture of an aircraft firm and become a more general business-oriented management, a transition they were unable or unwilling to accomplish. The chairman of Boeing, discussing the aircraft company’s merger with McDonnell Douglas, noted that most mergers do not live up to the expectations of the companies. ‘‘The reason is usually that corporate culture issues don’t get addressed’’ (Kitfield, 1997: 40). Other areas in which traditional Cold War military producers experience was different from that of producers in consumer/commercial markets include marketing, advertising, finance, accounting, investment, law and regulation, design, quality control, competition, security, labor relations, intellectual property rights, and many others. Depending on the country, these differences are often so pronounced that firms producing both for military and commercial markets have gone to great lengths to keep their operations completely separate from one another in different departments or plants. While it may be harsh to suggest that the managers responsible to the military customer had developed a ‘trained incapacity’ to survive in commercial markets, it is clear that management optimized for the defense market is likely to be ‘suboptimal’ for the civil.

Culture shock

Not only did such change in output volume affect the familiar phenomena of economies of scale and scope, but it brought a dramatic change in what might be called the culture of the defense industry. When such firms consider a shift to consumer products, culture shock will often be encountered. This point was made by an executive of a Dutch aerospace firm who noted that early efforts by his firm to enter new markets through acquisition failed in part because the acquired firms retained their peculiar corporate cultures in the newly merged enterprise. This required the top officials of the newly integrated firm to

Origin of such differences

Such incapacity is mainly the result of the unique conditions imposed upon firms and their managers by the military buyers. In the United States, such conditions are imposed by both the military services and the US Congress. Studies of the weapons acquisition process in the United States conclude that the web of regulations has historically been the principal factor preventing the consolidation of military and civil production work in the same facilities.

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Some of these regulations focus on controlling the export of military technology. For example, the US International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) requires detailed investigation of both the product and the planned destination prior to the approval of the transaction and the award of an export license for items on the US Munitions List. In practice this has meant that a product intended for the civilian market, but containing a part deemed sensitive under these regulations, faces a complicated process prior to its export. Similarly, Japan initially limited export of Sony’s popular Playstation two video gaming system due to Japanese government concerns that Sony’s technology could have military applications. Also controlled for export are so-called defense services which include design, development, and engineering as well as the manufacture of defense items. In addition, if a project is classified as falling under ITAR, an export license must be obtained prior to the sharing of information with foreign nationals, which is defined to include scientists and students. For example, two US aerospace firms agreed in 2002 to pay $32 million to settle charges they had violated export control regulations in advising China on possible reasons for a series of Chinese satellite launch failures. Any hope of utilizing civil–military consolidation as a key to more easily permitting the shift of production between military and civil work will likely be largely frustrated by such phenomena. The transaction costs encountered in such an effort appear to be overwhelming. A caveat is necessary here resulting from the most recent change in the geopolitical situation which reached a pinnacle with the 11 September 2001 attacks on the US homeland together with subsequent fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq and the growth of terrorism and asymmetric warfare. In this new security environment the most technologically sophisticated weapons systems designed for a war with another advanced nation proved to be of little value leaving US ground forces scrambling for new weapons, tools, and tactics more appropriate for counterinsurgency and urban warfare. This led to the appearance of niche firms unaccustomed to the role of suppliers to the military, often providing smaller products and services drawn from existing civilian markets. Under such circumstances, the military has had to adjust to buying from the civil sector rather than the reverse. So long as the US feels it necessary to prepare for both types of challenge, two different types of procurement systems may be necessary with rather different implications for ultimate conversion/diversification. Varieties of Experience Thus far, we have examined conceptual and theoretical aspects of conversion and diversification. We now turn to

a review of experiences and ‘real-world’ attempts at conversion and diversification in the market economies of the United States and Western Europe (focusing on three key companies as examples), and nonmarket or transitional economies in Russia and China. US conversion experience

Since the 1990s, the US defense industry has placed heavy reliance on mergers and acquisitions, with some firms pursuing diversification and other seeking concentration on defense work. North American Rockwell, for example, sold its B-1 bomber division to Boeing. Subsequently, however, Rockwell Aerospace and Defense was itself absorbed by Boeing in 1996 while Rockwell International (excluding Rockwell Automation) merged with Collins to become Rockwell Collins in 2001. Others, like General Dynamics, chose to concentrate largely in a wide array of military lines with an occasional venture into civilian products. Space limitations prevent a detailed analysis of a large number of defense producers. An interesting analysis developed by CRA International which appeared in Defense News of 22 May 2006 provides a detailed look at aerospace and defense industry restructuring from January 1985 to December 2005 covering 16 major defense firms: thirteen American and three European. However, we have selected three important defense firms for a somewhat more detailed examination: General Dynamics in the US, Dornier in Germany, and Matra in France. The latter two are no longer freestanding independent companies having been absorbed into EADS. General Dynamics (GD). GD is a pioneer American defense producer with roots extending back to the late nineteenth century. It has experimented, periodically, with entry into civilian markets, such as its foray into commercial aircraft through its profitable 1999 acquisition of Gulfstream Aerospace, but these have generally proven unsuccessful. However, it is currently a model of a firm which recognizes that its comparative advantage lies in the military market. GD traces its origins to 1899 when it began as the Electric Boat Company in Groton, Connecticut and a year later provided the US Navy with its first reliable submarine. By the end of World War I, the company had sold 200 submarines and cargo ships to the navy. By the end of the 1950s, the company’s name had been changed to General Dynamics and it had become a leading aircraft and missile producer, as well as provider of nuclear submarines. An early effort at diversification by entering the commercial airline business in the 1959–62 period was beset by technical problems and delays that resulted in production of 102 aircraft and losses of hundreds of millions of dollars. The GD Convair 990 earned the title of Flying Edsel after Ford’s unsuccessful attempt to introduce a

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new automobile model. At the same time, GD’s military entries were quite successful, making it a dominant supplier to all three US military branches and an important exporter of military equipment. Its F-16 fighter aircraft, developed in the 1970s, became the dominant lightweight fighter in the US Air Force as well as a standard aircraft in the inventories of many other countries. GD also bought Chrysler’s Land Warfare Division, producer of the M-1 and M-60 tanks and its missile line grew with its Convair Division’s success with the Tomahawk sea-launched cruise missile. While GD’s military business continued to grow it acquired Cessna, an important producer of civilian aircraft, in 1985, apparently in an attempt to diversify into the civilian aircraft sector. By the late 1980s changes in Pentagon procurement practices endangered profitability of defense producers. GD was particularly vulnerable due to its high dependence on military sales. Of the top ten US defense contractors in the 1987–91 period, GD’s defense contracts accounted for 71.1% of its total cumulative revenues, second only to Grumman, while it ranked first for sales dependence in 1991 at 81.7%. William Anders, GD’s chairman from 1991, believed that GD, while technically successful, had not been operated as an efficient enterprise which would advance the interests of its stockholders. He expressed his purpose to give greater emphasis to the firm’s ‘financial’ performance. Anders moved quickly to restructure the management team and refashion the culture of the company. As part of this program, GD contracted with the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University to present a unique one-week seminar for 150 of its top executives. The curriculum focused on basic business and investment analysis designed to help GD management ‘think like business people, not like aerospace engineers’. Anders took over GD just as the Cold War was ending – a time when most analysts saw the major challenge facing the defense industrial base as that of adjusting to a shrinking of the military market. His decisions to sell GD’s largest nondefense subsidiary, Cessna Aircraft, to Textron and its Data Systems unit to Computer Sciences Corporation may have appeared puzzling to some. However, Anders had publicly rejected diversification as a realistic avenue for GD citing a McKinsey study which reported an 80% failure rate for nondefense acquisitions by defense firms. He also foresaw cash flows greater than amounts required to finance GD’s liquidity and investment requirements, and recommended that such surplus cash be returned to stockholders. His comments were instructive: The difference between GD and most of the defense industry is that we wanted to sell non-defense businesses,

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and we were willing to fix any business by buying, selling or merging. We were dedicated to shareholders and building franchises. Too many executives at other defense contractors are fixated on BIGGER IS BETTER. But when the industry has excess capacity the focus on continued growth just doesn’t work.

From 1992–94, GD’s leadership sold off units which it felt were not meeting profitability goals or were otherwise outside the firm’s core activities. These included shifting its missile operations to Hughes, an electronics unit to Carlyle Group, its Applied Remote Technology to Raytheon, its Electronics Manufacturing to Elbit/ Crossroads, its Fort Worth F-16 manufacturing unit to Lockheed, and its Space Systems to Martin Marietta. From 1995 to 2004, it then acquired a number of defense-oriented firms such as Bath Iron Works (ships), Lockheed Martin Defense Armaments, Lucent Technologies Advanced Technology Systems unit, and GM Defense. In 1999, however, it acquired Gulfstream Aerospace, producer of quite a successful executive jet and a significant source of revenue for GD. The year 2002 saw GD sell off its Space Propulsion Group to Aerojet, followed by greater divestments in 2005. These included Aeronautics Services to Wyle Labs; Aeronautics & Transportation Testing to Calspan; Airborne Electronic Systems to Astronics; Propulsion Systems to L-3; and C-4 Systems Interactive to KoolConnect Technologies. In 2006, GD announced that it had secured regulatory approval for its $2.2 billion acquisition of Anteon International Corporation, a successful provider of information technology and systems engineering to customers in the defense, intelligence, homeland security, and federal civil and commercial sectors. Late that year, the Federal Trade Commission challenged GD’s plans to buy a Canadian ammunition maker, SNC Technologies of Quebec. The purchase would have given GD ownership stakes over two of the three producers in North America of mortar rounds for the US military. The importance of culture. GD’s experiences with conversion are not unique, and highlight some general conclusions. For one thing, corporate cultures go a long way to define core competencies. The latter are not just technology-geared as is often assumed. Even the unsurprising effort by several military aircraft and components producers to shift resources to the production and control of civil passenger aircraft is not simply a reflection of somewhat similar technologies. The identification of markets within which corporate executives are comfortable is important. General Dynamics is clearly at ease selling to the military and sees ‘diversification’ as selling to the several different military services. GD’s behavior suggests that it may be more difficult to master the art of selling to the military (mastering its web of regulations) than to produce military equipment. For firms like GD, this

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mastery of marketing to the military may constitute a major comparative advantage. Cautious diversification. Another point, not unrelated to the GD case, reflects the concerns of the management with market share as a goal or index of success. Economists have long recognized that in the presence of oligopolies, firm executives may substitute their personal utility functions for the traditional profit maximization goal assumed in perfectly competitive models. Most of America’s prime defense contractors qualify as oligopolies and thus, one can easily conceive of managers deciding on market entry and exit to enhance their probabilities of attaining first or second rank in particular market segments. The risk of over-reliance on particular customers has clearly motivated defense producers to seek greater diversification of markets. In most cases, the process involves a rather conservative definition of core competency and even selection of new markets. Thus, a focus on selling to the world’s major airlines and airports is a far cry from selling to individual consumers and households. In addition, in many cases defense firms venturing into new water (so to speak), move cautiously, for example, moving from selling to the Defense Department to civil markets in which the buyers are still government agencies, whether federal, state, or municipal. From hardware to services. A related consideration is the growing pattern to shift somewhat from the production of hardware to the provision of dual-use services of various types. Here, the implications for conversion will depend on the military/civilian balance in the demand for such services. Mergers preferred to conversion. Finally, the principal conclusion to be drawn from recent experience is the corporate preference for mergers and acquisitions to attempts to convert, reflecting the difficulties most firms see in conversion and the corporate predilection for ‘hunkering down’ in response to reductions in defense spending. At the same time, the very merger and acquisition process, when it extends to nondefense firms, may be introducing the managerial skills that the next generation of defense firms will need to enter civilian markets successfully.

instead on imports or assembly of foreign aircraft. Sweden also has shown signs of moving in this direction via the retention of the design role but attempting to control production costs via innovative partnering with larger foreign firms. While the number of attempts at conversion in Europe is limited and the number of successes even smaller, the experience mirrors much of that in the United States and elsewhere. One point highlighted by European experience in particular, however, is the usefulness of early notification for firms facing the loss of a significant share of their military markets. Such early warning enables the firm to plan to take compensatory action. As was true in the United States, consolidations, acquisitions, and divestitures have sharply reduced the number of independent, stand-alone defense and aerospace firms in Europe. The European defense market is currently dominated by the Big Three of BAE Systems (essentially the former British Aerospace plus GEC Marconi), Thales (at its core, the former French firm Thomson-CSF grouped with the space and defense electronics groups of Alcatel, Dassault Electronique, and several satellite units of Aerospatiale), and EADS (created through the merger of Daimler-Chrysler Aerospace of Germany (DASA), Aerospatiale Matra of France, and CASA (Construcciones Aeronauticas) of Spain). Through a series of mergers and consolidations, several firms which played a major role in the development of the European aerospace and related industries have, essentially, disappeared. Examining the changing approaches and product lines of Germany’s Dornier (eventually absorbed by EADS) and France’s Matra (also absorbed by EADS) provide insights into the European conversion experience. With the exception of such dual-use technologies as electronics and EADS’ work in civil aviation through its Airbus subsidiary, Europe’s defense companies have focused largely on military and space markets. For most of them, whether from large or small countries, diversification has meant expanding their customer base from a single military branch to several.

European attempts at conversion

The case of Dornier

An important determinant of behavior is the strength of the national commitment to retain a complete, domestic, defense industrial base. A government may seek to preserve its defense industry by subsidizing defense production or it may try to retain much of the defense industry’s general capabilities by supporting conversion to analogous or comparable civilian goods. Some countries have conceded their inability to afford this luxury across the board and, as in the case of Switzerland, have abandoned the goal of maintaining a capacity to design and build advanced military aircraft, for example, relying

In the early post-World War II period, German aircraft companies – barred from producing aircraft for 10 years after VE Day – tried to enter the strong market for civilian products by producing motorbikes, scooters, and very small two-seater autos. Messerschmitt, for example, built what was known as a Kabinenroller (a tandem seat, cockpit-like three-wheeler). BMW developed the BMW Isetta, a side-by-side two-seater. Messerschmitt stretched further from its core by building sewing machines. Despite the high demand for civilian products none of these efforts could be considered successful.

Economic Conversion

Postwar German governments tended to avoid military goals and expenditures and focused on rebuilding the civilian economy, thus, in effect, adopting a national policy of conversion. Civilian exports gradually increased with no perceived economic need for exports of military goods. Under the circumstances, German aviation skills were focused on civilian aircraft and space ventures. Early products included the Dornier utility aircraft. The VFW 614 designed as a successor to the DC-3 and the Hansa business jet both were failures. The view in German industry attributed their weakness to an underestimation of marketing and product support requirements. The German firm Dornier presents an interesting history of alternating between military and civilian markets. Founded by the famous aviation designer, Claude Dornier, his company was a pioneer in aeronautics and built more than 80 types of aircraft between the two world wars. In the first postwar decade Dornier had skirted Allied restrictions on German aircraft development by opening a technical engineering facility in Madrid. The work gave Dornier a lead over other German competitors and its short takeoff and landing (STOL) DO-27, a six-seater, single engine aircraft, was ahead of its time. Something in excess of 600 units were produced, mostly going to the new German military (Bundeswehr). Later most of these were transferred to Portugal and several African countries (particularly Nigeria) under military assistance programs. Before his death in 1969, Claude Dornier had foreseen that diversification outside of aeronautics would be desirable and in 1962 he established Dornier-System (DS) which entered the space sector and focused on defense information, logistics, consulting, and training. In addition, DS became active in scientific and industrial techniques which included medicine (more will be presented on its successes in medicine below), and solar and wind energy. Twin-engine STOL derivatives of the DO-27 were developed (the DO-28A and B), and a number of these were purchased by Israel for airborne border patrol work. Several also found roles as air taxis for inter-island hopping. In another configuration, this model reappeared in l968 as the DO-28 Skyservant, a nine-seater transporter/ utility aircraft which proved attractive to military and civilian buyers. Some 50 of these aircraft were contracted for by Butler Aviation of the US, although fewer than ten were actually purchased and used for short-range passenger service in the Washington DC area. Next came the DO-228 in 1981, a commuter aircraft in 15-and 19-seat versions, into which the male heirs of Claude Dornier had invested significant sums. The German Ministry for Research and Technology also helped finance the new technology of the aircraft with subsidies. This model was unpressurized and powered by turboprop engines. Critics maintained that this aircraft

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was somewhat behind the market which they saw as ready for a turbine- powered 30-seat passenger product. Indeed, some engineers from Hindustan Aircraft were already working on such a modern version at Dornier’s Friedrichshafen facility at Lake Constance and such an aircraft would later be built by EMBRAER of Brazil. However, Dornier’s management at the time was unwilling to make what seemed to them a quantum jump. Some 300 DO-228s were built in Germany and under license by Hindustan Aircraft in India. Dornier served as the major contractor for the licensed production of the Italian Fiat G-91, a single seat, light strike aircraft, and for the G-91s successor, the Franco– German Alphajet. The company was also active in cooperative work on nonfighter military aircraft, Bell UH-1D helicopters, jet trainers, and drone systems. Dornier’s role in military aircraft appears to have been economically successful and the proceeds provided much of the resources necessary to support its civilian activities. Dornier’s lithotripter. Perhaps most interesting of these civilian efforts is Dornier’s lithotripter, a revolutionary medical device to destroy kidney stones with shock waves, rather than surgery. It was derived from militarysupported R&D at Dornier. Here one had, it would appear, a classic example of conversion, a highly useful direct transfer of aerospace technology to cure a widespread medical problem. Tracing this case should yield some interesting points. Initially, Dornier’s lithotripter was highly successful and gave the company a monopoly in this slice of the medical equipment market. Its success became well known and Siemens entered the market a few years later with a somewhat different machine. Facing increasing competition from Siemens, Dornier responded by establishing a subsidiary in the United States and investing in a second generation of medical equipment designed to treat gallstones. In the interim, Dornier had been absorbed into the newly formed Daimler-Benz Aerospace which, faced with declines in both military and civil aircraft markets, sold a majority stake of Dornier Medizintechnik GmbH (which controlled the lithotripter) in 1996 to Singapore Precision Industries (now known as Accuron Technolgies, Ltd.). Thus far, production and employment have continued in the Munich area but fears arise occasionally that a future transfer of production to Asia is likely. The principal lesson of the lithotripter case is that the innovative use of defense (in this case, aerospace) technology does not assure success in the new market. Other traditional leaders in established markets challenged by the newcomer will counterattack. Unless the new entrant has access to significant financial backing, it may be forced to license its technology to established leaders or to sell out completely. While Dornier’s action was socially desirable in bringing a new and useful device into public use, there is,

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however, no necessary happy ending which guarantees that the innovating firm or division will succeed. Indeed, in 1996, Dornier Medizintechnik lost DM 8.88 million due to heavy R&D spending and problems with its American subsidiary, Acoustics Imaging Technologies of Phoenix, Arizona. A final point deals with profitability per se. Even had the lithotripter remained profitable, how far would those profits have gone to replace loss of profits resulting from loss of aerospace business by Dornier? Evidence on this point is difficult to obtain, but some years ago an official of the Dutch aerospace firm Fokker, which DASA had owned from 1989 to 1991, commented that As far as my experience goes, the spinoff we have had from commercial aircraft business has been marketable in a limited number of cases. However, these spinoffs, so far, have been special technical applications for which the market in the world is very small indeed. . .. All-in-all, the turnover in these areas is about two percent of total business and one wonders whether that is worth the effort. (Udis, 1993: 157.)

Dornier’s major German competitor, MesserschmittBolkow-Blohm (MBB) also pursed conversion efforts, most notably in its participation with several German companies in the development of Transrapid (a magnetic levitation train), its work on airbags, and on medical lasers. It also produced truckloading ramps for many years. Such activities long preceded Daimler’s entering upon the scene. On balance, however, MBB was probably more dependent upon the vicissitudes of military spending than Dornier.

France: Matra

The French firm, Matra, was founded by Marcel Chassagny and emerged from World War II as an aeronautical firm seeking new markets. In 1945 it settled on two new defense areas which appeared promising: airborne conventional armament and missiles. By the end of the 1960s Matra was a leader in the field of conventional armament and was doing promising experimental work on air-to-air and surface-to-surface missiles. However, after a competitive evaluation, the French Ministry of Defense selected Raytheon’s Hawk surface-to-air missile (SAM) system for its army’s SAM which forced Matra to close its SAM division. Chassagny transferred his SAM staff and resources into work on space. This venture was more successful and when France launched its Asterix satellite, becoming the third space power, Matra had produced both the satellite and the control system for the Diamant launcher. In retrospect, it appeared that the Matra SAM was a good missile which had failed because of defects in its radar, communication integration, and related systems.

To correct these problems, Matra reached a cooperative agreement with an American firm Space Technology Laboratories (later to become TRW) which led to Matra’s development of successful system integration skills. Matra and automobiles. In 1962, Matra also acquired a small auto producer, Rene Bonnet, which was encountering financial difficulties despite its promising sports car design. The goal was to publicize Matra’s name, then not very well known to the general public due to its concentration in defense and space work, with a successful racing car. This effort was successful after Matra cars won several world cups in Formula 1 racing (1969, 1972, 1973, and 1974) and the 24-hour Le Mons race in 1969. In 1974, Matra announced that it was leaving the field of automobile racing and entering into the production of innovative sports cars. Thirty years of success followed with the high point reached with the ESPACE vehicle of which more than one million units were sold. It was distributed by Renault and had a Renault engine which was manufactured at a Matra factory. The automobile industry troubles of the late 1990s forced Renault to end the agreement with Matra and Renault is now building a new version of ESPACE. Matra was hardly in a position to compete directly with a major automobile company. Matra and urban transportation. In the late 1960s, Matra bought several patents covering the development of urban transport systems and transferred engineers from its space division to work on the project. In 1971, Matra Transport was established to develop and produce a light automatic (i.e., without human operators) transport system. Its success was marked by the installation of such systems in Toulouse, Paris, Paris/Orly airport, Taipei, Rennes, Chicago, and Turin among other places. By the late 1980s municipal governments were becoming reluctant to continue to finance such systems and in 1995 Matra entered into a cooperative agreement with Siemens which assumed total control of the unit in 2001. The company, now known as Siemens Transport, International, continues to grow, benefiting from a successful technical concept brought to fruition by Matra. Communications and electronics. In the 1970s Matra acquired several small and medium-sized companies in the communication and telecommunications fields to help it proceed from analog to digital technology. This was followed by its purchase of the European subsidiaries of IT&T. These moves were quite successful and Matra’s communication subsidiary grew rapidly between 1975 and 1990. It has become an expert provider of protected radio communications and digitally secure networks for defense and other applications. Together with Nortel Networks, this Matra division is now integrated into EADS as its telecommunications arm. In contrast, Matra’s foray into automobile electronics at the same time was was less successful. The company

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acquired two well-known companies, Jaeger and Solex, and began an effort to develop new systems for driving and motor control. In a field dominated by the major auto producers, however, Matra was pressured to merge its auto electronics work with that of Fiat and, in 1992, abandoned this work to Fiat’s total control. Matra recognized the role of electronic components in linking its work in defense, space, and communications and saw the benefit of joining its expertise with that of a veteran US firm in the field. Thus, in 1978, Matra entered a successful partnership with Harris Corporation to form Matra–Harris Semiconductor (MHS), with its first output of wafers delivered in 1981. However, the skyrocketing increase in investment costs was more than Matra could afford and, in 1990, MHS was sold to Germany’s DaimlerBenz; another example of a military company’s commercial technology eventually falling under the ownership and control of a company better able to meet the economic pressures of a commercial/civilian market. Society remains the beneficiary but it is better described as the conversion of an idea or product rather than an in-place conversion of the original developing firm. Optical technology and micromechanisms. In the early 1970s, in order to better serve the customers of its defense and space sectors, Matra developed its own optical and opto-electronic technologies and image processing and information control systems. Its SPOT satellite imagery enabled it to develop command, control, communications, and intelligence (C3I) systems for the French armed forces as well as data link systems for satellites and drones. These activities were shifted to EADS after its creation in the year 2000. In an effort to better master the technologies involved in micromechanisms potentially useful in defense, space, and related systems, in the mid-1970s Matra acquired several clock and watch companies. The effort was not successful and these activities were divested several years later through the sale of these units. Publishing. Matra, in 1981, ventured further from its core competencies with its purchase of Hachette, an organization active in printing, book publishing, and multimedia activities. This move reflected a desire to attain a more diversified exposure, both industrially and geographically. It was also seen as providing a line of defense against the growing trend for defense and space operations to become part of multinational European companies. By way of summary: Matra gained significant skills with its work in defense, space, and automobiles, and diversified into a range of related technologies. However, its approach has generally been to diversify – adding companies and competencies, without leaving its defense work. It has remained a dynamic company with a fast reaction time to changing circumstances. Known as the Lagardere Group, Matra manages French

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participation in EADS at the same level of representation as the larger German partner, Daimler-Benz. Its missile activity and personnel have contributed significantly to the success of MBDA, Europe’s leading missile producer. Its space competence has been a pillar in the EADS satellite subsidiary, and its communication and information technology continues to function within the EADS defense electronics division. While its transportation and components were sold off, its products continue to be available to consumers in the marketplace. The Matra automobile has disappeared after a 40-year presence, but some Matra veterans believe that this extended experience proved valuable in subsequent ventures. While the automobile electronics division went to Fiat, a similar experience in General Motor’s sale of Delphi suggests that auto electronics may be a better fit as a niche provider. Dassault. No description of French defense firm conversion would be complete without, at least, mention of Dassault Aviation. Dassault, the developer and producer of the Mirage series of fighter aircraft, has also developed the successful Falcon corporate/private jet aircraft. The Falcon, available in several models including one with trans-Atlantic range, accounts for 40% of the high-end private jet market. More than 1700 have been sold worldwide, and it now accounts for more than half of Dassault Aviation’s revenues. This development is a classic example of market extension through creative use of core competencies. Dasssault has also attained success in a venture begun in the 1980s in the field of computerassisted devices for mechanical and electrical design. Among other successes is the development of the CATIA computer language widely used for secure transactions in banking, finance, and trade. The general lessons to be drawn from the experiences of European companies such as Dornier, MBB, Matra, and Dassault are that successful conversion is likely to take considerable time, effort, and investment; it can be accomplished largely without direct government support, but it is easier when the firm has the security of public contracts – military or civil – during the transition; there is no sudden ending of defense contracts; there is continuous commitment from the top executives of the firm and of centralized ownership interests as well; and when companies are acquired that have a different culture from that of the military industry. Such companies are likely to bring with them a market understanding that can assist in the process of changing the approach and culture of the ‘old guard’. The Russian experience

In many ways, Russian experience mirrors that of companies elsewhere: companies frequently diversified to ensure access to technologies they needed for defense production, and declining defense spending prompted

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efforts to enter civilian markets. The Soviet and Russian governments promised – but were generally unable to deliver – significant assistance as part of a series of government-led conversion programs. The Russian experience was complicated by the immense economic and political changes that took place with the demise of the Soviet Union and the reemergence of Russia. When Mikhail Gorbachev became General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party in 1985, he inherited an atrophying civilian economy and a defense sector that, while costly, seemed robust and effective. To invigorate the civilian sector he moved defense industry leaders to civilian production; created civilian versions of important defense industry oversight organizations; and, eventually, simply turned more than 200 civilian factories over to the defense industrial ministries to run. When these steps did not achieve the desired results quickly enough, Gorbachev turned to a centrally planned conversion effort unveiled in a December 1988 speech to the United Nations. The Soviet conversion program became embedded in the larger and more complex effort to free Soviet enterprises from the stultifying controls of ministries. The goal of the conversion program was originally modest: increase the defense sector’s output of commercial goods from 40% in the late 1980s to 60% by 1995, beginning with reductions in military production at 422 (of about 2000) Soviet defense enterprises; under the plan most would reduce their military production by less than 20% over 5 years. Such an approach was designed to be gradual and manageable. The process was upset, however, by a series of problems. The broader economic reforms taking place at the same time meant that, for the first time, defense enterprises were responsible for covering their expenses and drove up the costs of weapons systems. Spending on military procurement, on the other hand, was being reduced, gradually at first but by a sharp 32% in 1991 (the year the Soviet Union was dissolved) and a further 68% the following year. As in other countries, the defense industry benefited from having a consumer for whom performance was often the paramount consideration – a significant difference from sectors of the civilian economy in which price is often more important. There were frequent press reports of defense plants producing civilian products that were ‘state of the art’, but which were extremely expensive and for which there was thus no market. With little or no experience, it is not surprising that these defense enterprises were unprepared to enter a competitive civilian marketplace. The problems created by the combination of deep cuts, escalating costs, and inexperience in the civil sector were compounded by the elimination of the centralized planning apparatus and the industrial ministries at the end of 1991. The economic circumstances of the country,

including the freeing of most prices, the extremely high inflation rates, and the nonpayment or delayed payment by the Ministry of Defense on its defense orders, shifted conversion from being desirable and planned to absolutely critical and almost completely unplanned. As the centralized conversion effort foundered, it became apparent that conversion was taking place ‘from below’. As Julian Cooper noted in 1991, for most enterprises of the defense industry the protracted discussion of plans for conversion has become an irrelevance. For up to two years many of them have been attempting to cope with the serious practical problems generated by reduced military orders under circumstances of progressive economic dislocation and a breakdown of the traditional structures of authority. (Cooper 1991: 139)

The collapse of the Soviet Union and its defense industrial ministries meant that the managers were suddenly, in a sense, independent. But unlike the Chinese case (discussed below), in which economic growth and a relative economic stability made it possible to support such increased independence, the Soviet (and then Russian) economy was closer to collapse and the central government was able to provide little or no support to the restructuring of the defense sector. In the Russian case, some managers embraced the new independence and moved quickly to reform their factory and to find new products and markets. A small fraction of these has been successful. Many remained shocked. The result was the devastation of much of the defense sector. By 1997 only one in 20 defense enterprises was stable mostly due to military exports. From a peak employment estimated at more than 7 million for the Soviet Union in 1988 and nearly 5 million in Russia in 1992, employment in Russia’s defense industry fell to less than 2 million by 2004. The average number of workers in defense plants has declined while the workers who remain are often those approaching pension age (for whom finding new work is likely to be difficult). Overall wages in the defense sector are now substantially below the average wage in Russian industry and nonmonetary benefits (ranging from health and schooling to vacation resorts and apartments) have fallen as well. Defense enterprises have often tried to turn responsibility for these services over to the local governments which, in turn, have often also been in financially difficult straits. Through most of the 1990s the national government was unable to pay many of its debts or to follow through on its commitments. As a result, new investment in defense industries was rare. When government funds were released to defense enterprises, they were typically used to pay salaries and outstanding debts, not for retooling or updating equipment. The situation of the

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employees, in particular, was too immediate, resulting in strikes at some defense enterprises. In early 1997, for example, 30 billion rubles were transferred to the State Nuclear Shipbuilding Center at Severodvinsk to end the strike there. The government owed the Center’s enterprises 1.6 trillion rubles while workers, unpaid for several months, were owed 350 billion rubles. Since then, however, Russia has improved both its financial situation and its ability to manage its national budget effectively. In particular, Russia’s defense budget appears to have become more realistic and better coordinated with the powerful Ministry of Finance. However, perhaps a third of the enterprises are effectively bankrupt. While government investment in the defense sector is scheduled to increase, production equipment – and personnel – continue to age. If Russian defense enterprises are unable to update their production equipment their ability to produce modern military equipment, particularly for the exports that are critical to the sector (see below), may decline as a result. The collapse of Russian defense spending and the Ministry of Defense’s unpaid debts to defense industries through the late 1990s meant that the defense enterprises had to find new products for civilian markets, find new markets for existing military and civilian products, persuade the government to provide some type of financial protection, or close. Each approach presented Russian decision-makers with a variety of problems as Russia’s efforts suffered from financial constraints, unrealistic expectations, and frequent changes in administrative oversight. In practice, two basic types of conversion have been taking place in Russia’s defense sector: workers have left enterprises (sometimes by choice, sometimes not) for more predictable, reliable, or profitable work and those left behind have tried to find profitable work for their enterprises. While most attention is paid to converting enterprises, it is important to remember that the most successful type of conversion may be taking place ‘outside’ an enterprise, not in it. The hundreds of thousands of men and women who have left the defense sector have, in a sense, converted themselves. While detailed data is lacking, it is likely that many of the most talented and flexible personnel have gone on to find work in other parts of Russia’s economy where they see greater opportunities (employment in Russia’s ‘burgeoning’ private sector grew from 24 million in 1996 to more than 33 million in 2005. These opportunities may be in areas related to their previous work, but many are likely to be in completely new fields. For these people, conversion has become a fact of life – they are redirecting their talents from military production to work in other areas of the economy. That is not to say that diversification is not taking place. Of the 20 Russian enterprises with the largest

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defense revenues in 2005, civilian production ranged from less than 1% to more than 95%. Of these enterprises, 12 remain state controlled, while eight are private or have less than 50% state control. And while some Russian enterprises have opted to ‘hunker down’ and focus on military production others remain optimistic about finding viable commercial products. For example, Sukhoi hope to sell the RRJ small regional jet, while Tupolev is marketing its Tu-214 passenger aircraft to Russian airlines. Tulamash (formerly the Tula Machine Plant) now produces agricultural products (in a joint venture with a German company) and industrial lasers in addition to a range of heavy guns; the Voronezh Mechanical Plant sells a range of products for the oil and gas industry. The S.P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energiya and the Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center, in a joint venture originally with Lockheed Martin, provide satellite launch services. While the Russian government has expressed varying degrees of support for conversion efforts, in practice the effort has been underfunded and inconsistent. Domestic private investment in the defense sector has also been limited, mainly because defense industries, already deeply in debt, are likely to be of little interest to private investors. The lack of direct government funding has been offset to some extent by increasing arms exports. Such exports, which have exceeded domestic spending on military procurement for several years, grew from about $5.4 billion in 2003 to a projected $8 billion by 2007. India and China have generally accounted for about two-thirds of Russian exports, dominated by air defense, aircraft, and recently, ships. By 2006, about a third of the defense industry remained state-owned, a third in private hands, and a third with mixed ownership. However, private investment in defense enterprises remains controversial, complex, and often obscure, with owners, managers, and financial structures changing at times with little or no explanation. There does not appear to be a clear link between ownership and successful conversion or even enterprise continuity perhaps because so many other factors, from the limitations on labor mobility to supply problems, affect success or failure of conversion and restructuring efforts. Direct foreign investment in Russian defense firms has been hampered by the complexity and changeability of Russia’s laws. With such formidable hurdles to conversion it is not surprising that an enterprise involved in military production would prefer to continue in that line of work, simply changing customers. In contrast to conversion, arms sales hold the promise of foreign revenues, timely payment or government guarantees that can be borrowed against, and minimal changes in managerial expertise.

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The Chinese experience

China’s defense conversion effort – one of the significant components of Deng Xiaoping’s effort to modernize China’s economy – originated as an attempt to rationalize the overbuilt Chinese defense sector. Between 1964 and 1971, China had invested heavily in creating ‘‘a huge selfsufficient industrial base area to serve as a strategic reserve in the event of China being drawn into war’’ (Naughton). The effort was considered so important that Beijing devoted more than half China’s total investment during the Third Five Year Plan (1966–70) to developing this so-called Third Front (or Third Line). Nearly 30, 000 enterprises were established in China’s remote interior, 2200 of them large- or medium-sized; 55% of the country’s defense plants are reportedly located in the Third Front region. Mao’s death in September 1976 and Deng’s rehabilitation the following year opened a cycle of reforms that included a renewed emphasis on the Four Modernizations (industry, agriculture, defense, and science and technology), originally proposed by Premier Zhou Enlai in 1975. Through the conversion effort, announced in 1978, Deng and his successors hoped to turn China’s ‘oversized yet underdeveloped’ defense industry from a burden into an asset and improve the Chinese standard of living. Defense modernization was relegated to fourth place in the hierarchy of modernizations the following year. As a result, half the defense industry’s capacity was idle by 1981. The following year, Deng proposed that the defense industry combine military and civilian work, an idea he codified in 1982 as the ‘16 character slogan’: Integrate military production with civilian production, meet the needs of both peace-time and wartime, military production has priority, and use civilian production to support military production.

That same year, the National Defense Science and Technology Committee and the National Defense Industries Organization were combined to form the Commission of Science, Technology, and Industry for National Defense (COSTIND) to coordinate defense production which took a leading role in implementing the sector’s civilian production. The period from 1979 to the early 1980s has been described as a time of laissez-faire or ‘spontaneous’ conversion in which enterprises, confronted with steep reductions in military orders, scrambled to identify and produce civil products. The result was oversupply, production surplus, and idle plants – a situation in which, according to one Chinese analysis of the country’s conversion experience, ‘‘it was difficult to either advance or retreat.’’ In 1985, the Chinese leadership again reassessed the country’s security situation, and concluded that no major threat loomed for the foreseeable future. China further

reduced its defense spending, announced the demobilization of a million men, and cut military procurement. Around this time, according to one report, ‘‘more than half the military factories stopped or drastically reduced production because of the cut in military procurement’’ (Crane and Yeh, 1991:108). Conversion – finding economically viable alternatives for the country’s defense enterprises and defense industrial personnel – became increasingly important. At the same time, China was undertaking another wave of economic reform, de-emphasizing centralized planning and increasing reliance on market mechanisms. As a result of the reforms undertaken since 1978, rural incomes had increased leading to increased demand for industrial production of consumer goods. Rural industries were freed of many restrictions that had limited their development and quickly grew to compete with the urban state-owned industries. State-owned enterprises were allowed to retain some profits and sell output above plan targets at market prices. They were also given greater autonomy in making decisions about production, pricing, purchases, and investments. Industry became the primary engine of China’s economic growth. While military production remained under centralized control, the civilian work in defense enterprises became market driven. But given the unsatisfactory results of the unfettered conversion efforts since 1979, the government intervened to provide guidance. In 1986, the policymaking Central Military Commission and the State Council approved a list of 126 products to promote the integration of civilian and military production. Special loans totaling 820 million yuan (out of an investment fund of 1.2 billion yuan) were made to the defense sector. In 1988, the government issued another list, this time of 170 products. In addition, during the Seventh Five Year Plan (1986–90), the state invested almost 4 billion yuan in loans and built 450 civilian product lines allowing almost 50% of the enterprises to produce mainstay civilian products. During the Eighth Five Year Plan (1991–95), the state also supported more than 400 defense conversion technological modification items with loans of 6.3 billion yuan. As a result of these efforts, all military enterprises were producing civilian products and 80% to 90% of military industrial enterprises were able to produce one or two ‘mainstay’ civilian items. Two general categories of products have been particularly important in China’s conversion efforts: relatively low-tech products, such as motorcycles and scooters, for which there was growing domestic demand and more advanced products, such as civilian aircraft components. Both provided an opportunity for Chinese companies to work with (and learn from) foreign manufacturers: for example, joint ventures between military factories and Honda and Yamaha produced scooters, while

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McDonnell Douglas and Boeing worked with Chinese civilian aircraft manufacturers. By 1995, China was the world’s largest producer of motorcycles; 60% of these were produced by defense enterprises. In addition to direct production, the defense industries also served as the ‘training ground’ for many of the engineers that eventually ‘converted’ by moving from state-owned enterprises to private firms producing motorcycles. Curiously, one of the firms that has worked in China on scooters is Vespa. The Italian firm Piaggio, which had earlier produced ships, aircraft, and helicopters, had significant success with its Vespa motor scooter. The Vespa provided a useful means of personal transportation in the immediate postwar period before public transport was reestablished, and was especially popular in old Italian cities with their familiar narrow streets. Usable most of the year due to moderate weather, designed with a stylish touch, and low acquisition and operating costs, the Vespa proved a great success. However, Japanese competition led Piaggio to sell Vespa and, by late 2003, Vespa’s new owners had entered a joint venture in China, while Piaggio continued to develop hybrid scooters which are being tested by municipal bodies in Milan, Florence, Naples, and Rome. Reaping the fruits and reorganization. By the late 1990s, Chinese officials were emphasizing that their conversion efforts had been successful, noting that the civilian output of the sector has increased from just 8% in 1970 to approximately 80%. However, such data provides no indication of the broader economic health of the sector. By the early 1990s perhaps two out of three converting enterprises barely broke even or took a loss, and fewer than half the defense-related firms had found either viable commercial goods to manufacture or commercial services to offer. Most of the initial products of the conversion effort, such as fans and air conditioners, refrigerators, clothing and shoes, and pharmaceuticals, were in relatively low-technology areas. At the same time, China found itself buying much of its most advanced defense technology from Russia. It should also be emphasized that conversion in China is part of at least two complementary efforts. The first is to use the underutilized capacity in the defense sector to support the country’s economic development. The second, however, is to use the benefits of conversion – the profits and the technical development – to support China’s military capabilities. Thus, Ding Henggao, then-Chairman of China’s Commission of Science, Technology, and Industry for National Defense (COSTIND), noted that ‘‘the importation of technology, the utilization of foreign capital, and international technical cooperation and exchange, which takes multiple forms, have all been remarkably successful, giving China a new open look. All these

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achievements have laid the groundwork for the further development of defense S&T [science and technology].’’ (Zhongguo Junshi Kexue, 1995) Ding was apparently correct. By the late 1990s, China’s economy had enjoyed almost two decades of economic growth averaging close to 10% per year. However, defense actually declined in real terms in the 1980s, and only started to outpace inflation from 1993. As new resources flowed into the defense sector (and foreign acquisitions) the Chinese leadership turned in 1998 to reforming both the procurement process and the defense industrial structure. By the first decade of the twenty-first century, China’s investments in its economy – including through conversion – appeared to be paying off, as China combined continuing economic growth with a vigorous, and comprehensive, military modernization effort. In the long run, China may be the best example of a successful national effort at defense conversion but it also highlights how difficult and costly it can be. China has enjoyed one of the fastest growing economies in the world; changes in Chinese military thinking and the absence of a significant external threat allowed Beijing to make significant reductions in its military acquisition programs through the mid-1990s; and the Chinese government has been willing and able to mobilize substantial political and economic resources to support conversion.

The Role of Government A government’s role in aiding conversion or diversification will clearly vary with its political philosophy and, in particular, its degree of reliance on the market mechanism. Studies of adjustment to reduced domestic defense spending yield little specific government role other than enhancing macro-stability and growth in the West through general monetary and fiscal policy and providing advance notification of planned decreases in government expenditure programs, such as defense procurement. Most modern states maintain industrial policies which cover a multitude of areas, such as low-interest loans to industry, aid to R&D, regional development policies, and so on. Rarely are these policies identified as a package in aid of military downsizing or diversification per se. Yet they are all capable of influencing that process. If all or many of the problem areas likely to be encountered during defense downsizing are covered by ‘general’ policies, the absence of specifically designated defense conversion policies may be essentially a matter of semantics. In the European context, two additional factors have to be considered. The activities of a ‘multinational’ level of interest (in the form of the European Union) and of groupings of ‘subnational’ regions that spill across

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national boundaries. The European Union established an initiative of loans and grants, entitled KONVER, with the goal of speeding the diversification of economic activities in geographical areas with heavy dependence on defense activities. Much of such aid went through several phases and the program was terminated in 1999. The US has had such a program in the Department of Defense’s Office of Economic Adjustment since the Kennedy Administration in the early 1960s. Its significant successes reflect, in large measure, the fact that since these bases are owned by the federal government, they can be used in a wide variety of ways, and often have been made available to local communities at low or no cost. At the subnational level, the German state of Bremen developed a comprehensive approach to structural change in 1992 that was designed to aid the adjustment of its significant concentration of defense facilities. Although the financial resources originally made available were small (approximately $11 million), the program united various constituencies in the community. Interestingly, the Bremen state government also initiated participation with the regions of Lancashire (in the UK) and Zaanstad (in the Netherlands) in an international cooperation group (Conversion Network Demilitarised) that attracted European Union support for regions economically threatened by reduced military spending. It lost its funding in 2001 but was reorganized in 2003 as an Interreg III B project focused on conversion experience of countries surrounding the Baltic Sea with some financial support from the Brandenburg State Ministry of Economics. After withdrawal of funding in 2003, partners agreed to continue to cooperate on a private basis. France has pursued an active industrial policy longer than almost any other state. Intervention by French governments to encourage the growth of new industries and technologies has a long tradition and Jean Baptiste Colbert, minister to Louis XIV of France, has been identified as the first global and consistent industrial strategist. His policies combined protection from foreign competition with incentives (grants of monopoly and patents, subsidies, and training programs) to develop advanced technology and modern industry in France. It would also appear logical to connect such policies with the problem under discussion here – adjustment to reduced military spending. Both areas face the same challenge: to devise government policies that would help bridge stages in economic life; in the one case from older to newer technologies and, in the other, from heavier to lighter concentrations of defense production. Indeed, many recommended policies in the conversion literature are borrowed from the broader industrial policy area. Such bridging or ‘pump-priming’, to be successful, must help affected industries and sectors move to new

activities and ultimately become sufficiently entrenched to no longer require government support. A careful analysis of French experience with industrial policy identifies a common thread differentiating successes from failures: the nature of the market. Thus, In . . . three sectors [energy, aerospace, and electronics] French Industry has been able to reach an advanced technological level and an internationally competitive position . . . Why is this so . . .? A common characteristic is heavy dependence on government procurement and state intervention in industries for which government is the main customer; it appears less successful in those producing consumer goods and general industrial equipment. . . The reason is because the main objective of government in the more successful sectors has been national security. . . . Even if these industrial policies have subsequently produced applications in non-military areas, their origins can almost always be traced to a desire to preserve national independence. (Stoffaes, 1986: 44)

The experience in Europe in general reflects that of the French. It is a market that makes transformation possible. Conversion in place does not yet sustain much hope in replacing lost defense markets. A string of profitable lithotripter-like or Matra-like successes and a commitment to conversion goals, well-managed by corporate leadership liberated from the heavy weight of military procurement culture, would appear necessary – a significant challenge to any corporation.

What Works? Aside from program details, the question begging to be answered is which policy measures work. Unfortunately, this question is easier to ask than to answer, since there is no precise formula for successful economic conversion. This is clear since similar measures in different countries do not yield similar results. Transfer of resources from military to civil use is an example of adjustment to changing market pressures. Since the challenge to firms in this situation is often to adapt or die, national environments that encourage change and adaptation will enjoy higher rates of success. Therefore, societal views and attitudes to adaptability and change may be as important as specific policy measures in explaining differential success. In this context, French observers have expressed concern that the French economy’s adaptability to change would remain low as long as French society continues to draw its leaders largely from graduates of the Grandes Ecoles, particularly from the Ecole Nationale d ’Administration and the Ecole Polytechnique. While acknowledged as outstanding educational institutions, they are criticized widely as stifling to new ideas with their oppressive application of the ‘old boys’ network’ and

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a formulaic approach to problem solving that often locks the door to the self-made executive who might be more inclined to consider unorthodox approaches to problem solving. The importance of flexibility applies to workers as well as to managers. European workers have long been noted as tradition-bound and resistant to geographic mobility, a problem that was exacerbated in Russia and China by legal restrictions. Sweden’s active labor market policy provides useful and current information on job vacancies and a system of carrots and sticks to motivate unemployed workers to move in search of known job opportunities. In furtherance of the goal of workforce flexibility, a program of industrial apprenticeship training such as that of Switzerland might also be considered in the United States. It would provide alternative career paths for young persons not oriented towards university education and help them acquire genuine craft skills widely used in modern industry. Persons with such training require much less supervision and are more easily adaptable to changes including those resulting from reduced military spending. Industrial policy in the United States has fluctuated with the political party in control of the government. The Democrats generally have been favorable to intervention, while the Republicans tend to oppose intervention which they frequently describe as the government ‘selecting winners and losers’. Thus, there have been cycles of activity in support of aid to high technology industry. During the George H.W. Bush Administration, the director of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) was dismissed because the Agency’s activities in supporting development of computer-related technologies were considered by some to resemble the actions of a venture capital firm too closely. During the first Clinton Administration, the Democratic Congress passed the Defense Technology Conversion, Reinvestment, and Transition Act of 1992. Its Technology Reinvestment Project (TRP) combined the efforts of the Departments of Defense, Commerce, Energy, and Transportation, the National Science Foundation, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in the furtherance of conversion. The general aim of the project was to stimulate the development of specific dual-use technologies to promote an ‘integrated national industrial base’ that would simultaneously target displaced defense industry workers while encouraging the evolution of a flexible, advanced technology workforce. Project funds were to be competitively allocated in response to submitted proposals. The effort demonstrated the difficulty of combining civil and military work under the slogan of conversion. Political influences were never far from Congressional budgetary work. In the fiscal year 1994, in the Defense Authorization Act, despite legal language mandating that

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all dual-use partnership programs be granted competitively, Congress earmarked over 20% of the total funding line which included TRP programs and other dual-use partnership programs and specified that the dual-use program line was to be reduced if DOD failed to carry out such ‘congressional initiatives’. In addition, almost $90 million was earmarked for specific communities and state universities with a provision that failure of the DOD to implement such ‘congressional initiatives’ would result in a reduction of the Defense Department’s Operations and Maintenance (O&M) budget. The total estimated cost of these earmarks and training programs was some $50 million in excess of the total O&M budget at the time, a sum which would have to come from other DOD budget categories. The TRP had been defended originally by DOD officials as the foundation for a post-Cold War strategy which would maintain the nation’s military technological superiority at a lower cost by selective investment in the civil sector. DOD hoped to ‘share the cost of development; gain greater access to an increasingly sophisticated commercial technology base; lower unit costs because of better production economies of scale and increased competition in the commercial sector; and have a greater reserve production base upon which to draw in case of an emergency’. Some of the Congressional actions such as those noted above provided support to critics who doubted the program’s value to DOD and saw the TRP as a cover for an attempt to shift funds needed for national defense to support broader political and economic goals. In any event, TRP funding was slashed in 1995–96, and the program was eliminated in 1997. It was replaced with the Dual-Use Applications Program (DUAP), a much smaller program that focuses on leveraging commercial technologies for defense purposes. This was only one of the three original objectives of the administration’s program; the other two were to ‘spin-off’ defense technologies to commercial uses and to invest in new technologies that would serve both commercial and military uses. Despite Pentagon support, the new and diminished DUAP did not escape from a continuation of the earlier debate on the appropriateness of such a mission for DOD and its opportunity costs. DOD’s Advanced Research Projects Agency withdrew from funding the DUAP in FY 1998 and requested no new funds for the program in FY 1999. The individual armed services took over the administration of the program in FY 1999 and received funds for dual-use-type programs targeting commercially oriented firms, cost sharing, etc. However, the Army and Navy stopped requesting funds for their Dual-Use Science and Technology programs in FY 2003, and the Air Force stopped seeking funds in FY 2006. The DUAP can probably be viewed as in a state of suspended animation at the present time.

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Characteristics of demand: Dependence on defense sales

Characteristics of supply: Asset specificity

Low High

Low A Relatively easy C

High B D Most difficult

Figure 3 Frame work for Conversion. Source: Dussauge, P. (1987). The Conversion of Military Activities. In Schmidt, C. and Blackaby, F. (eds.). Peace, defence, and economic analysis, pp 424–437. London, UK: Macmillan.

Conclusions Conversion is not impossible, but it is difficult, requiring sustained commitment – political, managerial, and financial – to be successful. And even though these conditions are necessary – they are not necessarily sufficient. Conversion defined as ‘in place’ adjustment is exceedingly difficult for technological, bureaucratic, and cultural reasons. It requires a combination of time, money, skill, will, and flexibility that is often difficult to assemble. As a result, conversion remains perhaps the least attractive response for many firms to changes in the defense market. Successful diversification, while less difficult, still provides significant challenges, even in civilian markets. During the 1950s and early 1960s, the trend toward conglomerate enterprises reflected a belief that modern management represented a general purpose talent that could successfully direct almost any organization, regardless of its activities. In more recent years, conglomerate enterprises have been failing, represented by a reversal of trend back toward more narrow specialization. Statistical analyses of several quinquenial censuses through the mid-1990s of manufacturers in the US indicate a movement in the direction of specialization, especially at the ‘plant’ level. As one analyst notes, ‘‘From the perspective of the Standard Industrial Classification System, successful diversification occurs ‘close to home’, where resources and expertise can be best used. The central analytical issues for conversion and civil– military integration is the similarity of industrial resources in potentially related markets’’ (Leech, 1993: 12–13). The degree that a firm’s capital equipment is specialized, combined with dependence on defense sales, is reflected in Figure 3, which provides a general analytical approach to predicting the degree of difficulty likely to be encountered by a firm attempting to adjust to reduced military spending. One might also consider a third factor to be incorporated into the analysis – the degrees of dependence of a firm upon governmental support for research and development activities, which does not correlate perfectly with the military share of total sales. The Dussauge matrix has also been the base for an expansion by Anderton into five additional dimensions: capital (real and financial), transition mandate, location, industrial policy, and managerial ability.

In concluding this survey of conversion it is worth reiterating that while the defense sector has many special characteristics, it is not unique in how it deals with decline. Most of our discussion has stressed the factors which make transfer of military producers into civil markets difficult and which have lead firms producing for both markets to make major efforts to keep these operations separate. But adjustment to reduced military spending is not different in kind from other adjustments faced by firms attempting to adjust to dynamic changes in any market. Recognizing market changes and reallocating resources to respond is perhaps the fundamental challenge for management, whether in defense or fashion, low-technology or high-technology. Andrew Grove, then Chief Executive Officer of Intel Corporation, reflected on the general problem when he noted that: ‘‘As industry becomes more competitive, companies are forced to retreat to their strongholds and specialize, in order to become world-class in whatever segments they end up occupying. Why is this so?. . . Simply put, it’s harder to be the best of class in several fields than in just one’’ (Grove, p. 52). These comments could just as easily have been made by the vice chairman of a defense firm in the US, Europe, Russia, or China. See also: Economic Causes of War and Peace; Economic Costs and Consequences of War; Economics of War and Peace, Overview

Further Reading Accordino, J. and Eisner, W. (2000). Conversion planning in two military shipbuilding regions: Hampton roads, Virginia, and Bremen, Germany. International Regional Science Review 2(1), 48–65. Adelman, K. L. and Augustine, N. R. (1992). Defense conversion: Bulldozing the management. Foreign Affairs 7(1), 26–47. Almquist, P. and O’Prey, K. (1990). Beating swords into agricultural complexes: Soviet economic conversion. Arms Control Today, April, pp 17–21. Anderton, C. H. (1996). Assessing the difficulty of Chinese defense enterprise transition. Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy 3, 13–21. Bischak, G. (1997). US conversion after the Cold War, 1990–1997, Brief 9, Bonn International Center for Conversion. Bitzinger, R. A. (1993). Adjusting to the drawdown: The transition in the defense industry. Washington, DC: Defense Budget Project.

Economic Conversion Bonn International Center for Conversion (BICC) (1996–1998). Conversion Survey (Annual 1996–2005). Oxford: Oxford University Press (1996–1998) and Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft (1999–2005). Brzoska, M. (2007). Success and failure in defense conversion in the ‘long decade’ of disarmament.In Hartley, K. and Sandler, T. (eds.) Handbook of defense economics vol. 2, pp. 1177–1210. Amsterdam: North-Holland. Coase, R. H. (1972). Industrial organization: A proposal for research. In Fuchs, V. H. (ed.) Policy issues and research opportunities in industrial organization, pp 59–73. New York: Columbia University Press. Commission of the European Communities (1996). The challenges facing European defence-related industry: A contribution for action at the European level. Brussels: Commission of the European Communities. Cooper, J. (1991). The Soviet defence industry: Conversion and economic reform. London: Chatham House. Cooper, J. (2006). Appendix 9C. Developments in the Russian arms industry. In SIPRI Yearbook (2006). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Crane, K., Cliff, R., Medeiros, E., Mulvenon, J., and Overholt, W. (2005). Modernizing China’s military: Opportunities and contraints. Santa Monica, CA: RAND. Crane, K. and Yeh, K. C. (1991). Economic reform and the military. Poland, Hungary, and China, RAND Report R-3961-PCT. Santa Monica, CA: RAND. Dussauge, P. (1987). The Conversion of Military Activities. In Schmidt, C. and Blackaby, F. (eds.) Peace, defence, and economic analysis, pp 424–437. London, UK: Macmillan. Defense Budget Project (1993). Final FY 1994 defense authorization and appropriations: Defense reinvestment and transition programs, December 6. Dernberger, R. F. (1996). China’s transition to the future, mired in the present, or through the looking glass to the market economy? In China’s economic future: Challenges to US policy, Study Papers submitted to the Joint Economic Committee, Congress of the United States, 104th Congress, 2d Session, pp 57–69. Folta, P. H. (1992). From swords to plowshares? Defense industry reform in the PRC. Boulder, CO: Westview. Frankenstein, J. (1997). China’s defense industry conversion. In Brommelhorster, J. and Frankenstein, J. (eds.) Mixed motives, uncertain outcomes: Defense conversion in China, pp 3–34. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Frankenstein, J. (1999). China’s defense industries: A new course? In Mulvenon, J. and Yang, A. (eds.), pp 187–216. Gansler, J. (1995). Defense conversion. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Genin, V. (ed.) (2001). The anatomy of Russian defense conversion. Walnut Creek, CA: Vega Press. Grove, A. S. (1996). Only the paranoid survive: How to exploit the crisis points that challenge every company and career. New York: Currency Doubleday. Henggao, D. (1995). New defense S&T strategy to emphasize technology transfer to civilian use. Zhongguo Junshi Kexue, no. 3, pp 131–136 (trans. FBIS-China-95-235, December 7, 1995, 35–42). Kitfield, J. (1997). Special Annual Issue, Top 200 Federal Contractors: Two-Minute Warning Sounds: The Realities of the Shrinking Defense Marketplace are Transforming the Relationship between the Pentagon and Its Suppliers. Government Executive, August, pp 31–40. Lee, W. (1995). China’s defense industry invades the private sector. SAIS Review 15, 177–205 (Summer–Fall). Leech, D. P. (1993). Patterns of diversification. Supporting material for Adjusting to the Drawdown: Report of the Defense Conversion Commission. TASC Report TR-582341 1. Washington, DC: Defense Conversion Commission. McNaugher, T. L. (1989). New weapons, old politics. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. Mecham, M. (2006). Know your cots: Boeing discovers that theory in commercial sourcing isn’t reality. Aviation Week, November 27, p 78. Medeiros, E. S., Cliff, R., Crane, K., and Mulvenon, J. C. (2005). A new direction for China’s defense industry. Santa Monica, CA: RAND. Milgram, P. and Roberts, J. (1992). Economics, organization, and management. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

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Moteff, J. D. and Davey, M. E. (1996). Defense reinvestment and the technology reinvestment project. Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress. Mulvenon, J. (2001). Soldiers of fortune: The rise and fall of the Chinese military-business complex. Armonk, NY: East Gate. Mulvenon, J. and Yang, A. (1999). The People’s Liberation Army in the information age. Santa Monica, CA: RAND. Naughton, B. (1988). The third front: Defence industrialization in the Chinese interior. China Quarterly 3, 351–386. Naughton, B. (1997). The pattern and logic of China’s economic reform. In Joint Committee Congress of the Unites States (ed.) China’s economic future, pp. 1–10. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. Nikol’skiy, A. (2007). Oryzheynyy record. Vedomosti. http:// www.cast.ru/comments/?id=276 (accessed on Feb. 2008). Sachs, J. D. and Woo,W.-T. (1996). Chinese economic growth: Explanations and the tasks ahead, with Wing Thye Woo. In Joint economic committee of the United States Congress, China’s economic future: Challenges to US policy, pp 70–85. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office. Sandler, T. and Hartley, K. (1995). The economics of defense. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Sonobe, T., Hu, D., and Otsuka, K. (2006). Development of the motorcycle industry in the inland region of China. Foundation for Advanced Studies on International Development. Discussion Paper Series on International Deveolopment Strategies 2006-09-004. http://www.adbi.org/files/2006.08.ko.motorcycle.industry.development.paper.pdf (accessed on Feb 2008). Stewart, W. G., II (1993). From war to peace: History of Past Conversions. Supporting Material for Adjusting to the Drawdown: Report of the Defense Conversion Commission. Washington, DC: Defense Conversion Commission. Stoffaes, C. (1986). Industrial policy in the high technology industries. In Adams, W. and Stoffaes, C. (eds.) French industrial policy, pp. 36–62. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. Tai, M. C. (1992). On Civvy Street. Far East Economic Review, February 6, p 40. Tulyev, M. (2006). Vperedi-kontsern PVO ‘Almaz-Antey’. VoyennoPromyshlennyy Kuryer. http://www.vpk-news.ru/article.asp?pr_sign= archive.2006.139.articles.geopolitics_01 (accessed on Feb. 2008). Udis, B. (1987). The challenge to European industrial policy: Impacts of redirected government spending. London: Westview. Udis, B. (1993). Adjustments to reduced domestic defense spending in Western Europe. In Kapstein, E. B. (ed.) Downsizing defense, pp. 139–158. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly. United States Congress (1996). Joint Economic Committee. China’s economic future: Challenges to US policy. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office. United States Department of State (2006). Defense trade controls overview. http://pmddtc.state.gov/docs/defense_trade_overview_2006.pdf (accessed on Feb. 2008). Vlachos-Dengler, K. (2004). Off track? The future of the European defense industry. Santa Monica, CA: RAND. Weidenbaum, M. (1992). Small wars, big defense. New York: Oxford University Press. White Paper on Arms Control and Disarmament (1995). Information office of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China. Beijing: State Council. http://www.nti.org/db/china/engdocs/whteppr.htm (accessed on Feb. 2008). Williamson, O. E. (1979). Transaction-cost economics: The governance of contractual relations. Journal of Law and Economics 22, 233–261. Wolf, C., Jr. and Lang, T. (2006). Russia’s economy: Signs of progress and retreat on the transitional road. Santa Monica, CA: RAND. Woo, W.-T. (1996). Crises and institutional evolution in China’s industrial sector. United States Congress162–175.

Relevant Websites http://books.sipri.org – SIPRI Yearbook, SIPRI. http://www.state.gov – World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers, US State Department.

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Economic Costs and Consequences of War Carlos Seiglie, Rutgers University, Newark, NJ, USA ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Microeconomic Analysis Macroeconomic Implications of War The Transfer Problem and War

Glossary External Cost The cost borne by noncombatant nations in a war. Externality When the action of a nation (individual) affects the consumption or production opportunities available to another. Internal Cost The cost borne by combatant or participating nations in a war. Opportunity Cost The value of a resource in their next-best alternative use.

In analyzing the cost of war, it is convenient to classify or partition costs in two ways. First, a distinction should be made between whether the cost and consequences are internal or external, that is, whether they are borne directly by the participants or by the wider international community, respectively. This distinction is similar to the one made in economics between private and social costs. If the decisions to go to war are based on the calculus of whether the private benefits outweigh the private cost of going to war, then many wars could be prevented if the parties involved internalized the higher social cost imposed by their actions. Once this distinction is emphasized, the importance of developing institutions which provide the proper incentives or mechanisms to account for these external effects becomes evident. Another useful classification is between the direct and indirect effects or consequences arising from war. Direct effects will involve those immediately arising during and after the war and generally are restricted to the economic effects from casualties, displacement of populations, and destruction of infrastructure and other types of physical capital. The indirect effects are much more subtle and will persist into the future as, for example, famine, disease, and the changes in the political and civil society that can occur as a consequence of the event. Since institutions are important to economic activity, these events have profound effects on the economy. Finally, we may also make

Toward Measuring the Cost of War Further Reading

Terms-of-Trade The price of commodities that are imported relative to the price of those that are exported by a country. Value of Life From an economic viewpoint it generally focuses on the amount an individual is willing to pay to avoid death with some probability. This is referred to as the value of a statistical life. From an insurance viewpoint, it is the amount required to make the victim ‘whole’. The losses generally consist of: (1) the loss of wages and employee benefits net of personal consumption and (2) the loss of household services.

a distinction between a static and dynamic analysis of the consequences of war. Table 1 presents an example of the categorization scheme.

Microeconomic Analysis War leads to the destruction of resources: capital (factories, housing stock, weapons, etc.), human capital (reduction in the population as a result of casualties, disease, displacement and starvation), and other resources such as the possible loss of land or territory. Historically, if victory is achieved the potential private benefits to the countries involved are the confiscation of resources such as territory (land), slaves (labor), and other resources. Yet, not only does war reduce aggregate resources but the final distribution is generally different. Both the reduction in resources and their redistribution between the participants will lead to changes in the valuation or prices of commodities and factors of production. In effect, there is a wealth effect and a substitution effect from war. For example, if the nation does not lose territory but suffers a great number of casualties, then labor becomes scarce relative to land. This would lead to the price of land declining relative to the cost of labor in the postwar period. If the economy was closed after the war, the decline in population would also lead to a decline in the

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Table 1 Some costs of war Internal (private) costs

External (social) cost

Direct effects Loss of productive resources: Human (due to casualties, emigration, etc.) and physical capital (wealth effects). Substitution effect from changes in prices. Trade diversion.

Trade diversion for noncombatants. Nuclear and biological fallout. Changes in terms of trade.

Indirect effects Famine from increases in food prices and/or decline in income.

Uncertainty of future conflict can reduce international trade and investment (capital mobility) leading to loss of welfare as gains from specialization and gains from trade are not fully exploited.

Uncertainty reduces capital formation and economic growth as a result of fear of future conflict. Feedback from economic disruption to political system leads to possible changes in civic and political institutions which may have an adverse effect on social welfare (e.g., the formulation of poor economic policies, restrictions of civil liberties, etc.).

demand for many commodities and, therefore, their prices. A new level of relative prices and returns to factors of production will result. In the event of a victory, the winner may gain sufficient resources, for example, oil, to now have influence over prices. This may lead the victor to decrease production so as to increase price to a more profitable level. Figure 1 illustrates a possible scenario for country A. We label its production possibility frontier by AA. It shows all the feasible combinations of commodities X and Y that the country can produce given its endowment and the state of technology available to produce these goods. The country is initially producing the equilibrium amounts given by point E, the point of tangency of the slope of the production possibility curve (which measures

Y

A B C

y′ E′

U0

E

Y′ C′

U1

p

p X

B Figure 1

x′

X′

A

the relative cost to society of producing these goods) to the price of commodities X and Y given by the slope of the line, p. The amount produced of each commodity is denoted by (X9, Y9), whereas the amount consumed by (x9, y9). The level of utility or welfare of a representative citizen of country A consuming this amount is given by U. After a war, if the country suffers casualties and loses resources the new production possibility curve is given by BB, that is, the set of feasible choices is reduced. As shown, if we assume that world prices are unaltered by the conflict (the war is between two small nations), the level of output of both goods as well as the country’s comparative advantage has changed. Prior to the war, this country imported commodity Y by an amount (y9 Y9) and exported (X9 x9), yet after the war it now exports Y and imports X. In addition, the representative individual of country A has been made worse off by the amount U0 U1. Note that in this case, only the warring countries are assumed to be affected. Yet generally, wars will have an impact on the international community at large. As such, the social cost of war is greater than the private cost since the war leads to what may be termed a negative externality on the world community. Other possible costs may ensue because the terms of trade may change as a result of war. By the very nature of altering the amount and the distribution of resources available in the world, wars will affect prices. The effect of these price changes will be felt by both the participants (internal cost) and the rest of the world (external). As prices change, so will the income of different groups, both domestically in the participating nations and those in the noncombatant nations. Similarly, wars will divert trade both directly via disruption of commercial trading routes during the conflict and through the alteration of prices. When trade is reduced or diverted, then social welfare declines not only for the participants but also for the many nations

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that must now pay higher prices for the products that have been made scarcer, or whose transportation costs have risen. Those countries exporting the products whose prices have risen may be better off depending on the income and substitution effects created by the war, since the total amount exported may fall during wartime. There are other internal indirect effects from war such as famine. This results from the disruption of the distribution channels or from a reduction in the income of certain groups. There may also be external indirect effects that we can envision resulting from war. If a warring country is a large producer of agricultural products such as wheat and rice, then disruption in the supply of these products raises world prices. This increase in the price of food may be large enough for noncombatant nations that starvation and disease in these countries may ensue. War leads not only to a direct reduction in physical and human capital as it destroyed, but the uncertainty created by enduring rivalries and the future possibilities of conflict will lead to a reduction in investments in both human and physical capital. This decrease in capital formation will reduce the level of output and economic growth of the participants from the level that would exist if peace prevailed. Conversely, if enduring rivalries induce investments in the military sector, including in weapons and the training of soldiers for war, this imposes a social cost on society since these resources could instead have been used to increase current and future production. The development of much more destructive weapons seems to have resulted in an increase in the divergence between the private and social cost of war than has been the case historically. When weapons were more primitive, casualties were generally confined to those directly involved in combat. As technology improved, so did the likelihood of casualty to the general population. The recent development of nuclear, biological, and other more destructive weapons has led to the cost of war now spilling over to the larger international community. The extreme example is the case of nuclear fallout. In the modern era, the realization of this dramatic external effect from war has led many in the international community to demand the elimination of these weapons possessing the potential for inflicting large external costs. Therefore, the weapons or technology employed in war will not only lead to the cost of war varying for the participants, but will also change the size of the divergence between the private and social cost. Finally, there must be a realization that the economic consequences of war will likely imply changes in the political, social, and civic institutions of the warring countries. Since economic policy is not derived in a vacuum, but is instead formed within political institutions there are costs and possibly benefits that may thus arise. For example, if war leads to an authoritarian regime coming into power then the general citizenry loses influence in the

process of policymaking. This could lead to the adoption of economic policies that differ from those that would be adopted under a democratic regime. In addition, the mobilization of resources by governments during the war may lead to a reduction in civil liberties, which in many cases persists into the postwar period. The cost of these events, although implicit, must also be factored into account for the total cost of war. There has been a failure to realize that freedom of speech and association, for example, not only are rights that provide direct benefits to those endowed with them, but that they also serve to facilitate trade and therefore, make the economic system more efficient. In summary, since war generally leads to the redistribution of economic and political power, there arises the possibility that governments will adopt economic and social policies that impose a higher cost on society than had the event not occurred.

Macroeconomic Implications of War It appears that the earliest concern by economists about the effects of war had to do with the financing of military expenditures. In England, the systematic study of inflation and debt financing during the Napoleanic Wars by Ricardo, Malthus, J. S. Mill, and other British economists led to treatises on monetary and fiscal policy that are the foundation of our knowledge in these areas today. For example, it was as a writer on monetary policy in the discussion of war inflation that David Ricardo first made his reputation. Wars are generally accompanied by increase in government spending, unless the government reduces spending on nonmilitary goods. Therefore, governments can finance this increase by a combination of either taxing the current generation, that is, by raising taxes, borrowing (levying taxes on future generations to repay the debt), or printing money. The initial concern by economists was the impact that financing war would have on increases in the general price level or inflation. Like any government expenditure financed by printing money, inflation is the product. If war requires greater amounts of spending at the same time that a country’s access to the capital markets or its ability to tax is restricted, then higher rates of inflation would be associated with it. In fact, the early empirical work in macroeconomics examines the effects of monetary policy on inflation or hyperinflation during and after war periods. Lerner documents that the worst inflation in American history since the Revolution plagued the South during the Civil War. He finds that for 31 consecutive months from October 1861 to March 1864 the Confederate commodity price index rose at the average rate of 10% per month. When the Civil War had ended, the index was 92 times its prewar base. Similarly, Cagan documented the bouts of

Economic Costs and Consequences of War

hyperinflation following World War I in Austria, Germany, and other European countries. There are two more recent issues in macroeconomics that have led economists to focus research on the consequences of war. The first deals with the tax-smoothing literature that suggests that optimal income taxation requires a smooth tax path and, therefore, unexpected events such as wars are optimally financed by debt. In other words, wars should be financed by fiscal deficits. Although in this literature war plays no special role outside of being assumed to be an unexpected event that governments must deal with, the second literature is more specific to the consequences of war or defense spending in general. The latter work assumes that individuals have a derived demand for national security to protect their well-being, and that of their descendants. Therefore, both temporary increases in defense spending (wars), as well as permanent increases during times of peace will be financed by debt. The key to deriving this result is that bequests, although operative, cannot be fully realized because there exists the possibility that international conflicts may break out. If so then a portion of these bequests may never reach one’s heirs since they may be confiscated by an adversary or destroyed during the conflict. As a consequence of war, a component of government expenditures, defense spending, is perceived by individuals as a form of protecting against these attacks or increasing the likelihood that bequests are realized. Therefore, increases in public debt to finance defense expenditure (which help to ensue that a portion of bequests are received by future generations) will not be fully offset by increases in saving. Consequently, we should expect to observe a position correlation between increases in the size of the public debt and defense spending in countries where such a concern exists. Another important implication from this model is that since defense spending lowers the amount bequeathed to future generations it lowers national savings. In particular, using time series data for 11 OECD countries, Seiglie finds robust results that both aggregate savings as well as the saving rate are reduced by defense spending. Since economic growth is largely determined by the accumulation of both physical and human capital partly financed by intervivos transfers, then defense spending can affect economic growth. A recent paper by Hess presents results that individuals in countries marred by war would be willing to give up 8% of their consumption to avoid experiencing this event.

The Transfer Problem and War Victory in war may lead to not only confiscation of the loser’s resources (e.g., territory) as the prize, but a more

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subtle form of compensation: reparation payments for war damages. For example, France was forced to pay Prussia indemnities after the 1870–71 war and Germany was made to pay France reparations after World War I. Economic research on the general question of the effects of transferring resources between countries on the terms of trade of the paying or receiving country was stimulated after World War I by debates between Keynes and Ohlin. After World War II, the beginning of the Marshall Plan led to a reexamination of this issue by Samuelson. The transfer problem refers to the need for real resources to accompany the international transfer of financial resources between two countries or groups of countries in order for the latter to take place. Under standard assumptions, the problem is that for country A that loses a war to make reparations to country B the victor, country A must reduce its expenditures by the same amount as the recipient increases theirs. Otherwise, the transfer would lead to one or the other country’s term-of-trade changing (the price of imports relative to exports) and the transfer would be undereffected or overeffected. Restating the problem differently, when the loser gives the winner $100, the loser’s balance of trade will improve as they reduce their expenditures on imports and the recipient of the transfers will purchase more of the loser’s exports. If the improvement in the balance of trade via income changes does not lead to the loser making $100 of transfer in real resources (or commodities), then the term-of-trade will change to complete the adjustment. For example, if the balance of trade only improved by $90, then the transfer is undereffected and the price of this country’s exports relative to its imports would fall. As the price of exports relative to imports falls for the defeated country, this will further encourage their exports and discourage their imports until the full transfer is completed. It should be noted that much of the discussion on foreign aid and other transfers in the area of international political economy fails to account for this effect. Therefore, financial transfers that may appear as war reparations (or foreign aid) may lead to dramatic changes in terms of trade of the recipient country, with varying consequences.

Toward Measuring the Cost of War Adam Smith was one of the first economists to recognize the costs as well as the potential benefits of the military when used for national defense. In his book, the Wealth of Nation he states that ‘‘the first duty of the sovereign, that of protecting the society from violence and invasion (by others), can be performed only by means of military force. But the expense both of preparing this military force in times of peace, and of employing it in time of war, is very different in the different states of society

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(and in) different periods.’’ He recognized that the cost of war, including death, destruction, and other casualties, will vary depending on the time and place. In other words, the opportunity cost of the resources employed or destroyed varies depending on the economic conditions of the particular actors. In the simple example shown in Figure 1, the cost of war was simply U0 – U1, since we assumed that there was no time dimension or externalities. Jean-Baptiste Say went even farther by noting that the loss of human life is a loss of wealth. This wealth is composed of the total expenditure used up in previous years in maintenance and education. He wrote: ‘‘War cost more than its expense; it costs what it prevents from being earned.’’ This is one of the earliest recognitions that human beings are embodied with human capital, and therefore a part of the value of a human life is the foregone earnings or loss to society resulting from the inability of individuals to produce, that is, the reduction in output experienced by society. Consequently, the economic cost of war must account for the opportunity cost of the soldiers in their next-best alternative occupation. This cost will generally be substantially different from the budgetary cost allocated by the government. For example, if active-duty military personnel are stationed in country B their pay will already be reflected in the government’s budget. Now suppose that a military conflict erupts in country C which requires these individuals to be transferred there. In addition, assume the war requires an additional deployment of new recruits. The government’s budget will increase only by the additional expenditures on the new recruits and will not account for the value performed by the original group deployed in country B. If there was any value at all initially in having these soldiers deployed in country B, then their use in country C must also reflect this loss in order to arrive at the economic cost of having them deployed in the conflict. Therefore, we see that the amount budgeted by the government for the war will understate the true cost of the war. Similarly, government accounting may quantify the value of life of a soldier by the death benefits and life insurance to survivors resulting from the soldier’s death. Yet, this measure will generally underestimate the economic value of life of the individual. Another problem encountered when using accounting or budgetary allocations to determine the cost of a conflict arises in the understatement of disability payments to veterans over their lifetimes and the cost of their medical treatment to the government. The disability payments will not reflect the actual amount society forgoes from having these individuals injured and not employed in their best occupation. Similarly, medical cost included in the government budget fails to account for the expenditures incurred by the disabled veteran to meet their additional medical needs.

Therefore, a proper analysis of the cost of war requires us to take these issues into account. Although it is difficult to value life in monetary terms, the value of life of a soldier killed in war can be calculated in two ways. The first, which is generally referred to as the value of a statistical life in the economics literature, is commonly used by the US and other governments when doing cost-benefit analysis of product safety regulations. Conceptually, it is determined by examining how much individuals are willing to pay to avoid being accidentally killed with some small positive probability. For example, suppose that the fatality rate in combat is one in 5000. Then the probability of being killed is 0.02%. If we surveyed 5000 soldiers each of which faced this probability of being killed about their willingness to pay to reduce this risk and each responded they would be willing to pay $1000, then the value of a statistical life would be $5 million dollars. This is so because of the 5000 respondents on average one will die. Therefore collectively the 5000 are willing to pay $5 million dollars to avoid this outcome. In a study of the Iraq War, Bilmes and Stiglitz use the US Environmental Protection Agency’s figure of $6.1 million per life to arrive at the cost of fatalities in that conflict. The second approach used more in legal contexts is the replacement value of economic losses resulting from death (or injury). In this case, an attempt at estimating the value of life amounts to estimating how much compensation is required to make the surviving family members ‘whole’. In order to do so, we estimate the present discounted value of the loss of wages and employee benefits net of the individual’s personal consumption, and then we add to this amount the loss of household services to the individual’s family as a result of their death. Since casualties during the war tend to be young, both as a result of soldiers being young and children being the most vulnerable to some of the spillovers of war such as starvation and disease, these costs based on normal life expectancy would tend to be high. For estimates of the cost to those disabled during war, we compute the present value of the differential between their expected pre- and postwar earnings, add to this amount the loss from the inability to carry out household services and any additional medical care expenditures required by the individual as a result of combat wounds. For the calculations of household services foregone we use the market value of the replacement cost of these services. It is important to emphasize that in calculating the economic costs of war, we do not just simply total the number of dead and wounded. Each individual has a value to society based on his or her ability to contribute to the production and therefore, wealth and happiness of a country. The cost of a casualty of a young person with the same amount of human capital as that of an older one will have a higher value to society, since, for example, his or her death at a younger age results in society foregoing more

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expected years of production. The amount of the loss or the economic cost is positively related to the life expectancy in society. This is consistent with Smith’s observation that the cost of war varies across time and space since so will economic conditions. We must equally account for the loss of earnings to others as a consequence of war or conflict. For example, there are currently many countries where the presence of relatively low intensity conflict has eliminated certain industries such as tourism. To measure this cost, we calculate the earnings prior to and during the war and the differential is an approximation of the damage to specific industries resulting from the conflict. Similarly, the adoption of weapons with the potential to impose externalities requires that we factor in these costs. As an example, exposure to chemicals during a conflict reduces the health and life expectancy of those exposed and this amount has to be accounted for in the calculus. Similarly, the environmental damage caused by war has to be factored in. This may include the cost to the environment of oil spills or burning oil wells. As a first approximation, we can estimate the reduction in the income of the affected parties. For example, oil spills resulting from a war may lead to a reduction in the catch of fish. We can then impute some monetary value for this loss. In a similar way, we can calculate the loss generated from the increases in infant mortality. This may be done by estimating the loss in production (earnings) for those who do not survive. In addition, we must add the cost of providing healthcare for those who are casualties of the war. Other costs of war (or more generally, the maintenance of a military) include the following: (1) the salaries and allowance of military personnel evaluated at their opportunity cost; (2) maintenance of paramilitary forces; (3) payments made to civilians employed in the military sector; (4) operations and maintenance; (5) procurement of weapons and the accelerated depreciation of these resulting from their use in combat; (6) research and development (R&D); (7) construction expenditures related to the military sector; (8) pensions to retire military personnel; (9) military aid to foreign countries including attempts at nation building; (10) civil defense; and (11) military aspect of atomic energy and space. All of these components of military spending could be attributed indirectly as a cost of war, even if these expenditures are made during peacetime. The reason is that the existence of war creates the necessity for nations to maintain standing armies and keep stocks of armaments ready for development, that is, to divert resources from alternative uses. Therefore, in calculating the cost of war we should include the loss in production of the factors employed in the war effort. For example, we should value the time of soldiers while engaged in war, not by the amount that they are paid by their government, but by the foregone earnings in their prewar employment. In

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calculating costs, even if soldiers are conscripted their time in the military should be valued at their market wages and not at what they are paid by the government. This is a fundamental issue in the debate on the costs and benefits of the draft versus a volunteer army. All of the other expenditures listed above should be evaluated at their opportunity cost. For example, we must account for the cost of weapons, expenditures on R&D, and the replacement of capital destroyed during war by the amount required to replace them at market prices. It is important to emphasize that when governments borrow to finance these expenditures (or finance them from tax revenues or seigniorage), care should be taken when determining the appropriate rate of interest used to discount any flow of services. The rate used should be one that reflects the social opportunity cost of capital. As Harberger demonstrates, with distortions such as taxes in the economy the social rate of return will generally deviate from the private rate. But one thing is clear, the rate used should not necessarily be the rate paid by the government to finance expenditures since this rate will generally underestimate the social cost of capital. Using this lower rate will result in the actual net cost of many different military activities to be understated, leading to the adoption of military projects that have a net social loss to society. For example, if no distortions exist and the government borrows to finance a new weapon system or to fund pension systems, the rate used to evaluate these costs is the marginal productivity of capital in the private sector that without any risk premium and well-functioning capital markets will equal the market rate of interest. More generally, insofar as military expenditures raise claims on factors of production, they should be included in the cost of war. Finally, an economic valuation of war must also account for possible ‘savings’. For example, Davis et al. estimate the cost of the war in Iraq versus the alternative policy of containment to see which is the more costeffective strategy to achieve some US government objective. Estimates of the cost of the Iraq War to the US by Bilmes and Stiglitz also account for savings to the US government from not having to police the ‘no-fly zones’ after the invasion. Therefore, one should account for possible offsets when deriving estimates of the cost of war. See also: Economic Conversion; Economics of War and Peace, Overview

Further Reading Barro, R. J. (1979). On the determination of the public debt. Journal of Political Economy 87, 940–971. Bilmes, L. and Stiglitz, J. (2006). The economic costs of the Iraq War. An appraisal three years after the beginning of the conflict. (paper presented to the ASSA meetings, Boston, January 2006).

660 Economics of War and Peace, Overview Cagan, P. (1956). The monetary dynamic of hyperinflation. In Friedman, M. (ed.) Studies in the quantity theory of money, pp. 25–120. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Cranna, M. (1994). The true cost of conflict. New York: The New York Press. Davis, S. J., Murphy, K. M., and Topel, R. (2006). War in Iraq versus containment. NBER Working paper No. 12092, March 2006. Harberger, A. C. (1972). Project evaluation. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Hess, G. D. (2003). The economic welfare cost of conflict: An empirical assessment (Claremont Colleges Working papers in economics). Kennedy, G. (1975). The economics of defence. Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield. Keynes, J. M. (1929). The German transfer problem. Economic Journal XXXIX, 1–7. Lerner, E. M. (1956). Inflation in the confederacy, 1861–65. In Friedman, M. (ed.) Studies in the Quantity of Money, pp. 163–175 Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Nordhaus, W. D. (2002). The economic consequences of a war with Iraq. Yale University, October 2002. Ohlin, B. (1929). The reparation problem: A discussion. Economic Journal (June). Samuelson, P. A. (1952). The transfer problem and transport costs. Economic Journal, LXII(246), 278–304. Samuelson, P. A. (1954). The transfer problem and transport costs. Economic Journal, LXIV(254), 264–289. Say, J.-B. (1803). Traite d’ economie politique. (English trans. edn., Catechism of political economy (1817)). Philadelphia, PA: M. Carey & Son. Seiglie, C. (1988). International conflict and military expenditures. Journal of Conflict Resolution 32, 141–161. Seiglie, C. (1998). Defense spending in a neo- Ricardian world. Economica 65, 193–210. Smith, A. (1776). An inquiry into the nature and cause of the wealth of nations. The Modern Library Edition (1937). New York: The Modern Library.

Economics of Conflict and Cooperation See Trade, Conflict and Cooperation Among Nations

Economics of War and Peace, Overview Dietrich M Fischer, European University Center for Peace Studies, Stadtschlaining, Austria ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Conflict Resolution Economic Conversion and the Peace Dividend Inequity as Violence Dynamics of Arms Races and Strategic Stability The Risks of Nuclear War United Nations Reform

Glossary Arbitration Two parties resolve a conflict by asking a third party to chose an impartial outcome. The decision is binding. Basic Human Needs Survival, economic well-being, freedom, and identity, the opposites of death, misery, oppression, and alienation. Conflict Transformation Bridging the legitimate goals of all parties in a conflict to find mutually acceptable and sustainable outcomes. Conversion Shifting work forces, resources, and facilities from military-oriented to civilian-oriented activity. Cultural Violence The justification of direct and structural violence in literature, the arts, the media, and education. Direct Violence Hurting and killing people with deliberate force.

Financing the United Nations System Economic Sanctions New Aspects of International Security: Searching for Peace Further Reading

Global Peace Service Volunteers from around the world working together on the solution of global problems. Mediation A neutral outside party helps parties with a conflict explore solutions that might be mutually acceptable. The proposals are not binding. Optimization Finding the most desirable outcome according to a given criterion, under constraints. Pareto-Optimal Frontier The set of outcomes in which no negotiating partner can gain anything without others losing something. Peace System A series of mutually reinforcing trends that promote peace. Prisoner’s Dilemma A situation in which two parties seemingly act in their individual self-interest, but end up hurting each other. Public Good A good that cannot be supplied profitably by private enterprise because nonpayers cannot be

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excluded from consumption, and the costs of supplying the good are independent of the number of users. Structural Violence Death and human suffering caused by unjust social conditions rather than by military action. Sustainable Development Economic development that preserves availability of essential resources and a livable environment for future generations.

Tobin Tax A tax on foreign currency exchange to stabilize exchange rates. Transarmament A shift from an offensive military posture to purely defensive or nonmilitary defense. War System A series of mutually reinforcing trends that promote war. World Treasury A UN agency, proposed by Jan Tinbergen, in charge of raising revenue to help finance the United Nations (UN) system.

Until recently, most economists considered war an external event not amenable to economic analysis, which from time to time disrupts more normal conditions under which economic laws apply. But Tinbergen, co-recipient of the first Nobel Prize in Economic Science in 1969, pointed out, ‘‘Warfare affects human welfare to such an extent that economists must raise their voices against it.’’ No issue traditionally addressed by economists threatens the survival of humanity as immediately as nuclear war. Moreover, economies are adversely affected not only by the destructive force of war itself, but also by military spending, which exceeds $3 billion per day worldwide, nearly half of it in the United States alone. In recent years, a growing number of economists have studied the economic consequences of war and military spending and explored causes of conflicts and their nonviolent resolution. They have also examined alternative resource allocations that contribute to peace and sustainable development.

prominent tool to analyze conflicts and their resolution. With the end of the Cold War, the main focus shifted from analyzing war-winning strategies to methods of conflict resolution and global cooperation. Cooperative games have been studied before in other contexts, so there was a body of literature to build on. Fisher and Ury emphasize that for fruitful negotiations one should express one’s goals clearly but be flexible about ways to meet them. It is important to listen carefully to the needs and interests of others. If we make onesided proposals in our favor, we cannot expect others to agree and thus hurt our own interests. They give the following illustration of that principle: During the 1979 peace negotiations at Camp David, Egypt demanded that the entire Sinai peninsula be returned to it. Israel was willing to give up most but not all of it. The negotiations were on the brink of breaking down. But by exploring the underlying interests rather than the stated positions, President Carter and his advisers were able to find a compromise acceptable to both sides. Egypt’s main concern was its sovereignty. It did not want to cede territory again to a foreign aggressor after centuries of colonial domination. Israel’s main concern was security. It did not want Egyptian tanks on its border. By giving the territory to Egypt but keeping it free of national military forces and stationing an international peacekeeping force along the border, both sides’ principal concerns were met. Luce and Raiffa proposed that negotiations should not stop as soon as a mutually acceptable solution has been found. The search for further mutually beneficial tradeoffs should continue until they reach the Paretooptimal frontier, where neither side can make further gains without the other side giving up something. In negotiating a new contract between management and labor, even after the two sides have reached an initial agreement, both may prefer another solution that offers higher pay in return for longer work hours during a period of unusually high demand. Similarly, even if two countries have settled a territorial dispute, both may perceive themselves better off if one that would otherwise be land-locked gains access to the sea in return for a larger

Conflict Resolution To a large extent economics deals with methods of accommodating conflicting interests. For example, buyers prefer low prices, sellers high prices, and the market mechanism automatically determines a fair price at which supply and demand are in balance. Any voluntary market transaction is a so-called ‘win-win’ solution in which buyers pay less and sellers earn more than what the item is worth to each. Such win-win solutions, where both sides gain something, are a model for conflict resolution leading to stable outcomes. The more challenging problems in economics deal not with simple optimization, where a single decision maker is in control of everything, but with conflicts of interest, where two or more independent decision makers may seek to frustrate each other’s goals or may cooperate for mutual benefit. The theory of games, which was originally developed by John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern to explain economic behavior, is a

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portion of territory elsewhere. The systematic search for new or amended international agreements that can bring benefits to two or more parties can be a major area of economic studies. Economic cooperation and closer ties should help reduce the threat of war and maintain mutually beneficial relations. After World War II, the French economist Jean Monnet concluded that mutually beneficial economic cooperation between France and Germany might help overcome their century-old hostility. He conceived of the Coal and Steel Union, which has since evolved into the European Union, which has indeed made another war between Germany and France practically unthinkable. Other countries with tense relations can learn from this. Developing mutually beneficial trade and joint ventures is something that is relatively easy to agree to because the benefits are mutual and clearly visible. Such cooperation on easy issues can increase mutual trust and understanding and prepare the way for successful negotiations on more controversial issues later. A model widely used to explain apparently irrational behavior is the prisoner’s dilemma game. A simple illustration is ruinous competition. If one of two gas stations at the same street corner lowers its prices, it may increase its profits by drawing away customers from the competing station. But if both lower their price, they may both have the same number of customers as before, only less revenue. What appears advantageous if one side does it alone may hurt the interests of both sides if they both pursue the same strategy. There are numerous examples of this in real life. If one country arms, it may gain military superiority. But if two rivals engage in an arms race, both become less secure and burdened with heavy military spending. Disarmament negotiations that lead to verifiable and enforceable agreements can help two countries improve their mutual security and reallocate resources to meet their people’s needs. National defense is often cited as a textbook example of a ‘public good’ because it protects all citizens of a country, regardless of whether they contributed to it. For this reason it cannot be profitably supplied by private enterprise and has to be funded by governments out of taxes. But at the international level, military spending is a ‘public bad’ because one country’s arms acquisitions threaten the security of its neighbors. Conflicts can rarely be completely eliminated, but we can develop methods to deal with them without war. For example, there has been an intense struggle between Netscape and Microsoft over providing access to the Internet, but they would never dream of bombing each other’s headquarters. Instead, they compete through better quality, lower prices, advertisements, and sometimes battles in court. Governments could learn from that. A successful businessman once criticized governments’ often confrontational approach toward international

relations. He proposed that to search for areas of common interest was more fruitful than to focus on differences. ‘‘If I sit down at the negotiating table and want to strike a deal, I don’t begin by breaking the teeth of my counterpart across the table,’’ he said. Peaceful conflict transformation, developed by Johan Galtung, is a three-step process that explores all parties’ goals through separate dialogs, distinguishes legitimate from illegitimate goals, and finds creative solutions that meet all parties’ legitimate goals. For example, selfdetermination is a legitimate goal that does not preclude any other party’s right to self-determination, but domination over others is not. An example of successful conflict transformation is the following. Peru and Ecuador fought a series of wars over a relatively small uninhabited border region. In 1995, Galtung suggested a proposal to make the contested territory into a binational zone, jointly administered by both countries, with a natural park to attract tourists and bring both countries additional income. This proposal led to a peace agreement in 1998. The costs of such mediation are minuscule compared to the costs of a peacekeeping operation to end fighting after a war has erupted, and more importantly, it can save many lives.

Economic Conversion and the Peace Dividend The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) publishes an annual volume with estimates of each country’s military spending. During the height of the Cold War, world military spending reached nearly $1 trillion per year. From 1989 to 1998 it declined, mainly in the former Soviet Union, but since then, world military spending has increased again. In 2005, it was estimated as $1,118 billion, 48% of it in the United States, followed by the UK, France, Japan, and China with 4–5% each. Leontief and Duchin used an input/output model of the world economy to analyze the economic implications of various levels of reductions in military spending. All countries would enjoy higher rates of economic growth with lower military spending because they could afford to invest more in their civilian economy. Emile Benoit found a positive correlation between military spending and economic growth rates in some developing countries. Other authors (e.g., Klein et al.), taking other variables into account, have found the opposite. This question has sparked a long and heated debate. Some believe that military spending increases the level of technical competence of the general population and thus explains higher rates of economic growth. Others argue that it could be a confusion of cause and effect. If people with growing incomes spend more on alcohol consumption, one cannot conclude that drinking raises income

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level, but rather that higher incomes allow for bigger spending. Similarly, a government that can afford to spend more for military purposes may be tempted to do so. Some have pointed out that technologies originally developed for military purposes later found civilian applications. But if the same engineering and scientific talent were directed to develop new civilian technologies, the benefits would be far greater. During the Cold War, a third to a half of the world’s physicists and engineers worked on the development of new weapons systems. Dumas stressed that because employers in the defense sector are reimbursed by the government for whatever they spend, they do not hesitate to offer high salaries and state-of-the-art facilities to the top students in engineering and science. Marketoriented civilian firms do not automatically get their costs reimbursed by taxpayers. They are thus at a disadvantage in the competition for the ‘best and brightest’ engineers and scientists. This makes the loss to the civilian economy even more serious. Because many governments are willing to spend lavishly on their militaries, those who make decisions on weapons purchases are less frugal than private consumers, who spend their own hard-earned money. Anyone who can reach into the almost bottomless pocket of the public treasury is tempted to spend freely. The end of the Cold War has raised hopes for a large peace dividend in the form of reduced military spending that can be reallocated to meet civilian needs. The process has been slower than many expected because of fear of job losses among employees of military industries. However, if the same funds that were previously spent for military purposes were spent for such purposes as education, healthcare, saving the environment, and the development of renewable energy sources, even more jobs could be created with the same funds. For example, former US Defense Secretary Weinberger advocated higher defense spending, saying that every $1 billion spent by the Pentagon created 30 000 jobs. He failed to mention that the same $1 billion spent for education would have created 70 000 jobs so that spending it instead for defense in fact provided 40 000 fewer jobs. The conversion of defense-related jobs to civilian jobs requires systematic planning. Weida has estimated that the cleanup of nuclear weapons facilities would create even more jobs than their current operation. The United Nations Institute of Disarmament Research has sponsored a study that emphasized that disarmament can be compared to a process of investment: there may be initial costs of conversion, but future benefits accrue in the form of higher outputs for the civilian economy. If political will is present, the challenge of conversion poses no obstacle to disarmament. For example, as Kenneth Boulding pointed out, from 1945 to 1946, fully one-third of

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the US economy was converted from military to civilian use, and unemployment never exceeded 3%. By demonstrating that this is possible, economists can help generate public support for conversion. Even a small fraction of military spending could have vastly beneficial effects if spent on the solution of global problems. For example, the World Health Organization’s campaign to eradicate smallpox cost $80 million or less than one hour’s worth of world military spending. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has estimated that inoculating every child against the six most common fatal childhood diseases, from which nearly 3 million children under age 5 die each year, would cost $1.50 per child, or about $200 million per year – less than 10% of the $2.1 billion cost of a single US stealth bomber.

Inequity as Violence Violence is present not only if people are shot or maimed, but also if children die from hunger or preventable diseases. Galtung has coined the term ‘structural violence’ for unjust social structures that lead to loss of life or human suffering, even if there is no particular individual committing the violence. Zimmerman and Leitenberg have estimated that if per capita incomes were about equally distributed among countries (even if not within countries), life expectancy in the richer countries would not decline measurably, but the better nutrition and health care available in the poorer countries could save about 14 million lives per year. This is about 100 times the average annual death toll from all civil and international wars and is equivalent to 236 Hiroshima bombs being dropped each year on the poor of the world. But because these avoidable deaths are not concentrated in one moment at one place, they are largely ignored by the news media. If incomes were more equally distributed also within countries, the number of lives saved would be even greater. Tinbergen has appealed for more development assistance, if not out of compassion, at least out of self-interest, because otherwise the advanced industrial countries will inevitably become inundated with streams of economic refugees. One of the most underutilized resources for sustainable development is knowledge. Unlike material or financial resources, it need not be given up by someone in order to be given to someone else. Knowledge, once discovered, can be copied without limit at very low additional costs. If the most efficient production methods known anywhere on the Earth – which are least polluting and use the least amount of energy, natural resources and labor – were available everywhere, everyone could be much better off. Of course, there is a dilemma. If companies that invest in research and development (R&D) of new technologies were

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required to share their discoveries with everyone else without compensation, the incentive to invest in R&D would greatly diminish, reducing the stream of new inventions. A solution is public funding of research with the results being shared with everyone. The European countries have founded EUREKA in which they pool their resources for research on new technologies, based on each member country’s ability to pay, and share the results among contributing members. If the same principle were extended to the global level, all countries could enjoy higher living standards, and international inequality could gradually be reduced. Such an improvement in living conditions would help eliminate a great deal of unnecessary human suffering and would also reduce sources of conflicts. Conflicts over scarce resources and territory are among the most persistent causes of wars. Would such a general increase in living standards damage our environment beyond repair? Not necessarily. It is quite possible to supply human needs for nutrition, health care, housing, clothing, education, and communication with much less burden on the natural environment than today. To mention just one example, a hair-thin glass fiber can carry as much information as a foot-thick copper cable, at a tiny fraction of the material resources and energy required. If we take care of the environment, people can still gain access to the best available information on health and resource conserving production methods. It is not necessary to consume as much resources and energy as the average citizens of today’s industrially advanced countries do for life expectancy and quality of life to improve considerably.

Dynamics of Arms Races and Strategic Stability One decisive factor whether a conflict erupts in war is whether it is preceded by an arms race. Michael Wallace found that among 99 cases of ‘serious disputes or military confrontations’ in the period of 1820 to 1964, 23 of the 28 preceded by an arms race ended in war, whereas 68 of the 71 not preceded by an arms race ended without war. Selling arms is a highly profitable business, and many private companies and governments sell arms to dictatorships and unstable regimes. Arms merchants profit at the expense of other people’s lives. In this respect, the international arms trade resembles the slave trade or drug trade, which have long been declared illegal. Some have proposed a ban on arms exports. A more modest proposal was advanced in 1995 by former Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sanchez, who won the 1987 Nobel Peace Prize for his role in negotiating an end to the war in Nicaragua. He proposed a ban on arms exports to countries involved in armed aggression or internal violent conflict and to countries violating human rights or governed by illegitimate regimes. He also

proposed a global demilitarization fund to promote economic development projects, composed of contributions from reduced military spending, to realize the benefits of the peace dividend. He suggested that the rich nations contribute one-fifth of their savings to this fund with the developing countries contributing perhaps one-tenth of their savings from military budget cuts. Those nations that fail to reduce their military budgets would contribute some stipulated percentage of these budgets directly to the fund. Some developing countries now spend much of their hard-earned foreign exchange on the import of expensive weapons systems, more than for education and health care combined. Arias also proposed regional disarmament talks, where countries can agree to simultaneous mutual arms reductions, and he appealed to countries facing no military threat to abolish their armies, as Costa Rica did in 1948, Panama in 1994, and Haiti in 1995, joining about 30 other demilitarized countries. Costa Rica enjoys a per capita income about twice that of its Central American neighbors, probably because it invests in its civilian economy what others spend for their militaries; and while many wars have gripped its neighbors in recent decades, Costa Rica has remained at peace since 1948. Arms races are driven by several factors, partly by the lobbying of military industries for weapons sales, partly by dictatorial governments fearful of popular unrest, and partly by mutual fear. To eliminate the last factor, some have advocated an intermediate transition to nonoffensive (or nonprovocative) defense, which is sufficient to resist aggression but cannot be used to carry out aggression. For example, while tanks can be used both for defense and for invading another country, tank barriers in fixed position can be used only for defense. Purely defensive measures improve the security of the country undertaking them without reducing the security of adversaries. Purely offensive measures reduce the security of others, without contributing to a country’s own security. One can also imagine ‘superdefensive’ measures that improve the security of two opponents simultaneously; for example, stationing an international peacekeeping force along a contested border. On the other hand, ‘superoffensive’ measures reduce the security of both sides simultaneously; for example, a policy of ‘launch-on warning.’ A mistaken ‘retaliatory’ strike based on a false warning would lead to the destruction of both sides. From January 1979 to June 1980, the US early warning system generated 3804 false alarms of a possible Soviet nuclear attack. After 1984, the Pentagon stopped releasing these statistics ‘so as not to frighten the public’. No comparable Soviet or Russian figures are available, but on 25 January 1995, Russia temporarily mistook a research rocket launched from Norway to study the polar light as a possible US nuclear attack and readied its missiles for retaliation against the US.

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A shift from offensive to purely defensive measures, called ‘transarmament’, has the advantage that it can be undertaken unilaterally, without risk, whereas disarmament requires mutual agreement because unilateral disarmament could make a country vulnerable and a tempting target for aggression. Sweden and Switzerland, which were able to remain at peace during World War II, deliberately avoided the acquisition of any offensive arms, concentrating instead on a strong territorial defense. In an arms race with offensive arms, both sides pose a threat to each other and are under pressure to spend a high portion of their total production for military purposes, resulting in a stagnating civilian economy. If the two sides acquire defensive arms, they reach a saturation point where both sides can defend themselves if necessary, but are unable to attack each other. The arms race then comes to a halt, even without any mutual agreement. Among the most destabilizing weapons systems, which stimulate rapidly escalating arms races and also may lead to the outbreak of hostilities during a crisis, are socalled ‘first-strike weapons’, which are vulnerable and at the same time highly destructive. In an armed confrontation, they give an advantage to the side that strikes first. Examples are unprotected bombers on open airfields. In the 1960s President Nasser believed that acquiring an air force matching that of Israel would make Egypt militarily stronger and therefore safer. He spent vast sums on building a bomber fleet, but it actually made Egypt less secure. Both sides knew that in case of a war, whoever struck first could destroy the bombers of the opponent on the ground before they could take off. When Egypt blocked Israeli ships’ access to the port of Aqaba in 1967, which Israel had warned it would consider an act of aggression, Israel was so afraid of an Egyptian air attack that it felt compelled to destroy the Egyptian bomber fleet before it might attack Israel. Other first-strike weapons are missiles with multiple warheads, such as the American MX missile or the Russian SS-18. If one warhead can destroy a missile on the ground that can carry several warheads, situations can arise where the side that strikes first can disarm the other side in a surprise attack. Instead of giving an opponent the message, ‘‘Don’t attack us or you face the prospect of retaliation,’’ such weapons implicitly give an opponent the signal, ‘‘If you do nothing, you face the danger of being disarmed in a first strike, but if you destroy our weapons, which is easy to accomplish, you face no threat.’’ Instead of deterring an attack, such first-strike weapons may in fact invite an attack, according to the principle ‘use them or lose them’. This instability would be aggravated if weapons were deployed in outer space, as proposed under the Strategic Defense Initiative (‘star wars’). Even though these systems have been portrayed as defensive, they in fact create instability because space stations are extremely

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vulnerable, but would be capable of emitting hundreds or thousands of lethal beams or projectiles. In a tense situation, where a war is feared imminent, both sides would know that whoever strikes first can disable the space stations of the opponent and gain a strategic advantage.

The Risks of Nuclear War With the end of the Cold War, the fear of a nuclear war between the United States and Russia has greatly diminished. But India and Pakistan, who have fought three wars with each other since 1947, have tested nuclear weapons, and Israel is believed to have nuclear weapons as well. There is also the danger that terrorists may one day gain access to a nuclear device and not shrink from using it. Suicide bombers cannot be deterred by the threat of retaliation. Another danger is that a failure of command and control could lead to the accidental launch of nuclear missiles, provoking retaliation. Since 1945, there have been dozens of accidents involving nuclear weapons. Ike Jeanes has calculated the average time until a future nuclear catastrophe under various assumptions. If there are 10 nations possessing nuclear weapons and each one is as peaceful and technically competent that, on average, it will be able to prevent an intentional or accidental use of nuclear weapons for 500 years (more than twice the time since the American declaration of independence), a nuclear use is still frighteningly close: the probability that nuclear weapons will be used within 50 years is 63%, within 100 years 87%, within 200 years 98%, and within 500 years 99.99% a virtual certainty. Unless we eliminate nuclear weapons, it is only a question of time before they will be used. The development of nuclear weapons has been justified by arguing that they are cheaper than equivalent conventional weapons. In terms of destructive power, this is true (they yield ‘more bang for the buck’ or ‘more rubble for the ruble’), but not in terms of buying security: all of the nuclear powers spend a higher fraction of their income for defense than the world average. Some have argued that nuclear weapons have helped prevent war. But in fact since 1945 the eight countries possessing nuclear weapons have been involved in over eight times as many wars, on average, as all the nonnuclear countries. Some credit nuclear weapons with having prevented nuclear war, which is preposterous: without nuclear weapons, there could be no nuclear war. The losses in the case of a nuclear war would be so enormous that even if the probability is low, it is an issue that economists cannot ignore. The astronomer Carl Sagan and collaborators discovered in 1983, with the help of a model of the earth’s atmosphere, that destruction from a nuclear war would go beyond the impact of heat, blast, and radiation disease. Dust

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and smoke rising into the stratosphere would linger for months, blocking out sunlight and cooling the earth surface in a ‘nuclear winter’. Harvests would fail, and those who survived the immediate impact could die from hunger and cold. It might well bring an end to civilization and endanger human survival itself. Avoiding nuclear war is a precondition for all other human endeavors. On 8 July 1996, the World Court declared the threat or use of nuclear weapons contrary to international law under almost any conceivable circumstances and unanimously stated that the nuclear nations have the obligation to conduct negotiations leading to complete nuclear disarmament. Other weapons of mass destruction – chemical and biological weapons – have already been banned by treaties. An immediate first step should be the adoption of a policy of no first use. If nobody were to use nuclear weapons first, they would never be used. But since the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 11 September 2001, the United States has asserted the right to use nuclear weapons preemptively against nations that do not possess nuclear weapons. Ironically, this gives a strong incentive for such nations to acquire nuclear weapons to deter a US attack.

United Nations Reform According to the principle of subsidiarity, every issue should be decided at the lowest level that involves all those who are affected. Some problems are of a global nature and cannot be solved effectively at any level lower than the world as a whole. One example is preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons. If only a single country sells nuclear weapons technology to anyone willing to pay for it, the whole world is in grave danger. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, one of the many branch organizations of UN, was created to help implement the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty that seeks to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. Currently, it can inspect suspected nuclear weapons plants only with the permission of the host governments. If a suspected drug smuggler could tell a border guard, ‘‘You may check my glove compartment, but don’t open my trunk,’’ such an ‘inspection’ would be meaningless. The mandate of the IAEA should include the right to make unannounced random inspections without the right of a veto from the host government. Today, many governments oppose such random inspections as a violation of their national sovereignty. Similarly, when airlines began to search passengers’ luggage for guns and explosives after a series of fatal hijackings, many opposed this as a violation of their right to privacy. But today most passengers welcome such precautions, knowing they can be safe only if everybody’s luggage is inspected,

including their own. Will governments reach the same conclusion before or only after the first terrorist nuclear bomb explodes? The principal purpose for which the UN was founded in 1945 was to prevent another world war by preventing aggression across borders. The UN has been remarkably successful in that endeavor, even though this is rarely acknowledged in the news media, which are quick to focus on any failures but find ‘good news is no news’. According to SIPRI, the number of wars in the world has declined from 31 in 1991 to 17 in 2005, most of them civil wars. The UN has been severely limited in preventing civil wars by the provision in its charter that it is not to interfere in the internal affairs of any member state. If we want to reduce the occurrence of intrastate as well as inter-state wars, it may be necessary to review that provision. Under Roman law the head of a household, the pater familias, had absolute sovereignty over his family. He could sell his children into slavery or beat them to death, and the state had no right to intervene in this internal family affair. Today we consider this concept absurd, but we still cling to the notion of absolute state sovereignty. It is unrealistic to expect that citizens can always find justice within their own country, particularly if they are persecuted by their own government and the government controls the courts. For this reason, an important recent addition to the UN family of organizations has been the International Criminal Court, founded on 17 July 1998 in Rome, to which citizens or ethnic minorities who are oppressed by their own government can appeal if necessary. The older International Court of Justice in the Hague (also called the World Court), successor of the Permanent Court of International Justice established in 1921, can only hear cases brought by one government against another, not by individual citizens. Many of the international organizations affiliated with the UN provide loans (such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund) or give technical advice of various kinds (such as the Food and Agriculture Organization, the WHO, the ILO, the UN Industrial Development Organization, and many others). These functions play a valuable role in promoting development and helping reduce economic inequality as a source of conflict. But sometimes problems have deeper roots than merely a lack of knowledge or resources. They can be traced to inadequate legal systems and a lack of accountability. A well-functioning, dependable legal system is one of the most important conditions for peace and development. If people cannot find justice through legal means, they are often tempted to resort to violence. Also, if business profits can be seized with impunity by corrupt officials, this discourages investment and economic growth. If it is easier to get rich by controlling the army or the police than

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by producing goods that people wish to buy, the most ambitious individuals will plot to seize power by force rather than plan to build business enterprises. This suggests a new UN agency: a Center for Legal Education and Research (CLEAR). Leading legal scholars and legislators from around the world could work together to exchange insights and study what constitutions and legal codes have worked well, under what conditions, what problems and pitfalls have been encountered, and why. They could make these insights available worldwide and train some of the best law students from around the world. In this way, countries could learn from one another’s successes and failures and need not repeat all the mistakes and suffering that others have already gone through. Another agency that can help promote democratic accountability is the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) founded in 1995 in Stockholm with 14 initial member countries. It assists countries who request help in monitoring elections and printing ballots. It deserves to be strengthened and expanded. Former US President Jimmy Carter, who has participated in many efforts to mediate an end to wars and to observe elections, pointed out that in a civil war, both sides are usually convinced that the vast majority of the people are on their side. If they can be assured of free and fair elections, which they expect to win, both sides are often willing to lay down their arms and settle their dispute through ballots instead of bullets. It is important to make sure that there is no election fraud and that all parties have fair access to the voters via the media before elections. Equally important is to guarantee that the election results will be honored by all parties. If groups who overthrow an elected government by force or prevent it from taking office would automatically face strong sanctions by the international community, there would be fewer military coups. Such an institution can play an important role in helping prevent or end civil wars. Amartya Sen has observed that serious famines have not occurred in democracies because a government that would allow a famine would not be reelected. Also, some of the worst pollution has been found in the former centrally planned economies, where any criticism of official policy was punished. A free press, which constantly exposes bad conditions so that they can be corrected, is an essential aspect of democracy. It plays a role similar to that of white blood cells in the human body, which constantly search for germs and eliminate them before they can multiply and spread throughout the body. Immanuel Kant predicted in 1795 that if the people who have to fight and die in case of war could vote, they would choose governments that would not go to war. This has not been true. Even democracies have engaged in many wars. But it is remarkable that so far there has been no war between two democracies. This leaves open

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the hope that with the spread of democracy around the world, wars will greatly diminish, if not disappear. If war erupts despite the best efforts to prevent it, a UN peacekeeping force can intervene to stop the fighting. During the Cold War, few peacekeeping operations took place because the UN Security Council, which needs to authorize such operations, was usually paralyzed by the veto of one of the two superpowers. Since 1989, more peacekeeping operations have been launched than during the previous 44 years. Peacekeeping forces have generally been introduced only to observe cease-fires after the conclusion of a ceasefire agreement at the invitation of both sides of a conflict. This is a useful but limited role. If the police could stop a criminal from beating a victim only if ‘both sides’ agreed, it would be powerless. There is a need also for UN peace enforcement, at the request of one side alone, on its own territory, in case of aggression or a perceived threat of aggression.

Financing the United Nations System Tinbergen observed that to almost any ministry at the national level, there exists a corresponding international organization, such as the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) corresponding to a ministry of agriculture, the WHO corresponding to ministry of health, The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization corresponding to a ministry of education, and so on. Most well-run governments also have three major financial institutions: an investment bank, a reserve bank, and a treasury. To the investment bank corresponds the World Bank, to the reserve bank, in a limited sense, the International Monetary Fund, but there is nothing corresponding to a treasury. Yet the treasury, which collects revenue to finance all the other operations of a national government, is its most essential branch. Without a treasury, any government would soon collapse. Tinbergen therefore called for the creation of a World Treasury. Today’s arrangement, where countries are assessed on a quota basis for contributions to the UN but there are no sanctions for late payment or nonpayment, functions poorly. Even though the UN budget is modest ($1.8 billion in 2006, about half the $3.3 billion annual budget of New York City’s police department), the world organization is near bankruptcy. Many countries are late with their payments, particularly the United States, which in 2007 owed $785 million in past dues to the UN, or 58% of all unpaid dues. The combined budgets of the UN and all of its specialized agencies, including peacekeeping operations, amounts to $20 billion per year, less than 2% of world military spending. Some have criticized the UN as a bloated, inefficient bureaucracy. Others point out that, for example, in 2007

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the Pentagon had a budget of US$532.8 billion. With a relatively small staff, the UN serves 192 member nations, not only a single country, and it does much to promote peace, development, education, human rights, and environmental protection. James Tobin proposed a small tax on foreign exchange transactions to calm the highly volatile foreign exchange markets and to give governments more autonomy to pursue socially desirable policies – such as lowering interest rates to overcome a recession or a tight monetary policy to fight inflation – without confronting impeding reactions from the world financial markets. If foreign exchange rates were less erratic and more predictable, this would encourage more international trade and foreign investment and would greatly benefit the whole world economy. As a side benefit, such a tax, collected by national governments on their own territory, could be partly used to help finance the UN family of organizations. About $500 trillion are exchanged from one currency into another each year, more than 10 times the estimated value of the world’s annual economic product of $46.6 trillion in 2006. A 0.1% exchange tax, for example, even if it would cut foreign exchange transactions in half, would still yield approximately $250 billion per year. Even if national governments kept 90% of that amount and contributed only 10% to a World Treasury, that would be more than sufficient to finance the UN and all of its specialized agencies, and would allow a substantial expansion of funding for sustainable development and peacekeeping. This tax has never been tried, but would be an excellent idea, given that it would help stabilize exchange rates, thus facilitating international trade, and as a side benefit it could replace national contributions to the UN family of organizations, and give governments additional revenue. A similar small tax on stock trades could help stabilize the wildly fluctuating stock markets, without preventing the adjustment of stock prices to market realities, and help raise revenues or reduce other taxes. Another potential source of revenue are emission charges, for example, a carbon tax. It would help discourage the burning of fossil fuels and save the earth from global warming that may melt the polar icecaps and flood coastal areas, including some of the largest cities. A tax on ozone-depleting gases could help reduce their use, saving the ozone layer that protects us from cancer-causing ultraviolet radiation. Paradoxically, charging a tax on pollutants would not increase overall taxes, but help reduce them. This is easy to see with the following thought experiment: If gasoline were free at the pump, we would end up paying more for gasoline, not less, because many people would begin to waste it, and in the end the taxpayers would have to cover the costs anyway, regardless of how much gasoline they had used. This is the way in which we generally have dealt with clean air and clean water: by pretending they

are free, we have encouraged people to waste them and have paid far too high a price for them – if not always financially, then certainly with our health. Another potential source of revenue for a World Treasury are auctions of global resources. A 1995 auction by the US Treasury of a small portion of the domestic airwaves spectrum to companies offering mobile telephone services raised nearly $8 billion. Similarly, the limited number of 180 positions for geostationary satellites could be auctioned to the highest bidders. Other resources are mining rights on the deep seabed outside of any country’s jurisdiction. Such auctions can also help prevent conflicts. When oil was first discovered in the nineteenth century in Texas, there were no rules. As soon as anyone had discovered some oil, other companies rushed to the scene and drilled to get a portion of that oil. Soon they realized that they could never make any profit that way. Today they appreciate that the US government grants exclusive drilling rights to the highest bidder for a parcel of territory. They pay something, but in return they enjoy the security and peace of mind that they can explore without fear that if they strike oil, someone else may take it from them. A similar service is needed also at the global level to prevent future wars over global resources. No national government can claim the right to auction these global resources to other countries. Only the UN, or a World Treasury on its behalf, would be accepted by all countries as a legitimate and impartial auctioneer. Such auctions would also help raise some badly needed funds to address global problems. Of course, an international board of respected personalities, or ultimately an elected world parliament, should oversee the proper use of the funds raised in this way to ensure accountability. Developing countries that cannot yet compete on an equal basis in such auctions can be given a fair share, for example, by allocating 50% of global resources according to current population while auctioning the rest. Developing countries would further benefit from such auctions since greater resources would become available to finance development projects. Such a method to help finance global development, protection of the environment, and peacekeeping has a number of advantages: first, it frees governments from paying contributions. Second, it gives the UN and its family of international organizations a more reliable source of funds to meet urgent global needs. Third, it avoids divisive and difficult negotiations over how much each country should contribute, since companies in the richer countries will naturally be able to pay more. Fourth, it uses market principles to improve the efficiency of allocating scarce resources. Fifth, it encourages resource conservation. Finally, it helps prevent possible future wars over those resources.

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Another approach to fund international peacekeeping, proposed by Hazel Henderson and Alan F. Kay, is to offer insurance against aggression. The countries most interested would probably initially be small countries, which are hardly able to maintain military forces that can match potential adversaries. This idea exploits the concept of scale economies: for every country to maintain its own defensive forces is as wasteful as if every house in a community maintained its own fire engine. Countries that take extra precautions to avoid war, such as agreeing to resolve disputes through mediation or arbitration, could get insurance at a reduced rate, in the same way as homes built with fireproof materials and having a fire extinguisher can obtain lower fire insurance rates. A great advantage of a UN Security Insurance Agency over the current situation where the UN Secretary General has to appeal to reluctant member nations to contribute troops for peacekeeping operations is that it would be entirely optional. No country would be required to pay this insurance, but those who did would gain the benefit that anyone who threatened them would face a standing international peacekeeping force that would automatically be committed to the country’s defense and would be ready at a moment’s notice. Such a swift and certain response should strongly dissuade would-be aggressors and the force might therefore rarely have to be deployed. A standing UN peacekeeping force consisting of individually recruited volunteers would have a number of other advantages over military contingents supplied by UN members: the response would be swift, which could save many lives in case of emergencies such as the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Their primary loyalty would be to the UN rather than to their national command structure, and they would train together and work well together. They would be trained to stop fighting and help avoid war rather than winning battles as traditional armies are now trained. In addition to helping protect countries against aggression and maintaining cease-fires in civil wars, such a standing force could also be deployed on short notice to assist refugees and help protect lives in case of natural or industrial disasters, such as earthquakes, floods, accidents at nuclear power plants, poisonous chemical leaks, or other emergencies anywhere on earth. All of these methods of helping finance the UN system would provide a useful service to the world community and as an added benefit help raise funds.

interest in exploring economic sanctions as an alternative to the use of military force to put pressure on governments to desist from aggression or gross human rights violations. The success has been mixed. Of 103 cases of sanctions examined by Hufbauer and Schott, only about 30% were successful. Sanctions imposed by a single government were rarely successful. However, of the 10 cases of international sanctions approved by the UN Security Council, all 10 have been successful, including the sanctions against South Africa, which persuaded its business community to join the forces opposing apartheid. To make sanctions effective, a number of conditions must be fulfilled. Predictability. If sanctions are imposed at will, without clearly known conditions under which they apply, responsibility for the sanctions will be placed by the population on the foreign powers imposing the sanctions, not on their own government that provoked the sanctions with its policies. Galtung warned that arbitrary sanctions can provoke nationalist sentiments and rally people behind their beleaguered government. Broad support. To be effective, sanctions must be tight. Even a few countries that refuse to participate and take advantage of high black market prices can undermine the effect of sanctions. It may be necessary to impose sanctions also on countries that violate sanctions to enforce universal participation. At the same time, neighbor countries that suffer disproportionately from an interruption of trade may need to be compensated to some degree for their losses by the international community. Low costs. If sanctions impose a high domestic price, such as a substantial loss of jobs, they are hard to sustain politically. Compassion. A regime that does not care about the welfare of its people is hardly influenced by economic sanctions that affect the poor. Sanctions should be carefully designed to hurt only the decision-making elites, for example, by freezing their foreign bank accounts and refusing their national airline landing rights abroad. In the past, sanctions have often hit innocent people, like democratic opposition forces and children and caused heavy loss of life. To punish an entire nation indiscriminately is comparable to blowing up an aircraft with all its passengers to kill a hijacker.

Economic Sanctions

In 1988, the organization Economists for Peace and Security (formerly Economists against the Arms Race) was founded by Robert J. Schwartz. Today it has branch organizations with a total of well over 1000 members in countries on all five continents. Among its trustees are

Given the great destructiveness of modern weapons and, at the same time, the growing economic interdependence of all countries, there has been renewed

New Aspects of International Security: Searching for Peace

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many Nobel laureates in economics. Its goal is to enlist the special contributions economists can make in the search for peace. Members of every profession have a role and responsibility to do what they can to help assure human survival, even if they have not caused the problems we face. Economics is perhaps the most developed of the social sciences, insofar as it uses empirical data, quantification, mathematical models, scientific reasoning, and optimization methods. The concept of human welfare, which is central to economics, needs to include security, to be complete. Economists should be less concerned with economic growth rates and stock market values, which disproportionately benefit a small superrich minority, and more with the satisfaction of basic human needs, especially of those most in need. When a nature so generous as ours and a humankind working so hard share a world with so much environmental degradation, denial of basic human needs, inequality, and economic crises, something fundamental is wrong. Economists can apply their analytical tools to an inquiry into the causes of war and the exploration of nonmilitary strategies to maintain peace. Economists are familiar with the concept of large systems in which many variables interact and may mutually reinforce or weaken one another. We currently live in what could be called a ‘war system’, where a series of interlocking trends, such as poverty, ecological disasters, dictatorships, absence of enforceable international law, and the profitability of the arms trade, have led to a long series of wars in vicious cycles. In parts of the world, there are also elements of a ‘peace system’ emerging, such as expanding economic cooperation among nations and ways to settle disputes through negotiations and binding legal procedures. Examples include the European Union and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The UN also plays an important role in this emerging global peace system. What are the conditions necessary to guarantee peace, prosperity, and a livable environment for future generations? Few people advocate war, poverty, pollution, or human rights violations. Why do we observe so much of all of these? Is it due to human selfishness, shortsightedness, ignorance, or inadequate legal systems? All of these factors and several more play a role. All of them can be seen as various breakdowns of regulatory feedback systems. Any viable system, whether in nature or human society, needs a series of feedback mechanisms to maintain it in a healthy state or restore that state if the system has deviated. A regulatory feedback system has three main components: agreement on a desirable goal, methods to detect deviations from the goal, and mechanisms to move the system closer to the goal state if it has deviated. An example is the legal system in which laws define acceptable behavior, courts determine whether someone has

violated a law, and the police and prisons serve the function of enforcing the laws. Such a feedback system can break down in six possible ways: (1) there may be no agreement on the goal (a question of conflict resolution); (2) even if the goal is clear, deviations from it may not be noticed (a question of observation); (3) even if a problem is clear, those who can correct it may have no interest in doing so because others are affected (a question of incentives and also of ethics: whether we care about one another or only about ourselves); (4) even if those who cause a problem ultimately suffer the consequences by themselves, they may fail to prevent it, if the consequences are delayed (a question of future planning); (5) even if the consequences of a mistake are felt immediately, people sometimes act irrationally, against their own best interests, out of hatred or prejudice (a question of psychology and culture); and (6) perhaps the most frequent cause of problems is that even though people are fully aware of them and wish to correct them, they may not know how or lack the necessary resources (a question of science, technology, education, and economics). Let us consider these six defects in turn and see what economic reasoning can contribute to overcome them. Achieving agreement. Economists’ methods to reach agreement consist of negotiations to find mutually beneficial trades and treaties. The use of armed force is usually not an instrument of economic behavior. A good example of an economic approach to solving international disputes is the Marshall Plan. During the Versailles peace negotiations after World War I, Lord Keynes, as a member of the British delegation, warned that the imposition of huge reparations payments on Germany would create resentment and plant the seeds for another war. He resigned in protest when his advice was ignored. The Versailles treaty did indeed help Hitler rise to power with the promise of abrogating it. After World War II, the United States learned that lesson. By giving economic assistance to the war-ravaged countries, including its former enemies, Germany and Japan, it turned them into allies. Observations. Economists are keenly aware that a precondition for formulating and executing good policies is to have reliable data. If we are not aware of a problem, nothing will be done to correct it. Most governments collect extensive economic statistics to detect any deviations from a desired state, such as a rise in unemployment or inflation, so as to be able to take countermeasures. The same type of watchful eye is needed to preserve peace. At the First Special Session of the UN General Assembly on Disarmament in 1978, France proposed the creation of an International Satellite Monitoring Agency that could detect violations of arms control agreements or preparations for aggression. It was supported by 123 of the 125 participating countries, but opposed by the two superpowers. With the Cold War ended, it should be revived. Such an agency could also provide early warnings of

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droughts and other natural disasters. Another inexpensive way to detect threats to peace early could be to have crisis control centers where volunteer citizens could report signs of danger or suspected violations of human rights or international agreements, which could then be investigated and dealt with, if necessary, in the same way as cities have emergency numbers to report fires or crimes. Incentives. A central notion of economics is that people act in their own self-interest. Oskar Morgenstern said that if the politicians and generals who make decisions about war or peace would have to fight themselves at the front in case of war instead of sending young men and increasingly also women to their deaths, we would have fewer wars. Economics also suggests a nonmilitary approach to defense: searching for common security by making peace more attractive. If others see us as a threat, they will naturally seek to counter that threat, which in turn makes us less secure. If we want to be secure, we should play a useful, preferably indispensable role for other countries so that it is in their own interest to maintain good relations with us. Future planning. Economists stress the need for investment. A small payment now may yield big benefits in the future. Two examples may illustrate that the same applies to security policy. Alexander Yakovlev, who later became a close advisor to Gorbachev and a key architect of perestroika, which brought an end to the Cold War, was among the first group of 30 Soviet students who came to the United States with a Fulbright Fellowship in 1958. The few thousand dollars for that fellowship may have contributed more to helping end the nuclear confrontation between the superpowers than billions of dollars in military spending, which only aggravated tensions. Another example shows the benefits of early intervention. In 1992–93, three members of a nongovernmental organization, the Project on Ethnic Relations based in Princeton, were able to mediate an accord between the Rumanian government and representatives of the Hungarian minority in Romania, which ended their conflict by giving the ethnic Hungarians the right to use their own language again in local schools and newspapers in return for a promise not to seek secession. That agreement, reached in two meetings of 3 days each, may well have prevented a war like that in former Yugoslavia. It is much easier to prevent fighting before it begins than to stop it after it has started. It took nearly 4 years and finally 60 000 foreign troops to end the fighting in Bosnia. This is over 10 000 times as many people for a period more than 100 times longer at a cost far exceeding 1 million times the expense of the Rumanian mediation sessions. Most importantly, preventing war before it erupts saves lives. Governments are generally so overburdened that they tend to react to problems only after they have

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reached crisis proportions, instead of anticipating and preventing them. This is as if we were to drive with closed eyes, waiting until we hit an obstacle and then calling an ambulance instead of anticipating and avoiding dangers. Gorbachev proposed the creation of an international commission of former heads of state and eminent scientists and thinkers who could study potential dangers to human survival and ways to overcome them, free from the pressure to respond daily to the latest crisis. Rational behavior. Economists advise to weigh carefully costs and benefits of various courses of action, not to act impulsively guided by emotions. A company that practices racism or sexism will fail to hire the most qualified people for a given job. Similarly, nationalism and racism can lead a country to pursue disastrous policies, with Nazi Germany being a prime example. Global education, where children learn to understand and respect other cultures, may be one of the best ways to overcome prejudice and irrational thinking. Resources. Among the most valuable of all resources, as economists have long realized, are human resources. Robert Muller, Chancellor of the United Nations University for Peace in Costa Rica, has proposed the creation of a Global Peace Service to enlist the talent and dedication of people willing to help solve global problems. Volunteers of all ages from different countries could work together to assist various UN agencies, such as the High Commissioner for Refugees, the FAO, the WHO, the UN Environment Program, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, or a proposed future UN Agency for Mediation and Arbitration. They could also work for the thousands of nongovernmental organizations active in promoting peace, development, human rights, and a clean environment. Muller proposed that young people could participate in this Global Peace Service instead of military service, with funding from their own governments. Friendships forged between young people from different countries tend to last a lifetime and may later provide valuable links of communication in helping resolve international crises. Modern science and technology have given humanity unprecedented powers. We can communicate instantly across the globe, and automation has greatly increased the potential for production. Those powers can be used to overcome misery and scarcity – some of the oldest causes of war. They have also enabled us to develop weapons with which we can destroy ourselves. The choice is up to all of us. See also: Arms Production, Economics of; Arms Trade, Economics of; Cold War; Economic Causes of War and Peace; Economic Conversion; Military-Industrial Complex, Contemporary Significance; Nuclear Warfare; Peace and Democracy; Political Economy of Violence and Nonviolence

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Further Reading Benoit, E. (1973). Defense and economic growth in developing countries. Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath. Brauer, J. and Gissy, W. G. (eds.) (1997). Economics of conflict and peace. Aldershot: Avebury Press. Dumas, L. J. (1995). The socio-economics of conversion: From war to peace. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe. Fischer, D. (1984). Preventing war in the nuclear age. Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Allanheld. Fischer, D. (1993). Nonmilitary aspects of security: A systems approach. Aldershot: Dartmouth Publishing Co. Fisher, R. and Ury, W. (1981). Getting to yes: Negotiating agreement without giving in. Boston, MA: Houghton-Mifflin. Galtung, J. (1975–1988). Collected essays in peace research and methodology (9 volumes). Copenhagen: Ejlers. Galtung, J. (2004). Transcend and transform: An introduction to conflict work. London: Pluto Press. Hufbauer, G. C. and Schott, J. J. (1985). Economic sanctions reconsidered: History and current policy. Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics. Jeanes, I. (1996). Forecast and solution: Grappling with the nuclear. Blacksburg, VA: Pocahontas Press.

Klein, L. R., Lo, F. C., and McKibbin, W. J. (eds.) (1995). Arms reduction: Economic implications in the post-Cold War era. New York: United Nations University Press. Leontief, W. and Duchin, F. (1983). Military spending: Facts and figures, worldwide implications and future outlook. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Ruce, R. D. and Raiffa, H. (1957). Games and decisions: Introduction and critical survey. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons. Sen, A. K. (1981). Poverty and famines: An essay on entitlement and deprivation. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (2006). SIPRI yearbook 2006: Armaments, disarmament and international security. Stockholm: SIPRI. Tinbergen, J. and Fischer, D. (1987). Warfare and welfare: Integrating security policy into socio-economic policy. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press. Tobin, J. (1978). A proposal for international monetary reform. Eastern Economic Journal 4, 153–159. United Nations Development Program (2007). Human development report 2007: Human development and climate change. New York, NY: UNDP. Wallace, M. D. (1979). Arms races and escalation: Some new evidence. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 23(3): 3–16. Weida, W. (1997). Atomic audit. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.

Elders, Violence and Non-Violence Toward

See Aged Population, Violence and Non-Violence

Toward

Emotion and Violence in Adolescence Robert F Marcus, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction Emotion Associations between Emotion, Aggression, and Violence

Glossary Action Tendency Emotion-specific behaviors. Angry/Reactive Aggression Aggressive actions motivated by anger. Closed System Relationship between romantic partners in which there is a predominance of negative emotions, low self-disclosure, high conflict, and lessened interaction with peers. Empathy A personality trait in which cognitive, emotion-matching, and behaviors tailored to the needs of others are evident.

Dating Relationships, Emotion and Aggression/ Violence Summary and Implications Further Reading

Eruptive Violence Violence motivated by suppressed anger. Open Systems Relationships between romantic partners in which there is a predominance of positive emotions, self-disclosure, low conflict, and openness to interaction with peers. Sensation-Seeking A personality trait in which individuals evidence an aversion to boredom, seek forms of disinhibited social behavior, pursue an unconventional lifestyle, and pursue thrills and adventure.

Emotion and Violence in Adolescence

Introduction Adolescence is well recognized as a time of considerable physical growth and advances in social, cognitive, and personality development. It is also a time when there is an increase in all risk-taking behaviors, from poor diet and lack of exercise to smoking and alcohol use. Despite efforts by some to downplay the enormous shifts and elevated stress taking place in adolescence, there is clear evidence that for a large minority of young adolescents there are significant increases in storm and stress that manifests as: (1) increased conflict with parents and other authorities, (2) mood disruptions such as in moods swings and episodes of depressed mood, and (3) increased risk-taking and the potential for increased harm to themselves and others. In addition, each period in adolescence contains forms of disruption that are more common than at other times in adolescence. For example, beginning in middle school (for most children) a pubertal growth spurt results in increased physical size and muscle development, more time spent with peers (and an increase in their resulting influences), and the beginning of dating relationships. All of these changes add increased pressure toward growing up quickly and taking on adult-like roles. Moreover, in middle and high school, the demands of new educational hurdles pose significant frustrations and challenges for many as do the demands of managing family and friendship relationships as they continue their progress toward adulthood. Not surprisingly, aggression and violence among middle and high school adolescents also undergo dramatic developmental changes along with the pressures resulting from the increased frustrations of social, physical, and academic shifts. This article describes the role of emotions in aggressive and violent behavior among American adolescents, which may not be applicable to other societies. Violence in dating relationships is used as a specific illustration of the intricacies of the emotion–violence association. There are two main developmental trends in aggression and violence among middle and high school adolescents that have been fairly well documented. Both of these trends show elevations in prevalence in early adolescence but each has a different trajectory in mid- to later adolescence. The first trend, as found in surveys and interviews of representative samples of adolescents in the United States, portrays increases in middle school through the early high school years in the prevalence of bullying, physical fighting, carrying a weapon, and being threatened with a weapon, followed by a reduction in prevalence by about age 15. This increase in early adolescence in what may be called everyday, largely dispute-related, physical conflict among adolescents appears not only among adolescents in the United States, but among young adolescents in six other countries as well. Developmental changes

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in physical fighting can serve as one example of this trend. In the United States, the likelihood of an adolescent getting into a physical fight in 12 months (in 2005) has been estimated at 44% in 9th grade and 29% in 12th grade, and this 34% decrease from 9th to 12th grades has roughly held constant from 1993 through 2005 (USDHHS, 2006). The second developmental trend, evident in less than 10% of adolescents, concerns more serious, criminally violent behavior. In the case of more serious violent behavior there are increases in prevalence from early to mid-adolescence and then a steady but more gradual incline throughout adolescence. As examples of agerelated increases in more serious violent behaviors, data from the United States FBI on homicide, for the years 1990 through 2002, has shown that from age 13 to age 14 there was a nearly 200% increase in the number of homicide victims, a 72% increase from ages 14 to 15, a 60% increase from ages 15 to 16, and roughly the same pace of diminishing increase to age 17. The number of homicide victims then declined after age 17. Arrest data for violent crimes by adolescents show similar age trends as that of homicide. Increases in arrest for four major violent crimes (known as ‘Index’ crimes) in the year 2001 (per 100 000 population) increased nearly 14-fold from ages 12 and under to age 13–14, 62% from ages 13–14 to age 15, and 22% from ages 15 to 16, with increases at about the same magnitude until age 18, and declines thereafter. Typically, arrests for violent crimes such as aggravated or simple assault, as recorded by police headquarters are only a tiny fraction of what adolescents self-report. The evidence for self-reported violent victimization, according to National Crime Victimization Surveys in the United States, shows that adolescents aged 12 to 15 and 16 to 19 are the most likely of any age group to become the victims of violent crime. The definitions of aggression and violence suggest both, some similarities and some important differences between them, particularly with regard to the behavior– emotion linkage. For example, empathic emotion mediates both aggression and violence, but the intensity of emotion motivating violence through anger and overall emotional arousal is greater, as discussed later in this article. Both aggression and violence are behaviors intended to harm others, the intention being an important stipulation to be made among adolescents. Adolescents must often make the distinction between real and fake threats. The ability to determine intention, as in making a distinction (by adolescents and onlookers) between playfighting and real fighting, is extremely important in relation to their responses to the altercation. An adolescent responding to play-fighting as if it were real or to a real threat as if it were play could appear foolish or could be dangerous. However, determining intention is often difficult because one needs to infer it from observation of the nonverbal behaviors, explanations of the participants, and

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the context of the interaction. Play-fighting may contain largely positive emotion and welcoming responses along with the posturing often seen among adolescents. Aggressive fighting, however, yields mostly negatively valenced emotion (e.g., fear or anger) whereas violence contains the same emotions at higher levels of intensity. Moreover, the cues needed to make the distinction are dependent on the emotional reactions and intensity of the participants. In addition, the distinction between aggression and violence is first a matter of degree, with the borderline and earmarks of aggression and violence being rather ‘fuzzy’, and difficult to define precisely. Behaviors usually considered aggressive are those that are intended to harm another, but lack the intensity or potential for harm to actually produce injury to the other. Also, it is not likely that one or both of the participants in a physical fight within a school hallway would be charged with a clear violation of law. They may merely be suspended or required to enter mediation by school personnel. Even instances of unidirectional bullying or actions considered sexual harassment, when initiated by one of the participants, are often unlikely to be labeled violation of law by a police officer if called to the school. However, violent behaviors such as in the use of a weapon in a robbery, or a physical fight which produces injury, are not only likely to be of greater emotional intensity but are also more likely to be considered violations of the law. Current discussion of aggression and violence is limited to intentional and physical manifestations of both. In sum, aggressive and violent behaviors lie on a continuum of injuriousness/intensity (potential and actual), and legality. Emotional processes that both motivate and mediate aggression and violence by adolescents are the focus of the following discussion.

Emotion The study of emotion has become a central feature of research into many forms of prosocial behaviors and aggressive behaviors over the past 40 years. Emotion has become more clearly understood and implicated as a motivator or mediator of much social behavior. Emotion as a motivator pushes the individual to act whereas emotion as a mediator may change the meaning of the provocation or enhance compassion for others, thereby lowering the likelihood of aggression. First, all current trait theories of personality (e.g., the Big Five or The Alternative Five) include at least one dimension of affect which stretches from positive emotions to negative emotions as a unique component of personality. Emotion traits on the one pole include negative affects such as sadness, anxiety, and fear. On the other pole are affect traits characterized by largely positive emotions such as happiness and well-being. A second line of research consists of

those who have studied emotion in more temporal dimensions and the structure of emotion, and have suggested two important dimensions: (1) valence (similar to trait theories), or emotions largely positive (i.e., pleasant emotions such as happiness or love) or negative (i.e., largely unpleasant such as anger, sadness, fear); and (2) arousal level, ranging from low levels to higher levels. Following the valence and arousal level of emotions is a third important characteristic of emotions that is fairly well accepted. Emotions carry with them emotion-specific action tendencies. For example, anger carries with it the action tendency to aggress in some fashion, whereas the action tendency for positive emotion would be to engage in prosocial behaviors such as cooperation, altruistic acts, or loving actions. An example of an action tendency can be found in research on anger from a ‘social constructionist’ perspective; emotion is what most people imagine it is. Anger, defined as a prototype from the social constructionist perspective, is typically perceived as involving instigation (e.g., slight), a thought (e.g., an obsession with an event), an unpleasant emotional arousal (e.g., blood rushing to face, tightened muscles), and a behavioral act (e.g., physical aggression). In sum, emotions can be classified as having a positive or negative valence, a high or low level of arousal, an instigation, a cognitive component, and an action tendency, the specifics of each which are unique to the emotion under study. Clearly, the hunt for emotional involvement in aggression and violence, in light of its action tendencies and components, and previously noted special emotional and behavioral development of adolescents (e.g., increased stress and impulsivity), should suggest an examination of anger and its role in aggression and violence. There has also been great interest in the arousal level of anger as well, and in the motivational properties of anger because it focuses attention on the ‘target’ individual, but also in cases where anger has greater arousal level, as in the concept of seething and eruptive anger. There is also considerable research interest in sensation-seeking individuals who seek greater emotional arousal through conflict and fighting with others. Empathy, an emotional sharing of understanding and feeling with another, has also been studied as an important mediator of emotion and aggression, one that serves to curb its expression. The final exploration of individual emotions is the domain of dating partner aggression among adolescents, particularly important because of its increasingly intimate and intense emotional character during adolescence. It is within close, intimate relationships where we see the most intense emotions and increased risk for aggression and violence by both partners. A general schematic for the associations between emotion and violence can be laid out in advance of the review of research. It is likely that any irritation or annoyance can intensify to anger and rage, thus increasing the likelihood

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of aggression and violence. This model of cognitions escalating angry emotion and the risk of emotional aggression and violence is consistent with a theory proposed by Berkowitz in 1993. However, at lower levels of irritation and anger, it is still possible to empathize with the other individual, particularly for those who are typically empathetic. Empathy then refocuses thinking and compassionate emotion toward the other rather than a narrow focus on one’s own anger, thus reducing one’s sense of injustice; anger escalation and risk for aggression is thus halted. Adolescents may be more vulnerable to anger and aggression because of the greater abundance of angry emotion as well as the less well-established empathic mechanisms available to them.

Associations between Emotion, Aggression, and Violence A distinction between reactive aggression, motivated by anger and impulsive in character, and proactive aggression that is nonemotional and plan-full, has remained an important distinction for research and study involving children and adolescents. Reactive aggression is emotionally hotter, angrier, and more likely to be triggered by provocation. Proactive aggression is cooler and used to obtain goods, compliance, or some other outcome from others. Yet the two forms of aggression tend to overlap. Those adolescents who are reactively aggressive often tend to be proactively aggressive as well. Specifically, in the context of reactive or angry aggression, when we use the term ‘trait anger’, the assumption is that anger and angry aggression is relatively stable over time and across situations. Longitudinal research has in fact found that angry aggression as a personality trait (i.e., the extent to which adolescents rated themselves as likely to become aggressive when they are angry) was highly stable from 9th through 12th grades, and for those who rated themselves as angry, in addition, to also be angrily aggressive. But the relation between anger and aggression has also depended on the nature of anger controls used, whether anger is expressed inwardly or outwardly, and on the extent to which anger was ‘below the surface’ and erupts more explosively. A useful way to look at the relation between anger and aggression is by examining the individual’s style of control over angry feelings and his/her manner and of expression of angry emotion. Whereas trait anger is the extent to which individuals evidence a propensity to experience anger, recent research has distinguished between anger-out, that is, expressed outwardly in motoric components (e.g., those who agree with statements such as ‘‘I argue with others’’) versus a tendency to hold anger in (e.g., those who agree with statements such as ‘‘I boil inside, but don’t show it’’). Also important to the

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expression of aggression is whether the individual successfully or unsuccessfully controls the expression of anger (e.g., those who agree with statements such as ‘‘I control my angry feelings’’). Initial results deriving from the administration of the STAXI-2 to adolescents and young adults has shown that anger-out declines and anger control increases with age. It is important to note that this developmental trend in anger parallels the earlier noted trend toward increase then decrease in everyday, dispute-related aggression in early adolescence. In addition, according to research on young adolescents, aggression by 6th and 7th graders was positively correlated with anger-control difficulty. The ability to control anger has also been examined with regard to the style of anger control used. Researchers have also distinguished between constructive and destructive methods of coping with anger. Constructive anger-coping mechanisms refer to those in which, for example, the adolescent has considered longterm consequences of expressive anger to the other person. A destructive mechanism of coping with anger usually refers to physically aggressive means of expressing anger precisely because of the future consequences that follow its expression. Constructive means of coping with anger have been found to be negatively correlated with teacher-rated aggression for 7th through 11th grade students. Reactively aggressive adolescents who were higher on ‘anger-out’ measures also have been found to have difficulty distracting themselves in a way that makes them feel better. For example, when asked to describe their reactions to the frustration of being interfered with when trying to play a video game, they were more likely to see the others’ interference as intentional. Those who had higher anger-out scores on the STAXI-2 also have been found to report difficulty controlling their angry emotions in everyday frustrating situations, such as when they were bumped by another student in the hall. In addition, they were also more likely to have had histories of suspension from school or arrest by the police for aggressive behavior. Both measures of trait anger and measures of extremely volatile responses when experiencing anger have clearly been implicated in more serious forms of violent behavior by adolescents. A study involving over 3000 9th through 12th grade students allowed for comparison of a subgroup of dangerously violent adolescents (i.e., those who reported having shot at someone, had attacked someone, or stabbed someone with a knife in the past year; 15% of the total sample) who were compared with a matched set of peers (on age, gender, ethnicity, urban residence, and family structure). A measure of anger increased the likelihood of membership in the dangerously violent group 4.15-fold for females and 3.81-fold for males. In another study juvenile inmates were rated as to the severity of their violent acts; the most severe were

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those who frequently used weapons, had seriously injured others, or murdered someone. They were also assessed as to the extent to which the juveniles did not show anger toward others but seethed below the surface, a risk factor for later eruptive violence. Inmates at risk for such eruptive violence addressed questions about their anger using items such as ‘‘I sometimes experience smoldering pentup anger that I am unable to express,’’ or ‘‘my violent daydreams and thoughts give me energy and make me feel better.’’ Although this Risk for Eruptive Violence Scale is in its early stages of development, preliminary research results showed that scores on this scale correlated highly and positively with adolescents’ histories of violent behavior. Those scoring higher on this scale also had lower scores on measures of empathy, greater negative affect, and traits showing high dominance and control of others. For eruptive angry individuals, anger seemed to flood the personality and reduced their sensitivity to others. Another important area of research relating to emotion and violence is a personality trait describing individuals who seek out greater stimulation and emotional arousal. This stands in contrast to those individuals (previously discussed) who were motivated by excessive emotionality. Aggression is one of many means of increasing stimulation or arousal for these individuals, according to this perspective. This personality trait is referred to as ‘sensation-seeking’, and consists of four subtraits: (1) boredom susceptibility: an aversion to repetitive and/or boring tasks and people; (2) disinhibition: or seeking release or disinhibited social behavior via alcohol, partying, etc.; (3) experience-seeking: or pursuit of an unconventional lifestyle via unplanned activities and/or hallucinatory drugs; and (4) thrill and adventure-seeking: seeking unusual sensations via exciting and/or risky sporting activities. The difference between this personality style and those described earlier is that sensationseeking is essentially a craving for increased sensory input and for greater risk and excitement. It is welldocumented in the physiological psychology literature that those who tend to be reactively aggressive also tend to have lower basal arousal levels and greater difference between basal and excitatory states of arousal. These individuals are sometimes referred to as ‘fearless’. Regardless of whether it is an individual personality trait in which individuals are motivated to seek out increased stimulation, or an individual who has lowered biological responsiveness (i.e., a fearlessness in response to challenge), some individuals possess a strong motivation to seek out and respond dramatically to risky situations. A recent review of research has concluded that sensation-seeking, and particularly the thrill and adventure-seeking and/or the impulsivity components of it, has related moderately and positively with the following: (1) a pattern of life-course-persistent offending

(less than 10% of adolescents) in which criminally violent behaviors are present; (2) reactive rather than proactive aggression measured one year later; (3) intentionally seeking out arguments and physically fighting with others, and involvement in alcohol-related fighting and arguments that later became physical conflicts; (4) violent crimes up to 4.5 years beyond the initial assessment administered when they were ages 13–19; and (5) the presence of serious violent behaviors among middle school students. There is one human trait that has consistently and inversely related to aggression and violence over the past 40 years: empathy. In the case of empathy, it is increased emotional responsiveness to others that reduces the likelihood of physical confrontation. Empathy has received important research attention as a moral emotion that is foundation for positive social behaviors, such as altruism, and for curtailment of antisocial behaviors such as aggression and violence. Whether interest in empathy was stimulated by the mid-twentieth century interest in empathy as the curative element in psychotherapy, or by interest in perspective-taking noted in developmental psychology (e.g., Piaget’s cognitive developmental theory), the study of empathy has grown considerably. At this point in time, research evidence supports empathy as a key component of morality and its function as a mediator and curb on aggressive and violent behaviors. Consider the individual who passes by someone who is in great distress because he has been in a twenty-car pileup on the interstate, or spots someone victimized by a natural disaster, or simply witnesses a middle school boy victimized by a bully on a playground. A compassionate response, that is, one that involves going to their aid, getting assistance for them, or stepping in to stop further victimization or misfortune first requires that the bystander correctly perceive the victim’s needs, often communicated by the victim nonverbally or present in clues within the context. This perceptual process is important, because it must be accurate for any additional empathic processes to occur. Adolescents also engage in much ‘play’ fighting that could easily be misread as genuine, except for the tell-tale nonverbal reactions that signal no real hostile intentions, no genuine victims, and a generally benign interaction. Parenthetically, and as noted earlier, accurate perception may also determine whether the adolescent sees the others’ aggression as intentional, and therefore deserving of greater anger and aggression in response. Specifically regarding empathic accuracy, coming to the aid of someone who needs no assistance could be an embarrassing moment for a would-be rescuer. Accurate perception also is necessary for the next three steps in empathic responsiveness. The second step in the process toward empathy requires that the bystander correctly understand the perspective of another. It would be rare that a male, in

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particular, would not understand what it means to be the victim of bullying since it is very common among elementary and middle school boys. Females are also likely to understand being the victim of relational aggression, that is, by means of defamatory remarks, whisper campaigns, and rejection by friends. Understanding the perspective of the victim, and what it means to be helpless, cornered, ganged up on, and in danger requires cognitive role-taking ability, that is, the ability to place oneself in the shoes of the other. It is possible even without first-hand experience that the second-hand experience one might get by watching movies about such bullying, reading about it, or simply witnessing others who are victimized by it, might promote greater understanding of others. The third component of empathy is the emotionmatching of feelings between the observer and the other. It is a second-hand emotional experience. Perception and cognition may be necessary but insufficient to motivate and guide behavioral responses to the victim’s predicament. For example, without a bystander’s second-hand emotional reaction to the victim’s plight, such as in the case of bullying, the final behavioral response might not occur because the motivation to rescue the other provided by emotion would be missing. A response in the bystander that is similar to that of the victim is that it is fearful, vulnerable, and shameful, might be sufficient to arouse an effective and sustained set of behaviors tailored to the needs of the victim. In the absence of such an emotionbased compassionate response, the onlooker might not be sufficiently motivated to get a teacher on playground duty to intervene, step in and defuse the situation, or help the victim to recover afterwards. The behavioral response also would lack the urgency and immediacy and an adequate push to do something should the emotional response be absent. The absence of matching emotion and replacement with other emotions may produce very different behavioral responses. For example, and despite correct perception and understanding of the others’ needs, when the individual instead experiences emotional responses of gladness (e.g., ‘‘he had it coming’’) or even enjoyment of the attack plus identification with the attacker (e.g., ‘‘wow, I’d finish him off with a kick if I was in there’’) also suggests that cognition without matching emotion may lead to destructive behavior. Whereas most people who have witnessed school shootings first experienced revulsion, revulsion was clearly not the experience of all witnesses. The large number of copycat acts of violence suggested that for some, the emotional experience was perhaps happiness, excitement, and a grandiose identification with and envy of the attacker’s notoriety. There are key implications of the foregoing dissection of empathy as relates to all social behavior, both prosocial and antisocial varieties. First, research has found that empathy as a motivator of prosocial behavior in children and adolescents, using various measures of empathy is positively,

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consistently, and moderately associated with a variety of forms of prosocial behavior. Empathy is sometimes referred to as a moral emotion for this reason. Thus, children who are high in empathy are likely to behave in ways that garner acceptance from others, and will learn skillful and competent social behaviors by which they can resolve social conflicts. Parent-rearing practices that are warm and nurturing, and later social experiences that are supportive of the development empathy are precursors of continued empathy development in adolescence. Second, all three intrapersonal components of empathy, namely, accurate perception, understanding of the others’ plight, and emotional empathy, are needed to facilitate behaviors tailored to the needs of the other. All components appear to be interrelated, although research has not clearly defined how and at what stage of development there is alignment of the three building blocks of empathy into a hierarchical system. Finally, and most important to the current discussion, when instead there is inaccurate perception of the others’ needs, or lack of appreciation for the predicament the other is in, or a failure to experience the urgent ‘red flags’ of an emotional response, an inappropriate response to the others’ emergency is more likely. Moreover, one can respond cruelly toward others because one is insensitive to the effects of one’s cruelty. Should one who is unable to experience empathy toward their victims in addition be easily aroused to anger toward that person, aggression and violence become behavioral options for resolving conflict and more desirable. Thus, it is not surprising that meta-analytic studies of empathy and aggression and violent behavior support a modest but inverse association between the two. It is also not surprising that those adolescents committing some of the most serious violent crimes, sometimes referred to as sociopathic or callous-unemotional, are described as extremely low in empathy, having superficial emotional attachments to others, and being impulsive and irresponsible. Adverse child-rearing experiences that interfere with empathy development, those such as severe physical or sexual abuse by parents, becoming the victim of violent crime in childhood or early adolescence, or gang experiences that foster callous-unemotional responses to others are likely to lower the inhibitory mediation properties of empathy to pathological levels. Such empathy-lowering experiences also do not allow for the development of altruistic and socially skillful response necessary for interpersonal or intrasocietal civilized actions and permit violence toward others that would normally be repugnant and intolerable.

Dating Relationships, Emotion and Aggression/Violence There is probably no domain of human functioning that is more indicative of intense emotional experiences than a romantic relationship. Yet there are many myths

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surrounding adolescent dating relationships that parallel the study of adult romantic relationships, some of which suggest the importance or lack thereof of emotions in relation to aggression and violence. Among the most insidious and ideologically driven myths is that when aggression by partners occurs it is the result of a unidirectional, well-planned, and calculating attempt by boys to subjugate and control girls. The opposite perspective is that partner aggression is mainly the result of impulsive acts that are bi-directional and roughly symmetrical in patterning, and largely the result of conflicts that get out of hand. A second myth is that adolescent dating relationships offer partners a safe harbor and respite from the conflicts they have in other relationships (e.g., friends, family) and from the messages of violence they see in the world at large. The opposite perspective is that dating relationships are a part of a network or system of close relationships, each influencing and reflecting one another, and that those systems are both redundant and unique in quality as well. A third myth is that aggression and conflict in early romantic relationships has little significance and impact on the partners, or such relationships have transient impact at best. The contrary perspective is that early dating conflict and violence can have lasting impact on mental health, cognitive functioning, and later relationships. A fourth myth is that the early appearance of aggression and violence in dating relationships is likely to be moderated by later maturity and experience in close relationships possibly achieved later in adolescence. The contrary view is that aggression and violence in dating relationships actually increases throughout adolescence and reaches its zenith in early adulthood. These myths are gradually yielding to a clearer picture of emotion and aggression in adolescent dating relationships in much the same way a photographer focuses a camera lens. Recently, a five-factor model by which adolescent dating relationships may be understood has been proposed, two of which are dimensions important to emotions in relation to all behavior within the relationship. Each dimension has a body of research pointing to both immediate and long-term impact on partners. The first three have a tangential relationship to emotions in the dyad, and are (1) involvement – whether the adolescent dates or not, and the patterning of involvement; (2) partner-selection – whom they select regarding age, race, etc.; and (3) content – what partners do together. More important to understanding emotional involvement is the (4) quality of relationship – the extent to which the relationship provides beneficent qualities of either intimacy, affection, or nurturance versus destructive qualities of irritation, antagonism, and high conflict and control, and (5) partner cognitive and emotional processes – the extent to which partners evidence destructive emotional

responses, perceptions, expectancies, schema, and attributions regarding self and partner. Both individual partner emotions and couple emotions and behaviors within the relationship are important to a complete understanding of dating aggression and violence in adolescence. Prevalence rates for self-reported dating aggression and violence in middle and high school years, and both individual and partner contributions to that behavior, have been the subject of research reviews. Rates for boys and girls have been measured by single index self-reports used in interviews or surveys of nationally representative samples (United States), such as asking them whether their ‘‘partner pushed or shoved (them),’’ or whether their partners ‘‘hit, slapped, or physically hurt (them) on purpose.’’ When single items such as these are used, results show that about 8% of boys and 8% of girls report such behavior from their partners. However, when prevalence rates for perpetration of any of ten different aggressive behaviors are used, and administered to groups of about 1000 high school students in each of the studies, the rates of perpetration by partners in the past by girls, at approximately 38–44%, is about twice that of boys. These perpetration rates rival those noted earlier which pertain to aggression toward anyone, with the critical difference being that partner aggression by girls exceeds that of boys. A meta-analysis of 83 studies of dating partner aggression has shown that prevalence rates are greatest among adolescents and young adults, there was greater perpetration for girls versus boys, and that injury rates appear to be greater for girls. Dating relationships present emotional challenges to adolescents that appear to reverse the gender-related patterns of aggression and violence seen in nonrelational aggression where it is aggression by boys that is greater than girls. As suggested earlier, an understanding of the causes of aggression and violence in romantic relationships presents a complex picture because there are both individual partner and couple contributions to it. Looking first at individual partner contributions, the research on within-individual sources of dating aggression have been identified as anger toward partners, jealousy, rejection sensitivity, emotional insecurity, attitudes of acceptance of partner aggression, a bullying style (which includes lowered empathy) toward peers, and whether the partner has close friends who are abusive toward their partners. Individual emotional characteristics of greater emotional reactivity, anger, and vulnerability, and insensitivity to the impact of aggression therefore figure prominently among the sources of partner aggression in adolescence. These influences are also quite similar to influences on aggression toward anyone. The research on the emotional qualities of romantic relationships has convincingly demonstrated that

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qualities of the relationship also are important to adolescent partner aggression and violence. Prior research has demonstrated that dyadic couple dimensions of relationship duration, seriousness, amount of negative affect, and low empathy for one’s partner consistently relate to aggression and violence in romantic relationships. That review of dyadic emotional qualities also introduced a classification of couple of emotional dynamics as ‘closed’ versus ‘open’ systems. A ‘closed’ system refers to relationships in which there is relatively greater negative versus positive affect as contained in self-disclosures, flooding with negative affect (e.g., anger, fear, jealousy), and low empathy for partner (and thus little ability to repair it following conflicts). An ‘open’ system refers to relationships in which there is greater self-disclosure of positive affect (vs. negative affect), greater listening and understanding (or couple reparative empathic ability following conflict), and lower overall conflict. An ‘open system’ is one in which there is a free-flowing interaction style, in which both partners continue to grow as partners and the relationship deepen as a couple, and in which there is frequent interaction with other couples and relationships. This stands in contrast to a ‘closed system’ which is less amenable to interaction with others, is emotionally brittle in response to stressors, is not progressing, in which neither partners as individuals nor as a couple grows and thrives, and in which conflict occasionally escalates toward aggression and violence. The development of adolescent dating relationship qualities from early to late adolescence has become an important area for study primarily because of its changing emotional character and the insight it provides into dating aggression and violence. The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health has greatly enhanced our understanding of normative changes in both dating couple emotional processes and dating aggression. Based on confidential interviews of a nationally representative sample of middle and high school students, the following shifts in emotional qualities from early adolescence (i.e., 16 years of age) have been found: (1) a shift from 26% to 54% seeing less of friends; (2) relationship duration increasing from 5 months to 21 months; (3) dating as a solo couple from 38% to 76%; (4) dramatic increases in sexually related touching from 28% to 66%, and sexual intercourse from 8% to 50%; and (5) a greater likelihood that a partner ‘‘swore at you’’ (8–22%), ‘‘threatened you with violence’’ (0–4%), and ‘‘partner pushed or shoved you’’ (4–9%). Clearly, as relationships increase in emotional qualities of intimacy and seriousness, and thus ‘heat up’, verbal threats and milder physical aggression also doubles in prevalence. The research literature has begun to focus on adolescent dating couple emotional qualities as related to a wide range of aggressive and violent dating behaviors.

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Characteristics of the dyad as a couple that have been positively associated with dating aggression and violence have been the following: couple duration, couple seriousness, presence of sexual intercourse, seriousness of the problems in the relationship, frequency of conflict, hostile communication toward partners, and a hostile dynamic of both partners perpetrating aggression (particularly when staying with the same partner over time). Clearly these couple characteristics suggest a ‘closed system’ emotional dynamic as a precursor to aggressive and violent behavior among dating couples.

Summary and Implications The research here has focused on both individual and dating adolescent aggression and the importance of emotions for both. There are a number of important implications of the foregoing review for our understanding of the emotional basis of aggression and violence and for curbing both. First, the emotional processes facilitating both individual and dating aggression are very much the same. Greater anger and lowered empathy are implicated in both, and more extreme deviations yield more extreme violent behaviors. Early experiences that enable children and adolescents to successfully regulate intense anger, or teach them more effective means of managing it, are likely to curb both individual and couple expressions of aggression and violence. Calming strategies and more constructive modes of expression will likely reduce the probability that anger will escalate to serious violence. But emotion-calming strategies do not address those who may be emotionally underaroused. Sensation-seeking is a trait seen among those who are chronically emotionally underaroused, in which individuals seek out many forms of stimulation increase. Among those stimulationincreasing activities are those which are aggressive and violent. Sensation-seeking may be a fixture in dating relationships as well, although not yet investigated. Perhaps sensation-seeking may explain why dating aggression is relatively stable over time, even into the early years of marriage, and couples sometimes do not end relationships because sensation-seeking provides a much-needed excitement. It may satisfy needs for increased stimulation by one or more partners, and explain why noxious and dangerous behaviors continue despite its cost; it is energizing and sought after by one or more partners. The importance of empathy for the curbing or mediation of aggression and violence takes on importance for both, individuals and dating partners. The absence of empathy is a double-risk factor. It may also be that empathy can itself be reduced when dating relationships deteriorate. Instead, when anger in relationships is diminished, for example, by forgiveness or more constructive forms of anger coping, empathic responsiveness to

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partners may again serve to curb conflict rising to aggressive and violent forms of expression. The role of emotions for aggression and violence has been explored with regard to the individual, and his/her intrapsychic emotional functioning, and within the dating couple dyad, as a couple emotional dynamic. The terms ‘open’ and ‘closed’ were applied to this emotion dynamic. It is likely that other stable relationship structures, those such as families, classrooms, schools, communities, and countries can also be described in terms of emotional dynamics, and such global descriptions help in defining the conditions within those entities that enable greater or less aggression and violence to take place. See also: Collective Emotions in Warfare; Gangs; Youth Violence

Further Reading Archer, J. (2000). Sex differences in aggression between heterosexual partners: A meta-analytic review. Psychological Bulletin 126, 651–680. Arnett, J. (1999). Adolescent storm and stress reconsidered. American Psychologist 54, 317–326. Berkowitz, L. (1993). Aggression: Its causes, consequences, and control. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill. Carver, K., Joyner, K., and Udry, J. (2003). National estimates of adolescent romantic relationships. In Florsheim, P. (ed.) Adolescent romantic relations and sexual behavior: Theory, research, and practical implications, pp 23–56. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Collins, A. (2003). More than myth: The developmental significance of romantic relationships during adolescence. Journal of Research on Adolescence 13, 1–24. de Castro, B., Merk, W., Koops, W., Veerman, J., and Bosch, J. (2005). Emotions in social information processing and their relations with reactive and proactive aggression in referred aggressive boys. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology 34, 105–116. DiLiberto, L., Katz, R., Beauchamp, L., and Howells, G. (2002). Using articulated thoughts in simulated situations to assess cognitive activity in aggressive and non-aggressive adolescents. Journal of Child and Family Studies 11, 179–189. Dodge, K. A., Coie, J. D., and Lynam, D. (2006). Aggression and antisocial behavior in youth. In Eisenberg, N. (ed.) Handbook of child psychology, vol. 6: Social, emotional, and personality development, pp 719–788. New York: Wiley. Flannery, D., Singer, M., and Wester, K. (2001). Violence exposure, psychological trauma, and suicide risk in a community sample of dangerously violent adolescents. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry 40, 435–442.

Frederickson, B. (2002). Positive emotions. In Snyder, C. and Lopez, S. (eds.) Handbook of positive psychology, pp 120–133. New York: Oxford University Press. Green, D., Goldman, S., and Salovey, P. (1993). Measurement error masks bipolarity in affect ratings. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 64, 1029–1046. Greenberg, L. (2002). Emotion focused therapy. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Kosson, D., Cyterski, T., Steuerwald, B., Neumann, C., and WalkerMatthews, S. (2002). The reliability and validity of the psychopathy checklist: Youth version (PCL:YV) in nonincarcerated adolescent males. Psychological Assessment 14, 97–109. Marcus, R. F. (2007). Aggression and violence in adolescence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Marcus, R. F. and Swett, B. (2003). Violence in close relationships: The role of emotion. Aggression and Violent Behavior: A Review Journal 8, 313–328. Mehrabian, A. (1997). Relations among personality scales of aggression, violence, and empathy: Validational evidence bearing on the risk of eruptive violence scale. Aggression Behavior 23, 433–445. Miller, P. and Eisenberg, N. (1988). The relation of empathy to aggressive and externalizing/antisocial behavior. Psychological Bulletin 103, 324–344. Russell, J. and Fehr, B. (1994). Fuzzy concepts in a fuzzy hierarchy: Varieties of anger. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 67, 186–205. Smith-Khuri, E., Iachan, R., Scheidt, P., et al. (2004). A cross-national study of violence-related behaviors in adolescents. Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine 158, 539–544. Spielberg, C. (1999). STAXI-2 State-trait expression inventory-2: Professional manual. Lutz, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources. Swahm, M., Deffenbacher, J., and Wayman, J. (2004). Concurrent and prospective effects of multi-dimensional aggression and anger on adolescent alcohol use. Aggressive Behavior 30, 356–372. Tangney, J., Hill-Barlow, D., Wagner, P., et al. (1996). Assessing individual differences in constructive versus destructive responses to anger across the lifespan. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 70, 780–796. Tanner, J. M. (1970). Physical growth. In Mussen, P. (ed.) Carmichael’s manual of child psychology, 3rd edn., pp 77–155. New York: Wiley. US Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2006). Youth risk behavior survey: 1993– 2005. http://www.cdc.gov/YRBSS (accessed on Feb. 2008). Wekerle, C. and Wolfe, D. (1999). Dating violence in mid-adolescence: Theory, significance, and emerging prevention initiatives. Clinical Psychology Review 19, 435–456. Zuckerman, M. (1994). Behavioral expressions and biosocial bases of sensation seeking. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Relevant Websites www.cdc.gov/YRBSS – Youth Risk Behavior Survey: 1993–2005. www.FBI.gov/UCR/UCR.htm – Synopsis of crime in schools and colleges.

Emotions and Warfare See Collective Emotions in Warfare

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Enemy, Concept and Identity of Gordon Fellman, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, USA ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction ‘Alienation’ in Marx, and the Construction of the Enemy ‘Neurosis’ in Freud, and the Construction of the Enemy

Glossary Adversary Compulsion Like addictions, this signifies feelings that one has no choice, in nearly all encounters, but to compete to win. Adversary Paradigm A world view that assumes that the point of most encounters is to overcome the other. Competition is normative, with appropriate feelings of antagonism, anger, rage, disdain, triumph, hate, failure, loss, and despair. Alienation Estrangement of the self from feelings of oneness with its work, the product of its work, buyers and users of the product, fellow workers, community, society, nature, and self. Ego Advances In contrast to ego defenses (see ahead), ego advances are strategies by which the self connects with other people, work, nature, and itself, in positive ways that enhance growth and gratifying relationships with others, society, nature, and itself.

‘‘ We have met the enemy, and he is us.’’ —Pogo, title and main figure in a popular daily comic strip (1948–75) by Walt Kelly

Introduction The intention of this article is to describe enemy relations in terms that suggest possibilities of moving beyond what we now experience as the all but universal phenomenon of enemy creation and perpetuation. It is not a comprehensive survey of theories of the nature and construction of the enemy. Depending on who one reads, enemy creation can result from: the evil nature of humans; an inborn destructive tendency that inevitably plagues our species; divine plans not fully fathomable by mortals; the structure of the state; the invention and perpetuation of private property; the peculiar nature of powerful and resilient

Toward Reappropriating the Self Enemies and the Possibility of Paradigm Shift Further Reading

Ego Defenses Strategies by which the self avoids facing psychic pain, from external and internal sources, with which it believes itself unable to cope. Enemy An adversary who can best be dealt with by way of strategies that lead to overcoming the enemy’s efforts to overcome you. This can be by way of verbal defeat, physical defeat, or even death. Identity Feelings of content and continuity in the self, such that self and others recognize and accept this as the person one is. Mutuality Paradigm A world view that assumes that the point of most encounters is to enhance and develop feelings of connectedness, support, nurturance, caring, respect, empathy, compassion, growth, and love. Neurosis Feelings of incapacity to act on desires, with no apparent objective reasons for such feelings and their deleterious consequences.

collective phenomena like nationalism and religion; the tenacity of ethnic and national identities; a need for identification with a social-political unit larger than the self; tendencies to define the self in oppositional contrast with others; peculiar imperatives of the business of mass media; the need to avoid anarchy; the nature and dynamics of patriarchy; the historical social construction of masculinity across most societies; unconscious acting out of Oedipal and other universal inner conflicts; the fear of death and the consequent construction of society, ritual, and war to cope with that fear. And still others. The Cold War brought to an end a remarkably durable and nearly global enemy relationship that, whatever its grotesque limits, was at least stable. Each of the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, demonized the other, with the kind of symmetry customary in any enemy-caricaturing of the other side. The relationship was costly economically, exceedingly dangerous militarily,

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exhausting politically, and powerfully destructive of possibilities for transcending the ancient and continuing custom of enemyhood as a central feature of collective life. With the end of the Cold War, the process of enemy construction did not stop. It went into other modes. In many parts of the world, hostilities between national and ethnic groups, which had simmered throughout the Cold War, exploded. The violence that has ensued has been largely but not entirely within nations and between parts of former nations. Within the US, social class, immigrant, lifestyle, race, and other enemy constructions, which had been there all along – now waxing, now waning – were renewed. Within the former USSR, social class, criminal, national, and other constructions also succeeded the major construction provided, for over seven decades, by the Cold War. Ethnic and national identifications currently offer examples as good as any of how it is that groups can hate each other. But they are only a special case of a general phenomenon. Undoubtedly, enemy construction, like most social phenomena, is overdetermined, that is, there are far more plausible explanations for it than are required by logic alone. This article focuses on three deep, intersecting analyses that might be said to interlink and speak to the foundations of the many possible explanations listed earlier. Two of them are almost certainly previously familiar to the reader; one is not. Begin with the very use of the word ‘enemy’. Common sense has it that ‘enemy’ is the opposite of ‘friend’. While in some respects that is true, that formulation misses crucial dimensions of the fuller nature of the word ‘enemy’. ‘Enemy’ is the opposite of ‘integrated self’, for the enemy is a major but not exclusive symptom of the fractionated, alienated, disintegrated, neurotic self. The enemy represents parts of the self unfulfilled in ordinary daily life. Hated, rejected, loathed parts of the self can be extended, by way of projection, onto others and hated, rejected, and loathed there. That the self is rarely whole is the key to understanding the concept and identity of the enemy. Marx and Freud offer the foundation of an analysis that can be used to imagine an eventual reduction of enemy phenomena. The work of Erik Erikson permits fuller development of this analysis of the enemy and also offers glimpses of images of a self that would need no enemies. Finally, a new form of analysis is presented to combine and extend the several that precede and lead into it.

‘Alienation’ in Marx, and the Construction of the Enemy ‘Class conflict’ offers the most easily recognized analysis of the enemy in Marx’s work. Throughout history, Marx insists, since the onset of social class divisions in slavery,

owners of the means of production and those whom they force in one way or another to work for them, are enemies. The dominated overthrow the dominators, giving way to another system of domination, in a series progressively leading to the end of domination altogether, in a classless society made possible by the material abundance that flows from the full development of industrialization through capitalism, an essential precondition, as Marx sees it, for socialism and communism. Enemies are created, thus, from clashes of objective interests. This level of Marx’s analysis has inspired socialist/communist movements, parties, and revolutions. If the enemy is someone whose objective interests compete with one’s own, resources defined as scarce are the objects of contention. They may be land, minerals, God’s favor, wealth, prestige, or anything else deemed valuable and not available equally to everyone. Heretics are the enemy of the church; church authorities are the enemy of heretics. Owners, who want to pay as little as possible in wages, are the enemy of workers. Workers, who want to gain as much as possible in wages, are the enemy of owners. Imperialists and colonialists see people whose land contains valuable minerals as their enemies, and vice versa. At this level of analysis, the enemy is perceived as an obstacle to the gaining of whatever is defined as desirable and scarce. The enemy relation is managed by overcoming or being overcome by the other party. In much of social science, as in contemporary psychiatry, objective explanations are preferred. The subjective and the spiritual are removed from consideration. Not to his credit, Marx helped lay the groundwork for this state of affairs, but he was and is hardly alone in assuming that objectivity is more significant in understanding than subjectivity. This is indeed a rule of thumb in much of what is called social science. Marx himself, in less-studied parts of his work, offers hints, even though he does not develop them, of a vastly different analysis of the nature of the enemy. In his central and seminal work Capital, Marx observes that ‘‘The hoarder makes sacrifice of the lusts of the flesh to his gold fetish.’’ These kinds of tidbits are not examined closely by Marx but suggest he saw and felt a social psychological dimension to capitalism that he did not develop. In his very early writings, there are grounds for identifying the enemy as created out of unrecognized, unmet inner needs. The two levels of analysis – objective and subjective – need not clash. Even though he abandoned the subjectivity option early in his career, in his work on alienation in the 1844 manuscripts, Marx acknowledges subjectivity. He sees alienation as embodying inner fragmentation sponsored by relations of domination that are inevitable in capitalism. Unlike their medieval predecessors, workers under capitalism lose the relation of producer to consumer, of

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producer to tools of production, of producer to other producers and to society, human species, nature, and the self itself. The worker ‘‘is related to the product of his labor as to an alien object.’’ Because they are not masters of what they produce or how they produce it and because they are not connected socially to the people who buy and use the product, workers are wrenched from what could be an integrated sense of self as designers and makers of products and in satisfying relations with customers, fellow workers, everyone. ‘‘. . . The estrangement is manifested not only in the result but in the act of production, within the producing activity, itself. That is, the laborer ‘‘is at home when he is not working, and when he is working he is not at home.’’ The sensuous, external world is objectified by processes of production; it ceases to belong to laborers or to be experienced as part of their lives. The producer, thus, potentially a self that feels connections and pleasure in all those areas, deteriorates into a series of fragments which are dissociated and unrelated to one another; workers can do nothing about the process but suffer it, inevitable victims of capitalist relations beyond their range of control. If workers do not feel at one with what they are doing, what do they do with the parts of themselves that would relate gladly to tools, production, the product’s user, society, humanity, nature, and self? What happens to these desires? Marx does not carry the analysis further except to suggest that this condition is one of enormous pain. It is not just the objective condition of fragmentation but the subjective experience of hurt that motivates the next step, in his understanding of modern capitalism. Workers who accept their pain as inevitable suffer from what Marx calls false consciousness. Genuine consciousness means understanding the objective conditions that account for the pain. By identifying the owners responsible for alienation as enemies, workers understand the next logical step in the analysis: overturning the relationship that perpetuates the pain. Marx was convinced that the workers, helped by intellectuals who disidentify with owners, would usher in the new order, either in violent revolution, or orderly change through the ballot box in societies that make that option possible. For some decades, the logic seemed compelling to many people, but this sequence of events has not happened on the broad scale Marx assumed. Perhaps revolution in the West eventually will unfold as he predicted, but there is good reason to suspect it will not. Marx did not foresee complications that would encourage workers to succumb to suggestions that they identify groups other than owners as their enemies. Leaders can turn populations against peoples in other societies and in their own. The criteria of defining enemies can be flimsy and even invented from whole cloth; the important thing is labeling people of another nation, race, class, religion,

or ethnicity as threatening. This succeeds in diverting attention from a population’s own real concerns. The other is demonized and reviled, and the population’s attention is easily diverted from its own real oppressors onto surrogates, suitably identified as simply other, in terms of race, ideology, or anything else. Sam Keen’s 1986 work is fundamental to understanding the relationship of projection and construction of the enemy. This is the classic scapegoat phenomenon: (1) a goat upon whose head are symbolically placed the sins of the people after which he is sent into the wilderness in the biblical ceremony for Yom Kippur, (2a) one that bears the blame for others, (2b) one that is the object of irrational hostility (Merriam-Webster online dictionary). By diverting its population thus, a leader can accomplish not a single demonization but a double one. Whoever takes part in demonizing others also takes part in diminishing their own capabilities to judge their life circumstances and, where they find them wanting, act to alter them. The self ’s desires to act on behalf of itself, then, are shoved away from consciousness and are not acted upon. Those desires become enemies of the self. Anyone outside the self who acts on their own desires, or is said to do so, becomes a metaphor for the self’s frustrated, denied desires to act on its own behalf. The self then makes itself into its own enemy, at the behest of forces encouraging demonization of others. Lacking a suitable foreign enemy, the self can turn against members of its own population, where gender, race, and other classic criteria for demonizing the other also hold. Drawing on Marx, we can use the concept of alienation to go at least this far: pain leads to efforts to reduce it. The social construction of the enemy is usually an effort to salve pain artificially, by blaming someone not responsible for the pain. To know more about pain and ways of managing it, and to understand the self ’s susceptibility to political manipulations, we need a more complex theory that includes what happens to people as they are socialized into society, between them and others and also within themselves. For these cues, we turn to Freud.

‘Neurosis’ in Freud, and the Construction of the Enemy In psychoanalytic theory, neurosis is the bewildered incapacity to act effectively on desires. ‘Neurosis’ corresponds to Marx’s ‘‘alienation’’ in that in both systems, the self does not act as it wishes. In Freud, longings to love and work are experienced as mysteriously thwarted. But unlike Marx’s system, in Freud’s there seldom appear to be objective reasons for this situation.

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What the praxis of revolution, violent or nonviolent, is to Marx, the praxis of psychoanalysis (and its numerous derivative psychotherapies) is to Freud. Where the theory of revolution suggests that the external oppressor can be overcome, the theory of psychotherapy identifies internal oppressors with whom one can come to terms. What for Marx is political action, armed or ballot-box, for Freud is insight gained through introspection and conversation. Trained listeners – practiced in understanding their own inner lives and behavior – help guide neurotic clients to comprehend contexts that appear to have laid foundations for neurotic behavior and to gain freedom from emotions bottled up in the course of socialization too bewildering and frightening to bear. Through insight and catharsis comes relief from neurotic symptoms and thus access to parts of the self heretofore denied pleasurable release. Marx locates the self ’s fragmentation in processes of work. He sees the self as inherently whole but torn asunder by historical circumstances not of its making. Freud spins a more complicated inquiry. He sees the body, desire itself, conscience, and society all as represented within the self in ways that allow parts of the self to be pitted against other parts. Thus, for example, intense desires for sexual pleasure may be censored early on by constraints – societally based and parentally taught but also internally decided – in response to pulsations of desire too strong for a child to understand and bear. These pressures are against pleasurably touching the body; against expressing lust, fear, hurt, and rage successfully enough as to move past them; and against thinking and acting on tabooed topics, whether of an incestuous nature or any other, such as criticizing people in authority. Freud brings attention to inner hurts, fears, anger, and rage. He suggests that those feelings can be so strong as to be felt as terrifying. A self thus fearing feeling overwhelmed, and fearing punishment for wishes and actions learned as tabooed, defends against the feelings. Parts of the self become enemies of other parts of the self. It is here that Anna Freud, in a classic work, becomes crucially helpful. ‘Ego defense’ is a way of distorting truth to protect the ego – that part of the self that organizes experience, remembers, plans, assesses, and maneuvers among competing feelings and claims on the self. The ego has a major task in defending itself against pain and anxiety, from wherever they might come – body, nature, other people, inner psychic processes. Anxiety can be rooted in external reality or internal reality or both. The self learns, among its options for how to defend against pain, to distort what are experienced as unbearable feelings into their opposites. For example, spasms of hate felt as too strong to bear, because of anticipated consequences of expressing them or because of an inner censor (conscience, a crucial part of the super-ego, plays this role in judging) may not only inhibit expressions of

hate but may even force out of consciousness (repress) the very feelings themselves. In a deft maneuver, that part of the ego that deals with these troublesome matters may guide the self to feel and express only love toward the hated other. ‘‘Methinks the lady doth protest too much’’ implies a feeling of inauthenticity, the possibility that the protest appears exaggerated because it is exaggerated, in a desperate attempt to deny seemingly unbearable opposite feelings. For understanding construction of enemies, the most important ego defense is projection. This means attributing to others feelings that are actually one’s own. Violence toward others is sometimes justified with the cliche, ‘‘Force is the only language they understand.’’ Other than the fact that force is not exactly a language, the proclaimer of that seeming truth, appearing to favor force, accuses the other of favoring force. The person who is shouting, shouts, ‘‘I’m not shouting, you’re shouting!’’ offers another example. More subtly, enemies are claimed to have no respect for women, or to be dirty, or to have no conscience. Accusers thereby reveal their own struggles with respecting women and coming to terms with dirtiness and their own consciences. The mechanism of projection allows insight into a central psychoanalytic insight: ambivalence. Popular culture promotes the mistaken notion that people feel love, fear, respect, hate, and jealousy as if they were unalloyed with other feelings. Part of Freud’s radical insight is that people can have opposite feelings toward the same object or phenomenon at the same time; this is what ambivalence means. It is sometimes understood that one can love and hate the same person but what is less understood is that fear and fearlessness, understanding and puzzlement, desire and repulsion can be felt toward the same person or experienced at the same time. There seems to be something in the self, or at least in the Western self as so far socially constructed, that presses for clarity in the form of one feeling without complications. Normatively, for example, children are expected to love and honor parents as if hatred and resentment did not inevitably also accompany close relationships. Succumbing to pressures, external and internal, to avoid dealing with ambivalence, the self engages in ‘splitting’, whereby positive and negative feelings are divided from each other so that one object receives one feeling and another receives the other. Culture encourages taking part in normative structures that acknowledge, accept, and encourage splitting in collective ways. Take, for example, the difficulty for a child to permit itself to feel and express hatred as well as love toward a parent. Although wise parents accept this as benefiting them and their children, many – themselves not having experienced the wisdom and relief that accompanies emotional honesty – do not. It is they who socialize children into what might be called culturally normative splitting: love

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the parent, family, religious group, ethnic group, nation, and hate the communists, or Jews, or Blacks, homosexuals, or another ethnic group or religion, or a sports team, people from a nearby city, or virtually any other group for which any reason whatsoever can be found to notice a difference. Alternatively, one can hate the parent, disallowing the love also there, and instead love another person, or a team, a flag, the nation itself. One can also learn to love parents, family, nation, race, gender, and hate other corresponding such units. Differences that are alleged to be the basis for opposition are simply handles, excuses, objects of displacement (to use another item from the vocabulary of ego defense) that are used to justify opposition to other people, that is, the construction of them into enemies. From a psychoanalytic perspective, then, the enemy is created out of unmet inner needs, not acknowledged and not addressed as such. If one cannot cope with rage, one is told there is someone else (not oneself and not one’s people) consumed with rage who is thereby one’s enemy. If one cannot cope with lust, one is told there are other people – of a different gender, sexual orientation, ethnic or race group, or lifestyle group – who do not control their lust adequately, and one is encouraged to demonize them as enemies. Another way of looking at this issue is as one of control. The self loathes the idea that forces it inside or outside to make it act in ways it does not want to. Thus, intricate maneuvers are engaged to ward off that threat. There are at least three areas where control is experienced as urgent. One is impulses. Lust and rage are the most easily identifiable impulses, but jealousy, spite, spontaneity – any impulse that looms large enough that by expressing fully could lead to trouble and regret – can be frightening. The fear is that one will succumb to a most unwelcome feeling of being overwhelmed. Although such feelings can be accepted fully and sublimated – channeled into socially useful behavior like work, art, and political action – they can also be defended against in ways not so useful for the self or society. Consider spontaneity as an alternative to overcontrol. Acting on whimsical impulses – to dance down the street, eat at odd times, wear offbeat clothing, relate to people one has been warned against – makes life exciting and full. One might thus find oneself following paths forsworn, getting into unknown territory, risking troubles with one’s vulnerabilities, meeting social disapproval. That brief moment of the counterculture of the 1960s included surfacing and celebrating spontaneity. Most people, rather than joining, warded it off to the point where it became neutralized by criticism, and by the subtle shift from spontaneous commitments to experiment with life to commercial transformation through expensive stylization of such symbols of resistance to cultural norms as jeans and hairstyles.

Lust and rage are especially problematic impulses. When left to free expression, they can sometimes make for big trouble. Rather than accepting and sublimating such feelings when they appear, people are usually encouraged to attribute them to other people and to scorn them. An enemy, then, can be constructed out of one’s own denied impulses. The so-called ‘war between the sexes’, so intricately deconstructed by many parts of feminism, includes this process of denying in the self what one finds attractive but taboo in the other. Thus, until very recently and only among some people, was the example of men and weakness, and women and assertiveness. The threat attributed to the enemy is but a projection of something inside onto others and experienced as if it originated and belonged only there. It is easier to condemn an inclination in another than in oneself. The enemy, hence, allows an easy way out from many problematic encounters with the self. A second area where control is problematic is the part of super-ego called conscience. Although society demands limits on behavior so that we may live together, people are ambivalent about accepting that mandate. However respected it may be, conscience also stands as a reminder of desires foregone, and for that reason, conscience cannot be experienced only as attractive. The negative part of one’s ambivalence about conscience is projected onto another group, such as children, the other gender, indeed entire race and national groups. Thus, for white racists, Blacks are considered without conscience, for anti-Semites the same is true of Jews (who, in the Ten Commandments, created the groundwork for the Western conscience and thus must be resented, even if also admired and envied, for doing so). Even for Freud, who might have been expected to know better, women, through a tortured and peculiar logic, have weaker consciences than men. The third control area is the ego itself. It is that part of the self that assesses, organizes, and acts and is beset by impulses, conscience, and other internal conflicting demands, and external ones as well. How to decide how to act, for example, on wishes to be female as well as male, gay and straight, adult and child, responsible and carefree? Again, splitting comes in handy, so that the self can ridicule others who intrapsychically and culturally stand for denied parts of the self. Through projection, splitting, and other defenses, the self perpetuates its own fragmentation. The enemy then is parts of the self unfaced, unmet, unrecognized, unaccepted. It is the self ’s estrangement from itself that marks its need to define others – in whom, unknowingly and disparagingly, it sees itself – as enemies. In ‘adversary symbiosis’, an unconscious joint collaboration (the creation and maintenance of enemies) is a strategy for not dealing with seemingly unfaceable parts of the self.

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Toward Reappropriating the Self Marx foresees the end of class conflict as the end of alienation. If workers own the means of production, he reasons, they will be able to reintegrate their lives with their work, people around them, humanity, and nature itself. This is an analysis from structure. Change the structure that leads to fragmentation, according to Marx, and fragmentation will end. He pays little attention to inner process, socialization, and the body. Although Freud examines larger cultural dimensions of society that play into neurosis, he anchors his analysis in the self’s growth in family and culture with minimal reference to social structure. For Freud, reintegration of the self proceeds along lines of inner examination, with the help, often, of a skilled other who helps the self retake and come to terms with its history of pains, confusions, terrors, and lusts. What the child felt it could not handle, the adult has more resources to handle and can. And, if all goes well, does. This reintegration of the self can be called ‘reappropriation of the self’. We see this process as enhanced by two theoretical perspectives. One proceeds as an extension of the insights of Erik Erikson. The second is this author’s new theory that attempts to combine insights from Marx, Freud, and Erikson into a perspective that allows a vision of ending enemyhood altogether. In contrast with Freud’s theory of ego defenses which ward off threatening feelings and experiences, we offer a theory of ego advances, which indicate ways by which the self unites with others – society, culture, nature, and the planet – in ways that enhance them all. Ego advances are also ways in which the self reunites with itself. They are strategies for ending the need for enemies by reappropriating the self. Freud, and Anna Freud after him, formulate the theory of ego defenses with nouns: projection, repression, denial, displacement, undoing, intellectualization, and the like. The nouns suggest something fixed, a mechanism to be engaged when necessary. The word ‘defense’ is from war vocabulary. Freud does not develop words that suggest that the ego is at peace and is preparing for more and better peace, with others, with nature, with itself. We intend now to extend Erikson in this direction of what we see as unfinished Freudian and Eriksonian business. Although ego defenses imply action, they do so primarily by protecting the self from others, not enhancing it with others. Ego advances, by contrast, are efforts to relate, described by gerunds to imply ongoing work. Empathizing, for example, works beyond isolation and responds to pain as well as pleasure in others. Erikson analyzes aspects and qualities of relationship that allow for engaged, fulfilling connections of people

with each other. Although his terms move beyond those of ego defense, they are also limited to nouns, that tend to suggest fixed behaviors rather than ongoing processes. The notion of ego advances is a variation on terms developed by Erikson for understanding how the self evolves. Erikson refers to ‘‘virtues’’, or strengths of the self that guide it through the complex encounters of development. He sees, for example, ‘‘hope’’ as emerging from the struggle of the self to come to terms with needs to learn both trust and mistrust in learning how to relate to a great variety of other people. By renaming and slightly reconceptualizing what Erikson calls ‘‘virtues’’, or ego strengths, as ‘‘ego advances’’, it is possible to emphasize movement forward, and by using gerunds rather than nouns, to call attention to process. This exercise promotes the possibility of reintegrating or reappropriating the self, of claiming back for it what has been fragmented off. The main idea here can be called, referring to the earlier discussion about projection, ‘‘deprojection,’’ or bringing back into the self, where they belong, feelings inappropriately attributed to others. If enemies are made by a form of projection, then deprojection is a way to end their creation and perpetuation. To put it another way, if the creation of enemies signals fragmentation of the self, then the ending of unnecessary enemy construction is synonymous with reappropriating the range of what the self feels, means, and is: love, hate, competence, doubt, glory, ambivalence, all. It is helpful to identify major issues facing a self from birth on, to get a sense of what can be kept in the self that is otherwise, normatively, fragmented off and experienced as if located somewhere else. Erikson identifies the first issue between a baby and its caretaking adult as ‘‘trust’’: a baby’s need to learn to trust an adult to meet its needs. But since no one can meet all needs of a baby all the time, it also has to learn mistrust. Both kinds of learning are crucial in later encountering other people. Without trust, the environment cannot be counted upon to be reliable, safe, and nurturant. At the same time, sometimes mistrust is a necessary barrier against being hurt. It enables one to recognize and respond appropriately to people who are untrustworthy. Normatively, the definition of other or others as enemy is a way of avoiding the complex reality that any person is in some ways trustworthy and in someways untrustworthy. This truth is short-circuited by defining one parent as trustworthy and the other as untrustworthy, or more commonly one entire group of people as trustworthy and another as untrustworthy. By contrast, the integrated self ’s task is to learn to accept both trust and mistrust as appropriate toward the same person, group, nation. The ego advance at this early stage of development is trusting. It is essential as the basis for relationship altogether. It implies a process, never ending, of testing,

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evaluating, deciding whom to trust and how far, with the attendant pleasures and reassurances of trusting, and reliable knowledge of who cannot be trusted at all or can be trusted under certain identifiable circumstances. If enemies are defined, as they are, as entirely untrustworthy, then working to move beyond enemy construction means learning to accept contradictions and nuances in the trust–mistrust range toward people with whom one has dealings. This includes the laborious process of moving beyond total mistrust, as the Soviet Union and the United States did in the waning days of the former, as Blacks and Whites have begun doing in South Africa, and as in their off-again-on-again ways Israelis and Palestinians, Irish Protestants and Irish Catholics have done in recent years. Erikson’s second stage of development is autonomy, which he contrasts with shame and doubt. Autonomy does not mean simply freedom from restrictions by or ties with others. It suggests mutual recognition of rights to independence. It means a self who is confident in its strengths and purposes confronting other selves confident in their strengths and purposes. The negatives of autonomy, in Erikson’s phenomenology, are shame and doubt, which are defensive responses to punishment and humiliation that follow from certain kinds of negations of autonomy in the actions of unnecessary control by others. If we are all beset by shame and doubt as well as autonomy, then it is true if unfortunate that we yield, often, to temptations to define some groups of other people as shameful and some as too pridefully autonomous. Standard systems of discrimination, whether against Jews, people of color, women, homosexuals, or anyone else, define the other as engaging in shameful behavior, the legitimacy of which they should doubt, getting accusers off the hook of recognizing and taking responsibility for their own struggles with shame and doubt. Typically, autonomy is considered legitimate for one’s own group, and shame and doubt for other groups. The pride that accompanies autonomy is belittled, ridiculed, dismissed when it appears in groups defined as enemy. ‘Venturing’ is the second ego advance, the gerund that can be considered appropriate for what Erikson calls autonomy. Venturing with pleasure beyond the familiar and secure includes overcoming what could be crippling shame and doubt. It means ending the practice of defining enemies in terms, among others, of what they should feel shame about and about which they should doubt their very goodness and integrity. The capacity for spontaneity, growth, and delight is part of venturing but it cannot be fully integrated into the self without proper accounting also for shame and doubt, to be recognized as parts of oneself rather than as parts only of other people. Erikson calls the ego learnings of the Oedipal period initiative and guilt. To initiate is to relate to others through the pleasures of competence, imagination, and risk. The

child is filled with fantasies of adventure, heroism, and conquest, and as the healthy child of this age moves into society, it acts out, often in inventive play, whatever projects occur to it. The child unable to achieve full functioning at this stage may expect defeat to be the inevitable outcome of imagined initiatives. Accompanying those feelings of defeat is the feeling of guilt, a feeling of wrongness, and inner torment that suggests one has done or thought something forbidden. Rather than cope with guilt as well as delight in initiating, cultures offer normative structures whereby someone else can be defined as guilty. This is part of the collective psychodynamic basis of anti-Semitism in Western cultures. Jews are defined, although less so as time goes on, as having killed Christ and therefore guilty without relief. Guilt is also one of the mechanisms that during the heyday of US–Soviet antagonism underlay capitalist demonization of communism and vice versa. Each side accused the other of being profoundly and irremediably guilty of ignoring fundamental human rights (in one case political rights, in the other economic rights). Although both accusations were true, they were intended not as helpful criticisms but rather as rationales for total distancing and demonization. Another piece of enemy construction, then, is attributing guilt to the other rather than to oneself. When neurotic guilt, which debilitates unnecessarily, is transcended, initiative may include combining with others through joint projects. The reality of guilt is not denied or put onto others but rather accepted and struggled with when it appears. The name of this ego advance, ‘initiating’, suggests that one can integrate initiating activity and cope with feelings of guilt and still come out with the balance of energies and hope in the process of initiating activities one desires to undertake. Erikson names the fourth stage of development ‘‘industry’’: effective interaction with the material and social environment at a time when a child begins to acquire its culture’s work, play, and interpersonal skills. The unhealthy child suffers from ‘‘inferiority,’’ crippling inhibitions that make effective learning and behavior frightening and thus taboo. Feeling inferior is avoided where possible in, among other ways, defining other individuals or whole groups as inferior. This is part of the developmental basis of forms of domination and discrimination. It is another piece of the construction of the enemy as inferior. Reappropriating the full self, then, includes accepting the reality that in some ways the self is highly competent and, in others, it is not. To enjoy and develop competence, and neither give way to overwhelming feelings of inferiority nor succumb to the temptation to define others as inferior in order to avoid the reality that one is not competent at everything one tries, is another way, then, of deconstructing the enemy and no longer needing enemies. The ego advance of industriousness and gaining competence is ‘learning’.

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At the core of Erikson’s work is ‘‘identity’’: the consolidation of developing fragments of the self. Although the self is reconsolidated continuously, it is ordinarily in adolescence that one creates a recognizable, more or less predictable self that feels right to oneself and that others can recognize as having meaning, purpose, and continuity. Identity includes family, group, societal, and cultural dimensions that enable feeling part of larger structures that welcome and embrace one as belonging there. The self that fails to achieve a viable identity is beset by ‘‘identity confusion’’: a reflection of bewilderments and pains that prevent pleasurable and meaningful self-integration. To deprecate another person or group of people is to take part in strategies of attributing to the other, not identity confusion, but negative identity, wholeness of evil or failure, so to speak. Whereas positive identity implies positive wholeness, to the enemy is given negative wholeness, consisting of numerous parts of the self flaked off and laid onto another. Fragments of mistrust, shame, doubt, guilt, and inferiority are congealed into a working whole of the negative identity of the enemy and experienced as if located only there. The flip side of this demonizing strategy, the ego advance of this stage of development, is ‘integrating’, bringing disparate pieces into a personal, societal, and cultural whole, even while moving and changing. With a firm identity, the self can move toward other selves and form deep emotional, intellectual, spiritual, and physical ties, including those of sexuality. What Erikson calls ‘‘intimacy’’ is that capacity and that goal. Where the self is incapable of establishing intimacy, it suffers ‘‘isolation’’, a defense against the anticipated pain of close involvement with another. While everyone has to handle both tendencies toward intimacy and slides into isolation, defenses allow one to avoid recognizing the latter. Part of the process of enemy construction is to isolate the other. Communists and capitalists tried to isolate each other’s worlds. Racism continues in the United States partly through the use of devices like informal segregation and discrimination, whereby groups are isolated from each other. Intricately, racists not only seek to isolate nonwhites from whites, they also isolate whites from nonwhites. Thus, in the pathology of denying parts of the self, the problematic quality laid onto the other is unwittingly also foisted upon the self. To mistrust an entire group of other people is also to set up one’s own group as untrustworthy by the other group; as with any self-fulfilling prophecy, the determination to accomplish the separation makes the separation, not necessary at all, appear inevitable. The gerund for intimacy, the ego advance of the period of mature connections with others, is ‘loving’. It includes the reappropriation of distancing and isolation, in ways that allow intimacy but do not neglect the problems that sometimes interfere with achieving it.

At some point in the delicate interweaving of lives that intimacy means, people may pass crucial parts of themselves on to others in their species. The cultural continuity this indicates need not be biologically based; it can be managed through parenting nonbiological offspring and by caring for others in teaching, nursing, library work, social work, medicine, and others of what Erikson calls the ‘caring professions’. This relationship to coming generations Erikson calls ‘‘generativity’’, and he contrasts it with ‘‘stagnation’’, a later stage of isolation in which one feels stifled, worn out, used up. Demonizing the enemy includes denying virtue in the enemy, denying anything there worth passing on to anyone anywhere anytime. Enemyhood is continued, that is to suggest, by assuming that what is worth bringing to others is one’s own heritage and that heritages not one’s own are worthless. In the broadest sense, the ego advance that engages generativity is parenting. It means growing as one gives and giving as one grows. It means incorporating one’s own tendencies toward stagnation into oneself and learning to cope with them through work, art, political participation, and other forms of activity. The last stage of life Erikson formulates as ‘‘ego integrity’’ in contrast to ‘‘despair.’’ Ego integrity includes forswearing regret and bitterness. If not an enthusiastic acceptance of all one’s life has been, it is at least a realistic integration into the self of reasons for sadness as well as joy, renunciation of wistful or angry wishes that the past can be made otherwise and that there is any point in remorse. Ego integrity is a later stage of identity, its last reworking. Whereas identity is prospective, bringing the experiences of the first two decades into a workable, satisfying whole from which the adult self can develop, ego integrity is an analogous retrospective process. It is the basis for an ego advance that allows the aging person to present a model of closure to younger people, a paragon of completion that feels right and looks right both to the aging person and the community. It is a characteristic of enemy construction that the effort seems to be made to drive the enemy, by weapons, boycotts, and rhetoric of deprecation and humiliation, to despair. That rarely works; rather, the enemy is driven to renewed determination not to be defeated, not to yield to despair. As despair is perhaps one of the subtler inner issues any person faces, it is understandable that with it, as with other qualities that evoke great discomfort, a serious effort is made to place it away from the self, onto someone else, individual or collective. To retake the despair thus projected outward into the self is to take responsibility for yet another aspect of fragmentation that can be retaken into wholeness. The ego advance of the latest stage of life is ‘completing’. One can engage in completing without having to

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pretend that other people cannot complete, that other people are subject to despair and deserve it, and that one never needs to do so oneself. Erikson’s ego strengths focus on development of the capacity to enjoy challenge and growth, while learning how to maneuver among numerous temptations and hazards that would keep it from healthy assertion and gratification. If ego defenses ward off attacks on selfesteem, then ego advances actively seek experiences that enhance pleasure in activity and self-esteem. If they are parts of strategies that fragment the self in an understandable but avoidable effort to refrain from facing problematic parts of self, ego advances are strategies of reintegration of all parts of the self into a functioning, complex whole. Making the self whole means allowing the self to experience pain and come to terms with it creatively, no longer needing to manufacture enemies to stand for parts of the self one thinks one is unable to face. Identifying with strengths of the other as well as weaknesses that are like one’s own, empathizing with the other in such a way as to extend the range of one’s own feelings, initiating activities that challenge and extend one’s repertoire of competencies are other ways of looking at ego advances. The institutions of a society committed to ending the need for enemies would devote themselves, in education, religion, government, the family, medicine, law – every institutional context – to learning how to overcome processes that inhibit the exercise of ego advances. Neither domination nor profit would define the purpose of people in such a society. Purposes would be growth, sharing, and vibrant interdependence.

Enemies and the Possibility of Paradigm Shift In Rambo and the Dalai Lama: The Compulsion to Win and Its Threat to Human Survival, we suggest that most encounters in history are organized according to the ‘‘adversary paradigm,’’ whereby the point of an encounter is to overcome the other, whether of another age, gender, race, class, nation, sexual orientation, team, school, or any other category that lends itself to zero-sum consideration in terms of encounter and outcome. Through recorded history (indeed, this may be a crucial way of defining recorded history), this has been the case. Alongside the adversary paradigm, and acting in intricate relationship with it, is the ‘‘mutuality paradigm,’’ based on respect for the other, humanization, care, support, delight, nurturance, and love. Religions and political systems idealize mutuality but they forego it by contradictory commitments to imperatives of the adversary paradigm. Political, religious, and

virtually all other institutions are based on adversary principles in their organizations far more than on mutuality. Not only have humans defined other people in numerous contexts as adversaries, so with nature. As an adversary, nature has been seen as a lifeless object to be dominated, used, exploited for human comfort and recreation. But nature, it turns out, is not so passive, and has in the past generation or so put our species on warning that, if we mess with it much further, we will be denied essentials of our existence, like drinkable water, topsoil, ozone, and uncontaminated food. People are socialized into adversarialism and accept that other people and nature are, under numerous circumstances, enemies to be overcome. Our crisis begins in the objective realm. Mastery of nature has led to the nuclear threat, whereby if nuclear devices were used fully in an armed confrontation, the users as well as the objects of their use would almost certainly die. Thus does adversarialism bend back upon itself and negate itself. There is no point in opposing if there is no chance of winning the contest. Correspondingly, conquered nature holds the immanent possibility of turning upon the conquerors in the unexpected and undesired form of destroying there by forces of nature beyond human control. We are clever in our technologies but not clever enough to regenerate species destroyed, ozone depleted, and topsoil ruined. Objective considerations thus force us either to ignore these terrible realities and court suicide or to address them and see that it is not only our adversarial relationship with nature that has gotten us into trouble. Our oppositions to each other are part of the same package whereby we waste resources, energy, and life itself in pursuing goals of overcoming the other. Most people go along with the adversary paradigm because they are socialized into doing so. The system, though, is driven by a minority of people who are in the throes of the ‘‘adversary compulsion.’’ For them, winning is not under control any more than is addiction for the drinker, drug addict, smoker, or gambler who acts not out of choice or occasional recreation but out of a compulsion over which insufficient control is felt. These are the people who tend to lead nations, religions, and institutions, promoting adversarialism to meet their own peculiar needs. The adversary compulsion can be deconstructed in such a way that the addiction can give way to a choice for mutuality. Our survival as a species depends on this transformation, which appears to be already under way and identifiable in minor forms. Cooperative learning, mediation, and cooperative games are but three of dozens of examples of mutuality that surround us, albeit not in forms into which all or even most people are socialized.

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We can choose to further the development of mutuality institutions. We can also choose to reappropriate from ‘‘enemies,’’ including nature, the qualities that are rightfully our own, that we have projected unnecessarily and unfairly onto others. Our salvation, if we are to avoid technological dooms we have fashioned and that, if unchecked, await us, lies in making ourselves whole again. Our clue as to what we have fragmented off from ourselves is any quality that we detest in others. Even the hatefulness of Nazis, properly understood, allows us to face hateful parts of ourselves and to learn how to come to terms with them. Once we realize that our ‘‘enemies’’ are subject to exactly the same dynamics that we are and that we participate with them in systems of ‘‘adversary symbiosis,’’ we can make the choice to forgive them and ourselves, reciprocally, and move toward a predominantly mutualistic society. One key issue in this process is indeed the reappropriation of all the qualities we deny in ourselves. The wisdom of Pogo’s observation that we are the enemy can now be seen as recognition that in opposing others, we are in fact opposing, by denial, crucial parts of ourselves. Learning to accept, forgive, and absorb all of what we are and all of what the ‘‘enemy’’ is, is ultimately the same process. The enemy we can learn to recognize

and with whom we can and must come to terms if we are to survive the perils created by humans, is, finally, to a remarkably full if not exclusive degree, ourselves.

Further Reading Erikson, E. (1982). The life cycle completed: A review. New York: Norton. Fellman, G. (1998). Rambo and the Dalai Lama: Mutuality and human survival. Binghamton: SUNY Press. Fornari, F. (1974). The psychoanalysis of war. Garden City, NY: Anchor. Freud, S. (1962). Civilization and its discontents. New York: Norton. Freud, S. (1962). Totem and taboo. New York: Norton. Freud, S. (1965). Group psychology and the analysis of the ego. New York: Bantam Books. Freud, S. (1975). The future of an illusion. NewYork: Norton. Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry (1987). Us and them, the psychology of ethnonationalism. New York: Brunner/Mazel. Keen, S. (1986). Faces of the enemy. San Francisco: Harper and Row. Marx, K. and Tucker, R. (eds.) (1978). Economic and philosophic manuscripts of 1844. In The Marx–Engels reader, pp. 70–93, 101–105. New York: Norton. Quinn, D. (1992). Ishmael. New York: Bantam. Stein, H. F. (1987). Adversary symbiosis and complementary group dissociation: An analysis of the US/USSR conflict. In Stein, H. F. (ed.) Psychoanalytic anthropology. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia. Volkan, V. (1988). The need to have enemies and allies. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson.

Enlisting in the US Army: Institutional and Occupational Motives Naomi B Verdugo and Richard R Verdugo, Arlington, VA, USA ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction Background

Glossary AVF All Volunteer Force BPS Baccalaureate Post-secondary Survey

Introduction With the advent of the all-volunteer force (AVF) in 1973, the US military services could no longer rely on draftees to fill the ranks of the services. The services would now be required to recruit volunteers to serve in each of the military branches (Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines) – both their active (e.g., Regular Army) and reserve components (e.g., Army Reserve and Army National Guard). This meant the military now had to compete in the marketplace, with colleges and employers, for qualified

Conclusion Further Reading

FY Fiscal (Financial) Year OIF Operation Iraq Freedom OEF Operation Enduring Freedom

young adults to fill their ranks. Yet, despite 34 years of experience with the AVF, Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) – the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – mark the first time since 1973 that we have had to rely entirely on volunteers to fill the ranks during a prolonged war. This has proven a particular challenge for the Army, the largest service and the one shouldering most of the burden of combat in OIF and OEF. During the period 1939–72, the United States regularly drafted individuals to fill the ranks of the Armed

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Forces. The draft operated during World War II when about 56% of eligible men served, through the Korean War and much of the Vietnam War. Since the start of the AVF and even prior to its establishment, the ability to recruit volunteers has been a top concern. One issue that has emerged as a significant research and policy topic is why young people enlist. Using the Army as the focus, this article examines the motives of men and women for enlisting in the military. We focus on the Army to illustrate this issue because recruiting difficulties tend to be experienced first by this service. The reasons for this are twofold. First, the Army has the biggest annual recruiting mission. In Fiscal Year (FY) 2007, the US Army established its enlisted recruiting mission at 80 000 men and women for the active Army, 70 000 for the Army National Guard, and 22 500 for the US Army Reserve – 172 500 volunteers for the Army’s enlisted ranks alone. (The need for officers is in addition to these numbers.) Changes in labor market conditions or propensity to enlist will affect this service before the others. Second, the vast majority of the troops deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan are Army. Recruiting for the military services is more complex than selling Coca-Cola to the public. The Army and its sister services recruit young adults for military service, but not just any young adults. Recruit quality complicates the recruiting process as many young adults are ineligible for service due to physical condition (e.g., overweight), criminal record, failure to earn a high school diploma, or failure to achieve a sufficiently high score on the military entrance exam. Enlistment standards, though somewhat flexible mean less than half the 18–24-year-old population is even eligible for military service. Factoring in post-high-school plans and individual interest in enlisting further reduces the eligible population. To be sure understanding enlistment motivation is useful in each service’s marketing strategy, but quality conditions have to be met before a potential recruit can enlist in the military. Research has shown that those young adults who are most desired by the military services (high school diploma graduates with high test scores on the military entrance exam) have lower interest in serving (‘propensity’) than young people who are less desirable. That segment of the youth population who have successfully completed high school and are easily trained, in good health, and have a clean criminal record are also sought after by employers and colleges, and so this group has many posthigh school options. This article looks at the reasons young people enlist in the military.

Background While the current focus on motives for enlistment reflects concerns in filling the ranks of the Army and the other services at a time when the US is engaged in a prolonged

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war, this is not a new issue. Challenges to filling the ranks may be more serious now – the prolonged war, Congress authorizing a larger Army (an effort that requires increased recruitment and reenlistment) and this has been an ongoing concern since the advent of the AVF. Current challenges reported in the popular media are not the first faced by the AVF. Supply, Demand, and Flexibility in Enlistment Standards As the services compete for recruits in the labor market, supply and demand forces are at play. Enlistment standards are not fixed. They adjust with the services offering more or less flexibility on enlistment criteria such as criminal record, alternative high school credentials, desired scores on the military entrance test, and more or fewer programs designed to mitigate overweight, enhance English language skills, and other characteristics that would sometimes be barriers to enlistment. Also, the percentage of women who enlist rises when males are in shorter supply as greater efforts are made to attract women to the military. Reenlistments, the retention in the military of those enlisted members who have completed at least one term of enlistment, is also a way to decrease the demand for new recruits, though this increases the average age of the force and creates a more costly force (by retaining more senior individuals who draw higher pay). The military grows its own service members from within. A noncommissioned officer is not hired away from the corporate world and placed in charge of other soldiers. The soldier is brought in at a junior grade and given the training and assignments to develop the knowledge and experience needed to perform at more senior grades. This means that even in the face of high reenlistment levels, the services will still require junior officers to fill the entry point of the pipeline and develop into the seasoned leaders needed 8, 12, and 16 years hence. So the need for recruits may ebb and flow, but it never goes away. For this reason, attention to the propensity to enlist and motivations for enlisting is an ongoing concern among analysts, policymakers, and leaders in the military services. Downsizing the US Army The economic boom of the early 1990s would have proven challenging for military recruiting had the services not been reducing their numbers in the face of the collapse of our Cold War adversaries and the swift conclusion of the first Gulf War. The public’s consequent desire to reduce military spending led to a military drawdown and the services greatly reduced the number of recruits enlisted. However, with the end of the drawdown, the late 1990s proved challenging to recruiting. Recruiting budgets had been slashed during the drawdown, the number of recruiters and recruiting stations

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reduced, and the services could be more selective thus raising enlistment standards and offering fewer incentives to fill the ranks. This all changed in the late 1990s when the services were challenged to meet their recruiting targets and, with the exception of the Marine Corps, all experienced shortfalls. In 1998 Navy, for example, accepted more recruits with General Educational Development (GED) tests, and Army failed its recruiting mission in 1999 falling short by more than 7000. These shortfalls were largely attributed to the strong economy which affords more employment opportunities to young people without college degrees, and the increasing percentage of young people going on to college after high school. In 2000 the services achieved their active recruiting goals, but continued to fail to achieve the reserve components’ missions. Motives for Enlisting in the US Army Motivations for enlisting are gleaned from surveys of ‘buyers’ – those who actually enlist in the military – and studies of teens’ and young adults’ who have not yet chosen to enlist by examining their propensity to enlist. Attitudes expressed in surveys of enlistees may not reflect the youth market in general. Are there other young adults who don’t enter the military but would if the incentives were different or the terms of enlistment shorter, or if they had just been contacted more by a recruiter? These types of questions can’t be answered by surveys of buyers but only by going to the general civilian population and asking their views. Care must also be taken with propensity data, however, to determine how accurately it reflects the choices young people will make in the years ahead. A Research And Development (RAND) study in the 1980s followed up survey respondents to find out if what they actually did in the years ahead matched their stated propensity to do those things (enter the military, go to college or trade school, enter a civilian job). That study ‘‘showed a very strong relationship between stated propensity and enlistment.’’ A similar RAND study using more current data again found that ‘‘propensity is still very predictive of youth’s enlistment decisions.’’ Others have found that the relationship between professed propensity to enlist and actual enlistment is weaker for females, stronger for males with children, and stronger for people going to college. Through most of the 1990s, African-American males had the highest propensity, followed by Hispanics, with whites having the lowest propensity to enlist; surveys in the late 1990s showed Hispanics having the highest propensity followed by African-Americans. Females have much lower propensity than males and African-American females continue to have the highest propensity, while Hispanic females have the lowest. Findings over the past decade show decreasing propensity to enlist. While you might expect that motivations to enlist change over time, in fact they have been fairly consistent,

even during time of war. Certainly propensity to enlist varies, but the actual reasons people enlist stays much the same. Due to the large number of volunteers the Army must bring in each year, that service has always had to recruit heavily among those youth who, at least initially, indicate they ‘probably won’t’ or ‘definitely won’t’ be serving in the military in the next few years.

Motivation for enlisting: A model

Motivations to enlist run the gamut from patriotism to a paycheck. So why do young people enlist? Charles Moskos sees the military moving away from an ‘institutional’ culture to an ‘occupational’ culture. By institutional he means an organization that defines itself in terms of intangibles, values like duty, honor, country. Members of an institution see themselves as having a ‘calling’. Under this view, the military should draw people based on patriotism, service to others, and not through crass bonuses or special pays. The Marine Corps still positions itself that way. Not a word about bonuses or other financial incentives is included in their advertisements. Their spots focus on challenging oneself, affiliating with an elite and selective organization. When new Marines are asked why they wanted to join, ‘what they chose about 95 percent of the time is the intangibles,’ said Marine Capt, Jeff Sammons. . .. (Freedberg Jr., 1999)

In contrast, the occupational construct posits that the military is an employer operating in a competitive marketplace. Supply and demand factors heavily influence recruits and incentives offered by the services. Because the Army must appeal to a broad swath of the youth market, it must attract those young people motivated to serve as their patriotic duty, as well as those who seek job skills or a paycheck. Moskos’s work helps us organize the research on the motives young people have for enlisting in the US Army. The research shows a variety of reasons young people enlist, suggesting the services can’t appeal to one subgroup leaving out the other if they hope to fill their ranks, dividing up motives into institutional versus occupational. The cross-classification can be found in Table 1. Here, we examine data and the research about motives behind people enlisting in the US Army. Table 1 A taxonomy of motives for enlisting in the US Army Category

Motives

Institutional

Patriotism, adventure/attachment to an important institution Job skills, education, benefits, earnings

Occupational

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Institutional motives

Occupational motives

While people are motivated to enlist for a variety of reasons, a predominant reason for one segment of the population is patriotism. Patriotism, adventure, the desire for a challenge and to test themselves – the institutional components as described by Moskos, appeals to a segment of the youth who enlist, predominantly white males. Institutional motives are part of the six most important motives recruiters use in identifying potential enlistees. In fact, between 2002 and 2006, the motive, ‘‘Serve my country,’’ increased from 27.5% to 38.1%. This is a significant increase over that 4-year period. Institutional motives are among the top five motives enlistees say led them to join the Army. Data presented in Table 2 exhibit the top five motives for joining the Army in 2005 and in 2006. In both years, an institutional motive, ‘‘Do something I can be proud of ’’ was the most important motive. In fact, in both years, institutional motives account for 2 of the 5 motives. What differs between the 2 years are their ordering. The second institutional motive, in both years, is ‘‘Be better than I was.’’ There are differences by race and ethnicity. Table 3 exhibits the top five motives for enlisting by race and ethnicity. In terms of the top ranked motive, Hispanic enlistees are the only group not listing this particular motive as its top choice: ‘‘Do something I can be proud of.’’

Money for college has certainly been a motive for many enlistees. In fact, college money is one of the key ways in which the military has transformed American society. Those who served in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam were able to receive a free college education when they left the military, and a great many of them took advantage of this benefit, significantly increasing the percentage of adults with a college education. Though the Army recently increased the age of enlistment up to the 42nd birthday, the services still focus recruiting activities on high school seniors and post-high school youth. This means the decision about whether or not to go to college looms large as an influencer of the decision to enlist in the military. Because ‘college aspirations are clearly associated with the decision to enroll in college versus enlist’, it is enlightening to examine the percentage of young people who actually attend college. However, interest in attending college is more associated with a positive propensity for the military than for entering the civilian workforce. Today, about 80% of high school seniors plan to attend college, over 70% actually attend, though far less ultimately graduate with a 2-year or a 4-year degree. Still, this is a tremendous increase since 1980 when about 49.3% of high school graduates entered college, and in 2005, 68.6% of recent high school completers were enrolled in college. In fact, data in Figure 1 exhibit the college enrollment rates of recent high school completers from 1960 to 2005. As can be seen from Figure 1, the college going rate among recent high school completers, while increasing, experienced some slowing before rising again in certain periods. In fact, the curve looks like a step function. The one period in which college going among recent high school completers dipped for about 15 years: from 1965 to 1980. The affordability of the community college system, the availability of loans, and the willingness of many employers to pay for employees’ classes means there are few barriers to attending college should one have the

Table 2 Top five reasons for enlisting in the US Army: 2005 and 2006 2005

2006

Do something I can be proud of Make a difference for self, family, nation Develop potential to the fullest Be better than I was Develop strength in different areas

Do something I can be proud of Make a difference for self, family, nation Develop potential to the fullest Be better than I was Develop strength in different areas

Source: Tamplin, C. (2007). New recruit survey 2006 (Regular Army). Final report. Fort Monroe, VA: G-2/Center for Accessions Research, United States Army Accessions Command.

Table 3 Motives for enlisting in the Army by race and ethnicity, 2006 Ranking by race and ethnicity Motive

Total

API

AA

Hisp.

Other

White

Do something I can be proud of Make a diff for self, family, nation Be better than I was Develop strength in other areas Develop my potential to the fullest

1 2 5 4 NA

1 2 3 4 5

1 3 5 4 2

4 1 5 3 2

1 4 5 NA 3

1 2 5 NA 3

NA, Not applicable because choice was not listed. Source: Tamplin, C. (2007). New Recruit Survey 2006 (Regular Army). Final report. Fort Monroe, VA: G-2/Center for Accessions Research, United States Army Accessions Command.

694 Enlisting in the US Army: Institutional and Occupational Motives

time, working as part of a team), and demonstrating to employers who see military service on the resume that this young person will likely be a responsible and respectful employee.

80 70 60

Rate

50 40

Race, gender, and occupational motives

30

African-Americans have long joined to acquire civilian job skills in an environment where there is equal pay and integration was in law and implemented in the military decades before it became the law of the land in the civilian sector. Surveys show that the acquisition of job skills with civilian relevance is a motivator for AfricanAmericans to enlist. Indeed, the African-Americans comprised 23.5% of Army recruits in 2000, but dropped to 13.9% by 2005. While this lower percentage is more aligned with African-American representation in the US population (12.3% as measured by the 2000 census), this drop seems to reflect a significant change in post-high school plans for this group. And propensity estimates do show a drop among all groups, but most notably AfricanAmericans. At the same time females, who also tended to join the military for job skills, have declined from 22% of all Army recruits in 2000 to about 17% in 2005. Steep declines in African-American enlistments and propensity declines among all groups have been attributed to opposition to the war and concern about casualties in the popular press and the Army’s own studies. Some have claimed that the risk versus reward equation is no longer balanced in favor of reward. The perception that the Army is a risky place to come to develop job skills has negatively affected AfricanAmerican enlistments. A survey done of high school students during the first Gulf War showed that AfricanAmerican students were far more likely than white students to know someone who had served in Iraq. Given the overrepresentation of African-Americans in the Army prior to 2002, relative to the percentage of the civilian US population that is African-American, this finding is not surprising. Perhaps as a result of more personal contact with military members, the risk of military service is more real to African-American young people and their adult influencers than it is for white young people. Those who enter the military for civilian skills would be particularly deterred by the current war, the long deployments, and the risk of death or injury, while those who enlist for the intangibles like patriotism may have become more propensed. And there was an increase in enlistments following 11 September 2001 which appeared to be inspired by patriotism, but that was short lived. In any case, the percentage of the youth market motivated to enlist for altruistic reasons is too small to fill the ranks of all the services. In addition to race and gender, age is also a factor that influences both propensity and motivation to enlist.

20 10 0 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005

Year Figure 1 College enrollment rates of recent high school completers: 1960–2005.

desire to enroll. Of course, college attendance doesn’t preclude entering the military, and more recruits than ever are entering with at least some college. However, the majority of college students and college graduates are unlikely to enlist. Moskos has argued for a shorter enlistment term, a sort of junior year abroad adventure, of perhaps 15–18 months for college students. And his own students at Northwestern University indicate an interest in such an option in surveys he has administered. However, the services generally see 18 months as too short to recoup the investment in training and would lead to too much turnover in units. Beth Asch, a RAND analyst, has acknowledged that ‘‘The four-year [students] were more likely to be somebody that the military wanted, but they were much less likely to be somebody who would want to join the military.’’ With the high college enrollment rates, however, come high dropout (or stop-out) rates. Though estimates of college completion vary widely, the three most often cited studies are data from the Astin survey, and the US Department of Education’s Baccalaureate Postsecondary Survey (BPS). Results from a US Department of Education report indicate that an estimated 46.7% of 1966 college entrants graduated by 1970; 39.9% of 1985 entrants had graduated 4 years later. The report also notes that data from the American College Testing Program indicate that the 5-year college completion rates (incoming freshman 5 years earlier) were 57.5% in 1983, and 53.3% in 1996. And in 2001, another report from the US Department of Education (2007) showed that 63.5% of the 1995–96 college entrants had earned their undergraduate degree by 2001. Certainly, military recruiters don’t overlook this population, but it is much harder to find them than high school seniors or recent graduates. The military has long been a venue to acquire civilian job skills – computers, telecommunications, mechanical skills. However, it has also been a venue to acquire maturity, instill within a work ethic (showing up on

Enlisting in the US Army: Institutional and Occupational Motives

Younger teens (eighth and tenth grade students) are more positively inclined to serve in the military than older teens (high school seniors). In terms of actual enlistments, there is also a negative association with age. The bulk of Army’s recruits are 18–22 with only a small fraction over age 29. Influencers on the decision to enlist

Motives to enlist can also be shaped by significant others. Influencers, as they are referred to, are adults who shape or contribute to a teen’s or young adult’s post-high school plans. This might be a parent, coach, or trusted teacher. Influencers are a key factor in who chooses to serve in the military. Recent Army data show that about 50% of Army enlistees have a parent who served in the military. Young adults from families where a parent has served (usually the father) are significantly overrepresented among those who enlist. As the percentage of the population with military experience declined with the advent of the AVF and reductions in the size of the services, the number of teens and young adults from families where a parent had military experience also declined. This has reduced the pool of enlistees from military families and contributed to challenges filling the ranks.

Conclusion Since the advent of the AVF, the military has experienced years where it was more difficult to meet its recruiting goals and years where these goals were not achieved. Much research has been conducted to examine the motives behind the decision to enlist to help the services better compete for the limited pool of eligible young adults. Understanding why young people enlist can help the services develop programs and incentives that appeal to young people. Far more complex than ‘selling’ a consumer good, the military services require young people who will stay through their terms of enlistment, are capable of learning new information, and act honorably. For this reason, motives to enlist are important, particularly for the high-quality young adults the services require. In this article we used a typology proposed by Moskos to help organize the motives leading young people to enlist. The model also simplifies the analysis because it breaks down motives into two categories: institutional and occupational. Institutional motives are those that are normative and tied to the institution, while occupational focus on the enlistee and his/her desire to acquire skills and other benefits while in the Army. Our discussion indicates that while institutional factors are important in the decision to enlist, there are other important factors. Demographic, educational, and

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occupational characteristics also influence the post-high school decision. Study of post-high school plans is important as young adults have multiple paths from which to embark on their career goals. As the military services study and understand these career expectations, the services can better help young people meet their goals – be it obtaining a college degree, job skills, or identification with an important social institution. See also: Draft, Resistance and Evasion of; Feminist and Peace Perspectives on Women; Gender Studies; Women and War

Further Reading Bachman, J. G., Segal, D. R., Freedman-Doan, P., and O9Malley, P. M. (1998). Does enlistment propensity predict accession? High school seniors’ plans and subsequent behavior. Armed Forces & Society 25(1), 68. Bicksler, B. A., Gilroy, C. L., and Warner, J. T. (2004). The all-volunteer force: Thirty years of service. Washington, DC: Brassey’s. Freedberg, S. J., Jr. (1999). Beyond the GI Bill. National Journal 3(34/ 35), 2425–2428. Jackson, D. Z. (2007). For African Americans, folly of this war hits home. Boston Globe 9 May 2007, p. A9. Jaffe, G. (1999). The price of power: No, sir! The military wages Uphill Battle to find the willing and able. The Wall Street Journal 23 Sep 1999, p. A1. Kleykamp, M. A. (2006). College, jobs, or the military? Enlistment during a time of war. Social Science Quarterly 87(2), 272. Moskos, C. (1977). From institution to occupation: Trends in military organization. Armed Forces & Society 4(1), 41–50. Moskos, C. (2001). What ails the all-volunteer force: An institutional perspective. Parameters 31(2), 41–43. Orvis, B., Sastry, N., and McDonald, L. L. (1996). Military recruiting outlook: Recent trends in enlistment propensity and conversion of potential enlisted supply (MR-677-A/OSD, 1996). pp. 9–10pp. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation. Quester, G. H. (2005). Demographic trends and military recruitment. Surprising possibilities. Parameters 35(1), 30–36. Schmitt, E. (2005). Army recruiting more high school dropouts to meet goals. The New York Times 11 June 2005, p. A11. Segal, D. R., Bachman, J. G., Freedman-Doan, P., and O’Malley, P. M. (1999). Propensity to serve in the US military: Temporal trends and subgroup differences. Armed Forces & Society 25(3), 412–413, 419–421. Segal, D. R. and Segal, M. W. (2004). America’s military population. Population Bulletin 59(4), 4. Segal, M. R., Segal, D. R., and Bachman, J. G. (1998). Gender and the propensity to enlist in the US military. Gender Issues 16(3), 65–87. Segal, D. R. and Verdugo, N. (1994). Demographic trends and personnel policies as determinants of the racial composition of the volunteer army. Armed Forces & Society 20(4), 619–632. Tamplin, C. (2007). New recruit survey 2006 (Regular army). Final report. Fort Monroe, VA: G-2/Center for Accessions Research, United States Army Accessions Command. US Department of Education (1999). College for all? Is there too much emphasis on getting a 4-year college degree? Washington, DC: US Department of Education. US Department of Education (2007). Students entering and leaving postsecondary occupational education: 1995–2001 (NCES 2007041). Washington, DC: US Department of Education. White, J. (2005). Steady drop in black army recruits; Data said to reflect views on Iraq War. The Washington Post 9 March 2005, p. A1.

696 Ethical and Religious Traditions, Eastern

Environment, Climate Change See Climate Change, Cooperation and Human Security

Environmental Factors, Evolution and Violence See Evolution, Violence and Novel Environmental Factors

Ethical and Religious Traditions, Eastern Theodore Gabriel, University of Gloucestershire, Cheltenham, UK Published by Elsevier Inc.

Introduction Hinduism Buddhism Jainism

Glossary Ahimsa Nonviolence, noninjury. Dharma Duty, righteousness. Karma Action; in Eastern religions the corpus of actions committed in one’s life that has consequences in one’s subsequent lives.

Introduction It is an undeniable fact that most ethical traditions have their source in religious creeds, teachings, and scriptures. Religions are strong value-generating systems, and ethics along with morality is an indispensable and vital part of every religious system. In this article we look into five religious traditions of Eastern provenance and main practice, namely, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Jainism, and Islam. The discussion is centered on ethical issues relevant to matters of violence, peace, and conflict. We examine these traditions one by one.

Hinduism It is well known that Hinduism extols the principle of ahimsa, nonviolence. The Mahabharatha 12.254.29 states that ahimsa is the highest dharma (duty, righteous action). To some extent Hinduism has imbibed this principle from Buddhism and Jainism, religions in which nonviolence is enshrined even more strongly, especially in the latter. In Hinduism the doctrines of karma (action) and

Sikhism Islam Further Reading

Nirguna Without qualities; having qualities that cannot be specified or described. Jihad Striving or struggle; the concept of defensive war in the cause of God (Allah) in Islam.

samsara (reincarnation – or more properly the concept of the cycle of births and deaths) plays an important part. One of the consequences of these doctrines is the ontological nexus between various life forms, since in the doctrine of Karma the soul passes through many incarnations inhabiting several bodies, human, animal, and insect. This mitigates to a great extent the attitude of inferiority attributed to animals and insects by human beings, leading to a more relaxed approach to the victimization of such life forms. Advaita (monistic theology), prominent in Hinduism, especially in modern times as Vedanta (the end of all Vedas), is another factor in Hinduism’s approach to violence. The basis of Advaita is the identity of all beings with the Brahman, the Supreme Being or transcendental soul (Paramatma) and hence the essential identity of all living entities, be it human, or animal. Advaitic thought is hinted at in even the earliest of Hindu scriptures, namely the Vedas, and more clearly in several of the Upanishads (philosophical commentaries on the Vedas) but had been systematized as a theological doctrine by the great Hindu theologian Gaudapada, and later by Shankara (eighth century) and Ramanuja (twelfth century). The school was revived by the Neo-Vedantins Vivekananda and

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Radhakrishnan, and is an influential school of thought in modern Hinduism. The consequence of Advaitic theology is that if you harm another being, man, woman, animal, or insect you are harming yourself. Professor Krishnamoorthy states: The concept of ahimsa has its roots in the Hindu theory that every life is a spark of the divine and our recognition of the divine must be so universal as to identify ourselves with this divinity in every living being. In consonance with this principle Hindu rituals prescribe various compensatory repentant rites as a daily chore, for the several explicit and implicit killings that we cannot do without in our day to day lives.

According to Prof. Krishnamoorthy, ‘‘perfect nonviolence is an ideal to be aimed at rather than a practical end achieved in day to day life.’’ It is an objective to be moved closer and closer to. Absolute ahimsa is beyond the reach of ordinary individuals since even the act of breathing can inflict violence to millions of living entities in the air we breathe. We will look subsequently into the fact that in Hinduism there is a tension between ahimsa and justified violence, for violence has to be resorted to in certain contexts. Manu, the law giver, in the key Hindu scripture Manudharmashastra accords ahimsa prime position in the list of virtues, which according to him summarizes dharma. Indeed, ahimsa is sometimes said to summarize all virtue. The code of Vasishta states: ‘‘Avoiding back biting, envy, pride, egoism, unbelief, guile, boasting, insulting others, hypocrisy, greed, infatuation, anger and discontent is approved dharma (duty, righteous action) for all the stages of life.’’ It may be noted that most of the vices listed by Vasishta constitute negation of the principle of ahimsa. Of course, the practice of ahimsa was especially enjoined for those who had left the grihastya (householder) stage of life. In other words, ahimsa is particularly a characteristic of asceticism, although it is a virtue to be observed by everyone. Lipner points out that the Yogasutra of Patanjali, a text authoritative for ascetics lists ahimsa as the cardinal virtue for ascetics of all castes. The most reputed and well-known exponent of ahimsa in modern times was M. K. Gandhi, the great Indian figure who led the movement for Indian independence. The Mahatma (Great Soul), who was a high-caste Hindu, was also greatly influenced by Jainism, a faith widely prevalent in his native Porbandar (Kutch, Gujarat) and by his readings from the New Testament. Gandhi’s whole political strategy has sometimes been attributed to the Sermon on the Mount – especially Christ’s injunction to turn the other cheek. However, it is natural to assume that the major influence on his thinking about violence was primarily conditioned by his Hindu upbringing, which comes out clearly, for example, in his attitude toward cow protection.

For Gandhi, nonviolence was inextricably intertwined with truth. Truth was for him God, and ahimsa the way to Truth. He declares: ‘‘My uniform experience has convinced me that there is no other God than truth. . . . And the only means for the realisation of Truth is ahimsa . . . – a perfect vision of Truth can only follow a complete realisation of ahimsa.’’ To Gandhi ahimsa was not a negative or passive concept, but a dynamic one. The practitioner of ahimsa was not a coward who avoided danger. It required great courage and fortitude to practice ahimsa. Gandhi illustrated this by not retaliating under great provocation when he was attacked, especially in South Africa. He also felt that ahimsa should originate in the mind. ‘‘Non-violence of the mere body without the co-operation of the mind is nonviolence of the weak or the cowardly, and has therefore no potency.’’ He did not bear a grudge to his antagonists and enemies. He stated, ‘‘If we bear malice and hatred in our bosoms and pretend not to retaliate, it must recoil upon us and lead to our destruction.’’ When in 1942 a crowd in Chauri Chaura went out of control and burned a police station with the policemen inside, he immediately called a halt to the independence agitation that had gained momentum all over India, to the astonishment of his colleagues as well as the British. To Gandhi the underlying driving force for ahimsa was universal compassion. In that sense his adoption of ahimsa was not pragmatic. It depended on his monastic beliefs – the ultimate identity of all living beings. God is all-pervasive so no injury should be caused to any living being. He also said that nonviolence is the individual trying to transcend his animal nature, which was grounded in brutality, and striving toward the spiritual perfection of ahimsa. Man cannot for a moment live without consciously or unconsciously committing outward himsa (injury). . . . The very fact of his living – eating, drinking, moving about – necessarily involves some himsa, be it ever so minute. A votary of ahimsa, therefore, is true to his faith if the spring of all his actions is compassion, if he shuns to the best of his ability the destruction of the tiniest creature, . . . and thus incessantly strives to be free from the deadly coil of himsa. He will be constantly growing in selfrestraint and compassion, but he can never become entirely free from outward himsa.

Gandhi also used the duality of the body and soul, the Hindu theological concept of Prakriti (wordly matter) and Purusa (God), in his exegesis of the idea of ahimsa, equating the body with himsa and the soul with ahimsa. In his own words ‘‘Man cannot be wholly free from violence so long as he lives a bodily life and continues to be a social being.’’ The prominence of ahimsa in Hindu ethical ideology has to be tempered by the existence of injunctions in the scriptures extolling nishkama karma, the performance of caste duty without concern for its consequences. Hindu society is divided into four major divisions, designated as

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varnas, namely, the Brahmin, the Kshatriya, the Vaishya, and the Shudra. These are in the main occupational divisions with clearly prescribed duties for each varna. The duties are as enshrined in the various Hindu scriptures, notably the Dharma Shastras (the sciences of duties), compendiums that stipulate the duties of various castes and subcastes, genders, and individuals in various stages of life. Performance of the duties constitutes good karma, and negligence of these result in bad karma. The Karma doctrine avers that the acquisition of good karma is vital for liberation (moksha) from worldly existence. The second of these castes is the Kshatriya (warrior), and their duty is to fight to uphold honor, chastity of women, kingly authority, and like virtues, and protect the weak and the defenseless. They can be likened to the knights extolled in European myths and legends. Violence is a natural part of their occupation. The whole genesis of the popular and key scripture known as the Bhagavad Gita (Song of the Lord) lies in Lord Krishna, the Hindu avatar (incarnation) of the Supreme Being, persuading his protege Arjuna to fight in a good cause. In the climactic battle scene of the Hindu epic Mahabharatha, Arjuna faces an army composed of his cousins, uncles, former teachers, and many who are his former companions and many who are dear to him. Dismayed, he lays down his arms. The ensuing discourse between Arjuna and Krishna is in reality a philosophical debate for and against himsa. Can violence ever be justified? Do the ends justify the means? These are the underlying issues in this dialog. In the opening sections of the Bhagavad Gita Arjuna states his reasons for refusing to fight. He tells Krishna that he will be slaying many that are dear to him and like his former Gurus, those to whom he is indebted. He is not prepared to slay them even for all the three worlds, let alone one kingdom. Killing, he feels, is a sin, which will lead him to perdition. He will leave many women widowed and helpless. Without husbands and fathers to protect and maintain them they will turn to prostitution, thus family honor will decline. Ancestors will be left without descendants to perform the customary periodical rites for the welfare of their souls (sraddha). Lord Krishna, however, tells him that it is necessary for him to fight. He advances many arguments for this exhortation. Arjuna is a warrior and an Aryan, and it was not becoming of him to be cowardly and refuse to fight. It is his caste dharma to fight in a just cause, being a Kshatriya. Krishna informed him that a person who is killed does not cease to exist. The atman (soul) merely passes into another body. The concept of death is the result of sense perception. Death is merely a delusion. No one is able to destroy the imperishable soul. He who thinks that he has slain And he who thinks that one is slain Both do not have the right knowledge One who has right understanding knows that one neither slays nor is slain

Krishna consoled Arjuna by saying: ‘‘for one who has taken birth, death is certain; and for one who is dead birth is certain. Therefore, in the unavoidable discharge of your duty, you should not lament.’’ Krishna warned Arjuna, ‘‘if you do not fight this righteous war, you are committing adharma (unrighteousness) and will certainly incur sin and also lose your reputation.’’ Krishna enjoined him to fight without desiring greatness or honor and without worrying about the consequences – an almost unquestioning and blind execution of one’s caste dharma. Two points are clear from this. Violence can be resorted to only in just causes; there is something that can be categorized as righteous violence. A righteous end justifies even unrighteous means. This is elucidated further in Krishna resorting to what can be legitimately described as devious means for the successful conclusion of the war. He hides the sun with his discus to kill Jayadradha. He makes Yudhishtira, the son of Dharma, to tell a white lie in saying that Ashwathama has been killed, in order to slay the unvanquishable Drona. Ultimately the dharma of a warrior inevitably involves violence. Hinduism thus does not categorically prohibit the use of violence, in spite of its extolling ahimsa as a great virtue. However, though in the earliest times animal sacrifices were practiced and even now some obscure Hindu groups practice human sacrifice, vegetarianism is the norm for all Hindus and is related to concepts of purity and pollution since the priestly caste is totally banned from eating meat. Ahimsa is thus related to purity, and himsa to impurity.

Buddhism Buddhism was founded by Siddhartha Gautama (560–480 BC), a prince of the small principality of the Shakyas, Kapilavastu. He abandoned his princehood and his family and set out on a religious quest and attained enlightenment while sitting under a tree in the town of Buddha Gaya, in Bihar, India. The Buddha taught that all evil arises from worldly desire and this in turn is caused by the delusion of a permanent self. He averred that the human being is an ever-changing aggregate of five elements (skandhas) – the body, feelings, perceptions, impulses, and emotions – and acts of consciousness. This conglomeration of everchanging elements is in a state of flux, and after death is reborn or reconstituted into another aggregate, and suffers the consequences of negative karma or misdeeds. The solution to worldly suffering is to realize the myth of self-hood and aim at nirvana (literally, blowing out) – a state of permanence. The Buddha also taught the absolute relativism of everything in the world and the doctrine of Sunyata (emptiness). The eightfold path of perfect view, perfect thought, perfect speech, perfect action, perfect

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livelihood, perfect effort, perfect mindfulness, and perfect concentration sets one off in the path of attaining nirvana. Thus the key concepts of Buddhism are those of anatta (no self) and anicca (impermanence). The Buddhist precepts regarding ahimsa and compassion has had a profound effect on ethics in India and wherever this religion has spread to. It is well known that Buddhism reformed to a considerable extent the warlike tendencies of the Central Asian Mongol and Tibetan populations. The very first of Pancasheela, the five precepts of Buddhism, is to refrain from destroying life. The key principle of Buddhism is the notion of anatta – no self. Selflessness naturally removes the instinct of selfpreservation and self-indulgence – factors that engender violence to others – and foster compassion. According to the Buddha, your attitude toward others should be based on a sense of empathy – somewhat similar to Jesus’ teaching, ‘‘do unto others what you would do to yourself.’’ The Buddha said: ‘‘Everyone fears violence, everyone likes life; comparing oneself with others one would never slay or cause to slay.’’ The prohibition on killing extends to the meanest of living beings – for example, insects – Buddhists often take great care when walking in woods not to trample on living things. It is believed that a person brings upon himself bad kamma (karma) by causing injury to others, resulting in his suffering unpleasantness in the present life and being reborn in a lower form of being. He might in his next life meet death unexpectedly while in the prime of life and enjoying all amenities of life. As in Hinduism, the identity of all life is a concept motivating ahimsa. Buddhism, although it does not believe in an immortal soul transmigrating to other bodies, does believe in rebirth – the reconstitution of the five aggregates (skandhas), into another being. Thus by causing injury to others you may be inadvertently harming one who was in a past life dear to you. The chain of existence is the one that causes the intimate relationship between all living entities, animal, human, god, devil, and insect. Buddhagosha, in his elaboration of the first precept of the Pancasheela, observes: ‘‘With regards to animals it is worse to kill a large animal than small, because a more extensive effort is involved. In the case of humans the killing is more blame worthy the more virtuous the victims are.’’ However, Buddhagosha states that murder means striking and killing anything that possesses a life force. The Theravada tradition, which is the earliest school of thought in Buddhism and prevails in South and Southeast Asia, is totally opposed to violence. Violence is to be eschewed in all contingencies, however expedient it might be. In the Parable of the Saw in the Majjhima Nikaya the Buddha declared that one who takes offense even at a robber who sawed him to pieces is no follower of his gospel. The Dhammapada states ‘‘never by hatred is hatred appeased.’’ The ideal of samata (calmness) entails

passive suffering. Killing in whatever context, according to the Theravada tradition, entails bad karmic consequences. The Kula Sila states, ‘‘Now wherein Vasettha is his good conduct? Herein, O Vasetta, that putting away the murder of that which lives, he abstains from destroying life. The cudgel and the sword he lays aside; and full of modesty and pity, he is compassionate and kind to all creatures that live.’’ The first precept is couched in negative terms, yet the intention is to be positive and to go far beyond mere refraining from violence and killing. Geshe Kelsang Gyatso states that according to the Compendium of Phenomenology non-harmfulness is not simply refraining from harming others, but compassion. Compassion for seeing others free from suffering will totally preclude any thoughts of harming sentient beings. Moreover compassion should be free from desirous attachment; it should not be motivated by personal advantages accruing from compassionate actions. Vegetarianism is preferred, especially for monks and nuns, in conformity with the first precept, but for practical reasons, in colder climes nonvegetarian food is not totally proscribed. Moreover the Buddhist bhikku (mendicant) has to accept whatever is offered in his bowl, without rejecting it. Thus it may happen that even a monk is occasionally constrained to eat meat. The rapid dissemination of Buddhism throughout India, Sri Lanka, and the Far East was through the efforts of Emperor Ashoka (third century BC). Ashoka had acquired a large empire through conquests, but after his war against Kalinga, and having visited the battlefield personally and observed the horrors of war, he had a change of heart and embraced Buddhism, later becoming its most famous royal exponent and missionary. Ashoka thereafter abjured war completely and made ahimsa the key principle of his administration, enjoining nonviolence not only to human beings but to animals, especially beasts of burden who had never before been properly cared for. He set up stupas (dome-shaped shrines) throughout India on which were carved his famous edicts. The very first edict states, ‘‘The taking of life and animal sacrifice is prohibited.’’ He renounced warfare totally, reduced his armed forces, and did not impose military service on his subjects. He sent envoys to all neighboring countries to join in treaties of peace and friendship with him. To some of the recalcitrant border tribes he sent a message to the effect that they were not to fear him but to take friendship and assistance from him. In short his whole internal administration and foreign policy were grounded in the first precept of the Buddha – absolute pacifism. Although a fervent Buddhist, Ashoka was tolerant to adherents of other faiths, a fact reflected in his rock edicts. He never imposed Buddhism on the people as religious dogma, rather presenting it as a way of life – as dharma. Although the general emphasis in Buddhism is a total commitment to ahimsa (nonviolence), even to the extent

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of suffering aggression passively, as Edward Conze opines, the fact that the rapid propagation of Buddhism owed to royal patronage necessarily leads to the possibility of violence being employed at least indirectly for its dissemination. He cites the cases of King Aniruddha of Burma in the eleventh century, warrior monks in Japan who invaded Kyoto, and the Boxers in China who used Buddhist terminology, as instances to the point. There is also the example of King Lang Darma of Tibet in the tenth century who did employ force in connection with religious objectives. It is a fact that many Buddhist monks are involved in the present ethnic strife in Sri Lanka. Theravada Buddhists would say that such instances reveal lapses from grace, or the inherent weakness of human nature. In religion there is often divergence between the theoretical position and the actual practice of the adherents. The Mahayana tradition compromises to the exigencies of life to the extent of saying that violence is justified if its objective is the protection of other sentient beings. Such a position is not totally pragmatic since the Mahayana Buddhists say that such violence should only be taken in a spirit of pure selflessness and compassion, and the proponent should be willing to take on the bad karmic consequences of the act of violence. The warrior monks of Japan are an instance of a more militant tradition in Buddhism. It originated with the schism in Enryakuji monastery, when in AD 933 as the result of a succession dispute the Enchin faction broke away from the monastery and founded an independent school at Mudera. Frequent disputes between this order and other monasteries as well as the secular authorities in Kyoto resulted in the emergence of a powerful warrior class of monks known as Sohei. A factional schism in the Sohei led to the birth of the Akuso (bad monks) who developed later into large monk armies. Between 981 and CE 1185 troops of warrior monks numbering several thousands made incursions into the capital against the government. There were also the Komuso, a type of freelance priest armed with a sword and who showed a distinctive tendency to disputation. Buddhist Attitudes toward Nationalism and War between Nations Buddhism does not show an inordinate concern for nationhood. As reflected in Ashoka’s edicts, tolerance is the key note of Buddhism’s approach to nations, races, and cultures. Nations are looked on as different but equally valid systems of demographic organization. Such differences can be seen in smaller units of human organization such as the family. In modern times, due to improved communication and travel, the world has become a global village and Buddhists perceive the nations as a human family. Patriotism and nationalism should not be at the expense of abandoning larger values

and interests. Sangharakshita states: ‘‘Nationalism is an exaggerated, passionate, and fanatical devotion to one’s national community at the expense of all other national communities and even at the expense of all other interests and loyalties.’’ Nationalism and racism are seen by most Buddhists as forms of greed, hatred, and delusion. Buddhists support the United Nations as an organization for transcending national barriers and working for the unity of the human family. As mentioned earlier, Buddhism looks at a nation as an aggregate of individuals. Rahula Walpola asks, ‘‘What is a nation but a vast conglomeration of individuals?’’ Thus Buddhists consider that the fallibilities of individuals can affect nations too, such as lobha (greed), dvesha (hatred), and avidya (ignorance). Aitken states: ‘‘It is the perversion of self-realisation into self-aggrandisement that directs the course of our lives to violence.’’ Thus conflict between nations has a similar genesis to that of conflict between individuals. War is necessarily looked on as evil or the consequence of worldly desire and undesirable traits. Buddhism has no theory for a just war, but I have already mentioned that in the Mahayana tradition killing is occasionally justified in the larger interests of the community or for protecting the innocent from violent individuals. Multiplied on a national scale this means that nations can go to war if the ends are in the interest of protection of the weak, the oppressed, and the innocent. But many Buddhists are prepared to be killed rather than fight and not be killed.

Jainism The concept of ahimsa (noninjury or nonviolence) has an incomparable status in Jain ethical philosophy and ritual praxis. Jainism traces its origins to the pre-Aryan times and can rightly be judged to be the most ancient of the indigenous religions of India. The concept of ahimsa has a unique status in Jain ideology, so much so that it is the first of the 12 vows taken by both the lay (anuvratas) as well as the ascetic sections (Mahavratas) among the Jains. The extremes to which the Jain ascetic carries the practice of noninjury are well known. Jain ascetics wear a mask over the face so they do not inhale insects and such animate objects. They filter all liquids drunk by them so that ants and such insects are not accidentally consumed. They will never light a naked light or fire so that moths and flies are not attracted and perish in the flames. They habitually carry a broom with which they sweep the floor as they walk along so that they do not inadvertently trample a living organism to death. The founder of Jainism is generally taken to be Vardhamana Mahavira, who lived from 599 to 527 BCE (the traditionally accepted dating). But Jains hold Vardhamana as only one of the Tirthankaras (those who

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have reached the shores of enlightenment). Many scholars hold Rasabha as the first Tirthankara of our age. The word Jain (Jaina) means one who has overcome. Jainism does not attribute much significance to theistic concepts and is based on the duality of jiva (living) and ajiva or pudgala (nonliving matter) clinging to it, and preventing it from attaining its tripartite attributes of infinite vision, infinite knowledge, and infinite freedom. The aspiration of Jainism is to rid oneself of karma that is absorbed into the self (asrava) by one’s negative actions leading to bondage (bandha), resulting in continual life cycles and descent into lower forms of life and hell. Jainism is not dogmatic and believes in ane-kanta vada (nonabsolutism). Ahimsa is considered to be the prime factor in the attaining of nirvana. Some even go so far as to consider ahimsa as the self in its pure form (jiva), the sentient essence of the person. Ahimsa, linguistically a negative term, is however not a negative concept in Jainism. It is a positive attitude engendered by positive virtues such as karunya (compassion), daya (kindness), and kshanti (forbearance). Positive ahimsa is termed abhaya dana (giving protection or refuge). Ahimsa is a state of mind rather than the avoidance of physical acts of violence. The intention is more important than the actual action itself. Amritachandra, the Jain philosopher states that even without overt himsa one can commit himsa mentally. The internal state of mind is the significant factor in determining himsa and ahimsa than external action. Unintentional ahimsa cannot be binding. Kaundakunda, a Jain philosopher of antiquity, has stated that even the killing of a living being is not sinful if the perpetrator has been careful and the killing was accidental. Mindfulness is the key attitude to avoiding violence as much of violence comes about as the result of carelessness and negligence, and such negligence is reprehensible. Thus a Jain is ever alert and careful not to injure living beings, however small they might be. Jainism prescribes different standards for the lay person and the ascetic regarding the observance of ahimsa. It is inevitable that for the lay person in day-to-day living some amount of violence is inevitable; Jainism has classified such violence into various kinds. Udyami is violence involved in one’s professional duties. Arambhi is violence incurred in domestic activities. And virodhi is in defending oneself, neighbors, or one’s country. Jainism has divided animate beings into five kinds – the one-sensed (e.g., vegetables and plants), two-sensed (earthworms, shellfish, and the like), three-sensed (such as lice, bugs, and ants), four-sensed (mosquitoes, flies, bees, etc.,), and five-sensed (larger animals and human beings). A Jain is allowed to commit violence against the onesensed but not against the rest. He should avoid wine, meat, honey, and fruits, which are the breeding ground of living organisms. Even the meat of animals that die of natural causes cannot be eaten, as they can be the

repositories of numerous living organisms such as flies and maggots. Hunting, fishing, vivisection, the use of skins and feathers of animals and birds as sartorial adornment, sacrifices, and other religious rituals involving killing animals, even killing insects that are troublesome, capital punishment – all these are disallowed. Euthanasia is not permissible. Even lay persons should refrain from intentionally killing innocent living beings when there is no necessity to do so. Traditionally in India Jains have refrained from agricultural activities since plowing and other farming activities would entail killing small organisms. They usually take up trade as their means of livelihood. Many are industrialists, or publishers. As far as possible injury to living beings are to be avoided. A Jain should avoid tying up animals carelessly or angrily, striking, beating, or whipping animals, especially in the tender parts of the body, docking a horse’s or dog’s tail, overloading an animal, or withholding food or drink (anna pana nirodha). The monk, on the other hand, has to conform to more rigorous prescriptions regarding ahimsa. He is enjoined to observe ahimsa even in dreams. He has to extend active friendship to all living beings and renounce himsa of mind, body, and speech, as well as of action. He has to practice ahimsa to all living beings, mobile, immobile, gross, and subtle. The Jain scripture Darsha Vaikalika states ‘‘A monk should walk mindfully, stand mindfully, sit and sleep mindfully. By eating mindfully and speaking mindfully he is not affected by evil deeds.’’ The monk has to take the vow, ‘‘I renounce all killing of living beings, whether subtle or gross, movable or stationary. Nor shall I myself kill living beings, nor cause others to do so, nor give my consent to do such acts.’’ Jains do not consider sovereignty as something that is imposed from above. It is rather viewed as supremacy of leadership based on wisdom, within a society organized in many ways with a multigraded leadership of which the people are associated at each level, and are not mere subjects. The king is allowed to engage in war as a defensive measure. War is regulated by a very humane code of conduct. However sandhi (treaty) is the basic premise. War has to be avoided as far as possible by diplomatic action. If war is unavoidable, loss of life should be reduced to a minimum. Only righteous strategies can be adopted in war (niti yuddha). The king should not kill ascetics, Brahmins, unarmed people, prisoners or those who are fleeing, noncombatants, the sick, children and women, and persons holding religious office. Unfair means can be employed only if the enemy resorts to such means first and it is necessary for the nation’s survival. Amputation is the maximum punishment envisaged under Jain penal law, and is inflicted only if necessary for public security and in cases of insulting the ruler or rebellion. Those who sell meat are also severely punished, usually with mutilation. Fines are imposed for killing animals.

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The Jain believes that only the knowledge that is purged of anger, hatred, and such passions is true knowledge. Anger leads to rashness and injury, and is one of the six sensual feelings that the Jain has to control, including pride, sensual pleasures, greed, sleep, and undesirable conversation. The Jain considers ahimsa a natural attribute of the human psyche and himsa as unnatural. He illustrates this fact thus: A person sees a child struggling in the water and drowning. The person’s instinct will be to save him. On the other hand a person who throws even an enemy into water is not acting naturally. His action is inhuman and born out of unnatural passion. No other religion has dwelt on the issue of violence to the extent of Jainism. They have categorized violence into 108 varieties, so minute is their identification of violence. As in Buddhism the concept of ahimsa is related to empathy, the ability to understand another’s pain and suffering as one’s own. A Jain sutra (aphorism) states: ‘‘As it would be to you, so it is with whom you intend to kill. As it would be to you so it is with him whom you intend to tyrannise. As it would be to you, so it is with him whom you intend to torment.’’ Another sutra states: ‘‘For all sorts of living beings, pain is unpleasant, disagreeable, and greatly feared.’’ Jainism thus does not agree with some who view beings of a lower order as unable to feel pain. Jaina compassion therefore extends to all living beings, from the one- to the five-sensed. Critics of the Jain ideology of ahimsa opine that the use of silks, gelatine, musk, and eggs (vegetarian) by the Jains demonstrates that even they have to consume objects whose production involves violence. Some point out that the ayus karma (life span) of individuals is fixed in the last third of their previous life, and therefore the belief that the killer is really instrumental in killing a jiva is a delusion. However, Jains do not fully subscribe to such fatalism. The belief is that by killing a living being you are impeding its opportunity for liberation by not allowing its life to run the full span of its course. Mahatma Gandhi was greatly influenced by Jain ideology, especially its teaching on ahimsa. He lived in a region of India with a substantial Jain population. A Jain saint of Kathiawar, Roy Chand Bhai, with whom Gandhi had prolonged correspondence, had a profound influence on Gandhi. Although he was by birth a Hindu, and was also highly receptive to the teachings of Christ (especially the ideas contained in the Sermon on the Mount and Jesus’s dictum of turning the other cheek), which have close affinity to the Jain attitude regarding interpersonal relationships, the Jain ideology of ahimsa is obvious in Gandhi’s writings and his political strategy. An account of Jain ideology on violence and peace will not be complete without mention of the practice of Sallekhana, ritual voluntary death. Sallekhana literally means ‘scouring out’ and here implies the scouring out of the body to save the soul. This form of religious death is

rarely practiced nowadays, but there is evidence that it had been practiced in the medieval period (especially in the sixth and seventh centuries) from the nisidhis (memorials) erected in honor of the self-mortifying ascetics. The ascetics who decide to take on Sallekhana end their life gradually through abstention from eating and drinking. The giving up of earthly life through this selfimposed fasting is believed to confer upon the ascetic siddhahood (status of perfection) and ensure for them a place in heaven. The term suicide is not really appropriate for this form of death since the aspiring Siddha has to give up desire for death along with desire to continue life. The ritual is accompanied by prayer, reading of scriptures, meditation, renunciation, control of the senses, and concentration of the mind. The self-mortifier has to give up the five aticaras (impediments) of desire to live, desire to die, memories of old friends and relatives, fear, and expectation of comforts in the afterlife as a reward for suffering in the present.

Sikhism The Sikhs have a reputation for being a martial people, what with their prominence in the armed forces of India, the uniform-like symbols of their community, the Khalsa, which include a kirpan (short sword). However, aggressiveness is not an intrinsic element of their ideology and was not intended to be by the founder of the faith, Guru Nanak. This becomes abundantly clear from the pronouncements of some of their Gurus, the former leaders of their community. Guru Amar Das (1479–1574) even went to the extent of stating that a man should die rather than kill others. Guru Nanak made the striking statement: ‘‘Forgiveness is my mother, contentment my father, and patience my daughter.’’ He also said, ‘‘The ideal man should be devoid of enmity. He should always be amicable and peace loving.’’ The Adi Granth, the central scripture of the Sikh faith and their perennial Guru after the tenth Guru, states: ‘‘Patience is the sustenance of angelic beings.’’ Guru Arjun, who was the first martyr in Sikh history, says in his scripture the Sukhamani, the Psalm of Peace, Happy are the meek in spirit, who efface themselves and are poor, The arrogantly great are effaced by their own pride.

This statement recalls strongly Christ’s beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount. The Guru Granth Sahib states: ‘‘He who does not injure anybody is received respectfully in the abode of the Lord,’’ and ‘‘One should be merciful towards all the jivas (souls) from one’s heart.’’

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Guru Nanak (1469–1539) was dismayed by the confrontation between Muslims and Hindus and rejected both traditions. He decided in his own words ‘‘to follow God’s path.’’ He established a monotheistic faith, with elements from both religions. Sikh theology bears a strong resemblance to the teachings of Shankara, the protagonist of monism and his idea of God as nirguna (of unspecifiable qualities). The Sikh Nam or Akal is reminiscent of the nirguna Brahman of Advaita. Hindu doctrine of karma is sustained but Sikhism like Islam rejects the concept of avatars (incarnations of God), the worship of idols, and the caste system. The authority of the Brahmins and the Vedas is implicitly denied. The new religion was probably designed to mitigate religious controversies between the Hindus and Muslims of India. Guru Nanak, while born a Hindu, is believed to have traveled to Mecca and met Muslim scholars. It is mainly the vicissitudes of history that imparted a martial vestige to the Sikh community. Except for the Mughal Emperor Akbar, whose enlightened religious policies are well known, the Sikhs never had an easy relationship with any of the Muslim rulers of India. J. S. Mann and K. Singh point out that many scholars are baffled why a faith established by a pious saint and probably intended to pave the way for religious harmony in a great nation should take on the trappings of a martial community and become militarized under the aegis of five Gurus over hundreds of years. They contend that Sikhism is an instance of a religion employing spiritual activity with empirical tasks. In this respect Sikhism emulates Islam, in which there is no separation of the sacred and the profane. The immanence of God in the empirical world and its life is a great truth expressed in the Guru Granth. The concept of nonviolence in Sikhism is associated with martyrdom. However, Sikhism does not associate martyrdom with a passive acceptance of oppression. The Adi Granth states: ‘‘They (the Sikhs) neither intimidate anyone nor accept intimidation themselves.’’ Even Kabir the great charismatic forerunner of Nanak stated, ‘‘The brave is he who fights for dharma.’’ Prof. Gurbachan makes the radical statement that the concept of martyrdom gained currency in India only after the martyrdom of the fifth and ninth Gurus Arjun Singh and Tej Bahadur at the hands of the Mughals. Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth Guru, is usually credited with forging the Sikhs into a disciplined community of fighters against injustice. He formed the Khalsa, a word that literally translates as ‘‘pure,’’ but in this context means a chosen people, and instituted the ritual of the Amrit Pahul (initiation as warriors) and gave the Sikhs the traditional symbols of the community – the five k’s, namely, kesh (uncut hair), kanga (comb), khara (steel bangle), kacca (short trousers), and kirpan (short sword). But the process actually began with Guru Haragobind. The successors of Mughal emperor Akbar, namely Jehangir, Shajahan,

Aurangazeb, and Bahadur Shah, were not as tolerant as the great Akbar and came into confrontation with the leaders of this new religion on which they looked askance. The persecution of the Mughals gradually led the Gurus into organizing the community on martial lines. It is said that Shajahan’s hostility led Guru Haragobind, the sixth Guru, to desire offerings of horses and weapons rather than money from his followers. He wore two swords to symbolize the coalescing of Miri and Piri (temporal and spiritual power). Kaur states that Guru Hargobind decided that the time had come when the peaceful Sikh society should change into a martial and political community. But Guru Gobind is said to be the real founder of the ideology of self-defense in the Sikh community. He is characterized as the precursor of the idea of religious nationalism in India. It was Aurangazeb’s despotism that tipped Guru Gobind over the edge. Among the Mughal rulers Aurangazeb was the most religiously bigoted. Aurangazeb reimposed the religious poll tax known as the Jizya on Hindus and other non-Muslims. He considered the Sikhs as infidels in spite of their convergence with Muslim ideology, namely, monotheism and egalitarianism, and ordered their temples to be pulled down. Provoked by Aurangazeb’s oppression Guru Gobind created the rule of the Khalsa (Raj karega Khalsa). The Khalsa Panth (Khalsa community) was born on 13 April 1699, when Gobind Singh instituted the Amrit Pahul ceremony (also termed the Khande ka Amrit, nectar of the sword). A solution of water and sugar (amrit) was stirred with a khanda (two-edged sword) and drunk by the initiates to the Khalsa Panth. The execution of Guru Tej Bahadur by the Mughal helped turn the Sikhs into fiery soldiers against oppression. It is said that soon after its institution 80 000 Sikhs received this baptism by the sword. Guru Gobind’s statements are evocative of his ideology. ‘‘When the affairs are past other remedies, it is justifiable to unsheathe the sword.’’ ‘‘Blessed is that person in the world who recites the Holy Name with his mouth and at the same time thinks of fighting against evil and tyranny.’’ ‘‘When appeals to reason and good sense fail, there is full moral and spiritual justification to resort to the sword.’’ Guru Gobind’s opposition to Aurangazeb cannot be taken to be anti-Islamism, although scholars such as Dr. Trilochan Singh have opined that Guru Gobind became ‘‘the irreconcilable foe of the Muhammadan name.’’ As a matter of fact, Guru Gobind acknowledged Aurangazeb’s suzerainty, his actions were intrinsically defensive, not aggressive. He stated: There are two houses, the Baba Nanak’s and Babar’s Both these are ordained by the Lord Himself This one is leader in faith, while In that one inheres the sovereignty of the earth (Babar was the first Mughal emperor)

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Mansukhani opines that the Amrit Pahul and the Khalsa symbols are not meant to create a spirit of exclusiveness or a chosen people. They are meant to be aids to a corporate life of the community. The kirpan (dagger) is a symbol not of violence but of self-respect, prestige, and independence. The twentieth century has often seen the escalation of Sikh militancy, especially during the formation of the Akali Dal, the establishment of the state of Punjab, and the demand for Khalistan, a sovereign independent Sikh state carved out of India. During the Indian independence movement the Sikhs were committed followers of Gandhi and adhered to his nonviolent ideology in spite of grave provocation from the British administrators of the Punjab, such as General Dyer, who carried out the massacre at Jalianwala Bagh in Amritsar. Similarly, during the agitation for the formation of the state of Punjab, Sikh leaders resorted to fasting and such nonviolent strategies. Darshan Singh Pheruman made the supreme sacrifice, fasting unto death, and is hailed as a modern Sikh martyr. Tara Singh and Sant Fateh Singh also undertook fasts. However, in recent times some Sikhs have taken to a more militant stance for the realization of their demands. The aggressive tactics of Bhindranwala and other Sikh separatists resulted in Operation Blue Star, the invasion by the Indian Army of the Golden Temple of Amritsar where Bhindranwale and his followers were hiding out, and the consequent assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her own Sikh body guards. Many Sikhs look upon Bhindranwala, who was killed in the operation, as a martyr. The general who led Operation Blue Star, himself a Sikh, was also later assassinated in Bombay. The confrontation between the government of India and Sikh militants continues even today. Thus, in current times some Sikhs have resorted to violence for the realization of their aspirations. The Sikh ideology relevant to peace and nonviolence seems to be a reconciliation of opposites such as peace and war. Guru Gobind, for example, exhorted the members of the Khalsa Panth to be strong and fearless outside and compassionate and generous within. The Sikh flag, the Nishan Sahib, while giving a message of peace and goodwill to all, has inscribed in it the emblem of khande(sword). It is well known that the Sikhs, in spite of their martial prowess, are one of the most affable of the communities of India. Guru Gobind Singh might have deified the sword, as Kaur puts it, but he also recommended sweetness and courteousness to the Sikhs.

Islam Islam has a popular image of a religion of violence, and by focusing on incidents involving Islam in controversial political issues the media has contributed in a large

measure to this widespread conception. As a matter of fact, there is nothing intrinsically violent or aggressive about Islam. People who watch critical situations in the Middle East, or North Africa, Afghanistan, or Iran where Muslims are involved in violent confrontations, hostage takings, suicide bombings and so on tend to forget that there are millions of Muslims living in a peaceful, normal, and ordinary manner in India, Malaysia, China, and several other regions of the world where there are substantial Muslim populations. The Lakshadweep Islands, where the population is completely Muslim, is one of the rare parts of the world where no murder has been committed for 35 years, and where the crime rate is so low that the police force there finds time hanging heavily on its hands. Edward Said, the well-known American intellectual of Palestinian origin states: Yet there is a consensus on Islam as a kind of scapegoat for everything we do not happen to like about the world’s new political, social, and economic patterns. For the right, Islam represents barbarism; for the left, medieval theocracy; for the centre distasteful exoticism. In all camps, however, there is agreement that even though little enough is known about the Islamic world, there is not much to be approved of there.

It seems that since the collapse of communism and the former Soviet Empire, Islam has become the archenemy for the Western world. The very word ‘Islam’ is related to the Arabic word for peace, namely, Salaam. But there are certain ideas within Islam that are associated with war and that may lead nonMuslims to conceive of Islam as a religion that condones armed conflict. These are the key notions of jihad and Dar al Islam. The word jihad literally means struggle. It can indicate any activity which needs effort, say for instance a student struggling to understand the meaning of a Qur’anic passage. The term ijtihad (interpreting the Qur’an) therefore is related to jihad. The Prophet himself when returning from battle told his followers ‘‘we are returning from the lesser jihad to the greater jihad ’’ implying that the internal struggle between good and evil in the human psyche is more important than physical warfare. However, in popular parlance the term has come to mean holy war. But in Islam there is no separation of the sacred and the secular, and hence the term jihad can mistakenly be taken to merely indicate fighting. It is clear from Qur’anic passages that jihad indicates defensive war. The Qur’an states: To those against whom War is made, permission Is given (to fight) Because they are wronged; – and verily, Allah is most powerful for their aid.

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Unfortunately, the Qur’anic revelations are not quite consistent when it deals with the concept of jihad. This passage rather contradicts the one quoted earlier: And slay them Wherever ye catch them, And turn them out from Where they have Turned you out; For persecution Is worse than slaughter.

It can however be argued that this also refers to action which is more a reaction to provocative actions by nonMuslim enemies of Islam such as the Quraysh rather than preemptive strikes against all non-Muslims. It is universally accepted that jihad can only be undertaken in the cause of Allah (Jihad fi sabil Allah). There is also the inescapable fact that in Islam jihad is looked on as an important duty, almost a sixth pillar of the faith along with witnessing, prayer, almsgiving, fasting, and the Hajj. As a matter of fact, the Kharijites, an early faction among the Muslims, desired jihad to be enshrined as one of the Ibadah, the pillars of Islam. But this was not accepted by the rest of the Islamic community or by the then Caliph. However, except in modern times when the notion of jihad is played down by most Muslim intellectuals and in apologetics, fighting in the cause of Islam has been held in great esteem and as an important duty of every Muslim. A saying of the Prophet (hadith) related by Abu Huraira tells of a man who came to the Prophet and asked him to instruct him in a deed that equaled the jihad. The Prophet replied that he could not identify such a deed. Great rewards are promised to the martyrs (shuhada) who die in jihad. They are believed to be immediately conveyed to paradise by Houris, the beautiful celestial maidens. In many Islamic regions the tombs of shuhada are the scene of annual commemorative festivities, one of the most famous being that of Hussain, the grandson of the Prophet at Karbala in Iraq. Martyrs of jihad are held in great esteem in the Muslim world. Jihad is both a corporate and an individual duty in Islam. It is obligatory. ‘‘Fighting is prescribed to you though it is distasteful to you.’’ The Prophet is said to have remarked, ‘‘He who dies without having ever proposed to himself to engage in holy war dies the death of a heathen.’’ Women, the sick, and the disabled are exempt from this duty. Youths have to obtain their parents’ permission before they can engage in war. However the entire community need not engage in jihad if the act can be carried out efficiently by a lesser number of men. Jihad can be undertaken only if there is expectation of a certain measure of success. Jihad is instituted mainly against unbelievers, although it can also be waged against Muslims who rebel against the Caliph, or the Islamic ruler.

Jihad is related to the concept of Dar al Islam, the land of Islam. As mentioned above nonbelievers are the objective of jihad, and for some Muslims the world is divided on the lines of the dichotomy of believer and nonbeliever. The ideal is conversion of the whole world to Islam and while peaceful methods of proselytization are the norm for such conversion, the employment of warfare is not ruled out. Thus certain passages of the Qur’an seem to indicate that what is not Dar al Islam is Dar al Harb (the land of war), implying that the Muslims should be prepared to undertake a jihad to secure the affiliation of the unbelievers to Islam. ‘‘Fight them until there is no persecution and the religion is entirely Allah’s.’’ Two points are apparent in the verse. The fighting is in response to persecution of the Muslims by unbelievers. Second, the Qur’an envisages that such persecution is possible until the whole world has become Dar al Islam. In a broader sense the idea that ‘the world is Allah’s’ means not the sovereignty of the religion of Islam, but that of God. Alternatively Dar al Islam can also indicate a time of peace when all wars have ceased. Therefore this injunction is against the atheist and such unbelievers rather than a blanket injunction against non-Muslims. The verse also, as mentioned earlier, indicates that jihad is essentially defensive warfare. There are some who aver that the jihad beween Pax Islamica (Dar al Islam) and the rest of the world is a perpetual one, and quotes Mohammed as stating: ‘‘War is permanently established until the day of judgement.’’ The rationale for jihad is thus interpreted as the urge to Islamicize the whole world. The object of jihad is nonbelievers not non-Muslims. If jihad is successful and a non-Muslim state is brought under the suzerainty of Islam, the conquered are given two options. They can embrace Islam and have all the privileges of full citizenship. Otherwise the men will be slain, and the women and children enslaved. However, not all non-Muslims are treated alike. The Ahl al Kitab (people of the book), namely, Christians and Jews, are also given the option of becoming ahl al dhimma (protected citizens), who are accorded freedom of practising their own faith but have to pay a special tax, the jizyah. The forgoing may seem a bleak indictment of Islam and may add strength to the popular image of Islam as a militant and aggressive faith, but this is not the whole story. As I have discussed, there are many aspects of jihad that lend an ambiguity to the aforementioned militancy underlying the concept of jihad. Khurshid Ahmad writes: ‘‘He (a Muslim) tries to live according to the guidance given by God and His Prophet and he strives to promote the message of Islam through his word and actions. This striving is known as Jihad which means a striving and a struggle in the path of God. It consists in exerting one’s self to the utmost in order to personally follow the teachings of Islam and to work for their establishment in

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society. Jihad has been described in the Qur’an and the Sunnah as the natural corollary of these pillars of faith. Commitment to God involves commitment to sacrifice one’s time, energy, and wealth to promote the right cause. It may be necessary at times to give one’s life in order to preserve Truth. Jihad implies readiness to give whatever one has, including life, for the sake of Allah.’’ The Prophet, as I recounted earlier is said to have remarked once while returning from a battle: ‘‘We are now returning from the lesser jihad to the greater jihad,’’ implying that the constant struggle against evil that goes on in one’s heart and mind, is of greater significance than the external jihad of battling unbelievers. Thus jihad in recent times is understood by Muslims as spiritual rather than physical warfare. They point out the verses of the Qur’an that stress the noncoercive and peaceful nature of the Islamic faith. ‘‘Transgress not (by attacking them first) for God loves not the transgressors.’’ ‘‘There is no compulsion in religion.’’ Jihad should be engaged in with limits and is not all-out war in which no holds are barred. ‘‘Fight in the cause of Allah against those who fight against you, but do not transgress limits.’’ The prophet’s injunctions regarding conflict are highly relevant in this context. ‘‘Do not betray; do not carry grudges; do not deceive; do not mutilate; do not kill children; do not kill the elderly; do not kill women; do not destroy beehives or burn them; do not cut down fruit-bearing trees; do not slaughter sheep, cattle or camels except for food.’’ According to Ishtiaq Ahmed jihad between nations should not be construed as actual hostilities but rather nonrecognition of a non-Islamic state by a Muslim nation. The provision for being dhimmi was originally only granted to the People of the Book, but was later extended to other monotheistic faiths, such as the Zoroastrians and the Sabeans. In India the invading Muslim conquerors, for instance Muhammad bin Kasim in AD 711–713, initially put to death all polytheists such as Hindus who refused to convert to Islam, but later on had to extend the option of becoming dhimmis to all. According to strict Shia ideology only the hidden Imam (the twelfth Imam who is believed to return to appear again and fight to restore virtue in the world) has the authority to lead the community into jihad. The Shi’a was a continually persecuted minority in Islam and therefore might have developed a complex in which suffering has been highlighted. The festival of Ashura, in which a reenactment of the murder of the Prophet’s grandson Hussain is a prominent ritual is an instance of this persecution and suffering complex that reveals insights into the Shi’i psyche. The Shi’s, the underdogs of the Muslim world, for centuries, believe that all their twelve imams, beginning with Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet were assassinated. The selfflagellation that takes place during the Ashura festival during the month of Muharram in which Shi’a cut open their scalp or beat themselves with metal chains reveal a

spirit of sharing the suffering of the Imams who died under Sunni persecution. So the Shi’a, like the Christians have an element of the passion in their religious ethos. However there are shia gropus such as the Hizbollah of Lebanon or the Mahdi Army of Iraq of that still engage in jihad rather than passive suffering. Theoretically in Shi’ism only the Imams have the authority to declare jihad. However they have developed a concept of the Naib Imam, who in the physical absence of an Imam (the twelfth Imam did not die but is in occulatation) a leader can take on this role of the representative of the Imam and declare jihad. In spite of the great potential for peace within Islamic teachings the call to jihad has been declared even in modern times, especially so in these days of Islamic revival and Islamic resurgence in many Muslim nations. Jamilah Kolocotronis states that these phenomena are the modern manifestations of Islamic jihad. One of the earliest instances was that of the Sultan of Turkey who was also the Ottoman Emperor and Caliph of the Islamic Umma (global community) who declared a jihad against Britain and its allies during World War I. Such exhortations have also been heard during the Arab–Israeli war of 1967, the Iran–Iraq war, and the Gulf war. Absolutists hold jihad as an essential component of Islamic political ideology. Fundamentalists may look on dawah, the call to Islamic revival, which is to a great extent a movement to remove Western cultural influences from Islamic regions, as a jihad against the cultural, technological, and economic imperialism of the West. But modernists interpret the doctrine of jihad in terms of spiritual struggle against evil, as legitimate self-defense or as a social struggle for removing injustice. Some, such as Justice Mohammed Munir of Pakistan, dismiss all notions of holy war as heroic nostalgia. Sayyid Ahmad Khan, the great Indian Muslim leader, educationist, and social reformer, went so far as to say that the concept of jihad should be eliminated from Islam. See also: Critiques of Violence; Ethical and Religious Traditions, Western; Ethical Studies, Overview (Eastern); Moral Judgments and Values; Religious Traditions, Violence and Nonviolence; Spirituality and Peacemaking

Further Reading Bonner, M. (2006). Jihad in Islamic history, doctrines and practice. Princeton University Press. Chatterjee, M. (1985). Gandhi’s religious thought. London, UK: Macmillan. Chapple, C. (2002). Jainism and ecology: Nonviolence in this war of life. Harvard University Press. Cook, D. (2005). Understanding jihad. University of California Press. Coward, H., Lipner, J., and Young, K. K. (1991). Hindu ethics. Delhi, India: Sri Satguru Publications. Harvey, P. (2000). An introduction to Buddhist ethics. Cambridge University Press.

Ethical and Religious Traditions, Western Jackson, R. and Killingley, D. (1991). Moral issues in the Hindu tradition. Stoke on Trent, UK: Trentham Books. Johns, A. and Lahoud, N. (2005). Islam in world politics. RoutledgeCurzon. Kaur, G. (2001). Political ethics of Guru Granth Sahib. India: Deep and Deep Publications. Long, J. (2008). Jainism: An introduction. I. B. Tauris.

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McLeod, W. H. (2003). Sikhs of the Khalsa. India: Oxford University Press. Momen, M. (1985). An introduction to Shi’i Islam. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Nahar, P. C. and Ghosh, K. C. (1988). Jainism: Precepts and practice. Delhi, India: Caxton Publishers. Saddhatissa, H. (1997). Buddhist ethics. Boston: Wisdom Publications.

Ethical and Religious Traditions, Western Alonzo Valentine, Earlham School of Religion, Richmond, IN, USA ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Jewish Tradition Greek and Roman Tradition Christian Tradition

Glossary Allah Most widespread and significant name for ultimate reality in Islam. The term is rooted in pre-Islamic times as the name for the god of the Ka’bah in Mecca and was the god of Muhammad’s tribe, the Quraysh. The Ka’bah is the cubic-shaped shrine which remains a key site in the pilgrimage undertaken by Muslims as one of the Five Pillars of the faith. Dualism An understanding that fundamental concepts are absolutely opposite and irreconcilable. Further, one pole of the opposition is seen as preferred over the other. Jihad To strive or struggle for Allah. Both an internal striving toward God as well as defense of Islam externally is part of the concept. Iliad and the Odyssey Greek epic stories that were written in their final form around 850 BCE and attributed to Homer. Liminal The phase in a ritual process where one is in between the profane and sacred realms, opened to the contact with ultimate reality. Messiah Term from the Hebrew meaning ‘the anointed one’, and translated to the Greek as ‘christos’, the Christ. The synoptic Gospels show Jesus wary of taking on this designation, at least without altering the political implications of the term as meaning a kingly and warrior leader. Qur’a¯n The sacred scripture of Islam, also Koran. It means ‘the reading’ or ‘recitation’ and is viewed by most Muslims as the teachings of Allah dictated through Muhammad for humanity that has an eternal, immediate aspect in Allah’s being. The view of Jesus as the Christ in Christianity is sometimes used as an analogy for the understanding of how Muslims view the Qur’a¯n.

Islamic Tradition Religious Ritual and Violence, Peace, and Conflict Further Reading

Religious Ritual Practices that include nonverbal aspects intended to move a participant away from normal life into a ‘liminal’ state, a state that is far away from the normal and opened to contact with the perceived ultimate realm. As such, these practices move beyond mere words though one of the functions of religious texts is to aid in this ritual process. Such rituals can occur in settings and for goals not overtly religious, such as national identity or ideology. Shalom Hebrew term usually translated as ‘peace’, but broadens the view of peace beyond the absence of war or cessation of hostilities. The term includes an array of positive aspects of peace, touching on psychological well-being and harmony in natural and social relations. Shi’ites The term designates the followers of Muhammad’s cousin ‘Ali and the family line descended from ‘Ali. ‘Ali ibn-abi-Talib was the fourth ‘caliph or successor to Muhammad who ruled Islam briefly from CE 656–661. He succeeded Uthman who was assassinated during the conflicts within Islam, and ‘Ali had to deal with more violent revolts within Islam. ‘Ali moved to Iraq and so away from the place of Islam’s birth in the Arab Peninsula, but after fighting external threats, he was killed by dissidents within his own camp, the Kha¯rijites. Sunnis This means followers of Muhammad, the Prophet’s way and they form the largest group of Muslims. Synoptic Gospels Name given to the first three books of the Christian New Testament because they each present a view of Jesus. Each of the three books present some words and deeds of Jesus that are the same or quite similar, but they also present different accounts of Jesus’ words and deeds.

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Tanakh Generally, the Jewish scriptures, containing in three groupings first the Torah, ‘the five books of Moses’, then The Prophets, and finally The Writings. Yahweh The usual rendering of the most significant name (the tetragrammaton, YHWH) for the ultimate in

the Jewish scripture, used about 6800 times. Because this name is considered sacred and not to be spoken, the title Adonai or ‘Great Lord’ was substituted in reading and most English translations render this title as Lord.

This article is an examination of the roots of Western ethical and religious traditions in early classic texts and religious ritual in relation to the focus of this encyclopedia. In this way it is limited in scope to these texts and religious practices, and it is examining only their positions on violence, peace, and conflict. Further, this article is written with a goal of presenting what these foundational texts and practices within the West have said about pursuing peace. It is understood that the texts and religious rituals do present support for violence and therefore do not consistently support peacemaking or conflict reduction. What this article seeks to highlight is the perspectives within these texts and practices of Western traditions that seek peace. Further, it is assumed that there is a fundamental strand of dualism running throughout the Western traditions that supports the resort to conflict, violence, and war. Therefore, this article is written with the question in mind of how the tradition’s primary texts and practices envision a peace that transcends such dualistic thinking. Given this focus on texts and rituals stipulates that they do not unambiguously support peace – the problem for an ethical or religious perspective on peacemaking is how to approach the texts and practices. The dualisms are deep and appear everywhere: God and the world, good and evil, life and death, friend and enemy, faith and unbelief, and violence and nonviolence. The list could go on indefinitely, but the list reflects the struggles with dualism in a worldview that seeks peace. Within the traditions the dominant view is that we should attempt to keep the peace between these apparent opposites, unless peace seems to compromise the preferred pole of the dualism. Since we know that only one side has the final word on what is good, true, and beautiful, we are finally justified in resorting to violence to defend that side. For example, when humanity gives God too many difficulties, then God’s violence to humanity is holy judgment; when our enemies ask too much of us, then our violent response is justified. Thus, peace may become secondary to the perceived higher values. This is the dynamic of how violence and warfare are justified in all the traditions. However, there is within each of the traditions a vision that does not see peace as derivative. Rather, peace is part of the ultimate religious and ethical category such that peace cannot be separated from the ultimate and made secondary. As such, peace then is seen as primary, and peace itself becomes the bridge between the poles of the

dualisms in the traditions. Beneath the perceived dualistic nature of reality is a unity or relationship that makes neither pole the preferred. Thus, the world is not always understood as an addendum to God, evil not the easy opposite of good, friends not always better than enemies, and so on. That is, there is a more inclusive or connecting perspective that spans the chasm usually assumed between pairs of opposites. Hence, this article highlights how the religious and ethical traditions in the West have attempted to make such a connection.

Jewish Tradition The deep divide between a religious vision that sees a relational unity and one that sees a fundamental dualism is expressed in the opening of Genesis, the vision of God’s creation of the universe. In the first verses of Genesis, the Spirit of God ‘moves over the waters’ and creates heaven and Earth, continuing through all the days of creation until humanity was created in the image of God. As with other such visions in religious traditions, this can be understood to reflect a fundamental dualism: God against chaos, God over the world, God as indisputable king of humanity. However, the language suggests another possibility as well: God as working with the void to bring form through it; God as immanent in the creation that is fashioned; and God’s spirit breathing within all humanity. It is in the second chapter of Genesis where this deep possibility of connection is lost. Humanity ‘disobeys’ God and experiences profound separation from God, from the Earth, from the other animals, between woman and man, and between family members. However, does whatever happens with humanity’s disobedience fundamentally obliterate the relationship originally created? As with the other traditions examined here, Judaism responds in a variety of ways, but there is a vision of peace within Tanakh, the Jewish Scriptures, which maintains that there is always the primary connection between God and creation and among God’s creatures. Much of the contemporary biblical interpretation approaches the text as literature, such as Alter, and so seeks to illuminate the images, characterizations, and plot rather than seeking after historical relationships to past events or abstract theological perspectives. This approach

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has echoes in rabbinic and early Christian approaches to the biblical texts, continued today by Jewish scholars such as Blumenthal. Following the lead of the literary approach reveals the nuances and conflicting, ambiguous voices in the biblical text, as in the following examples. When God realizes that Adam and Eve have eaten from the forbidden tree, God drives them from the garden of Eden, because they ‘know good and evil’, like God. In addition to the fascinating question of why knowing good from evil is forbidden, the text suggests that it is acting on their knowledge that gets humans into trouble. That is, this dramatic account indicates that humanity now will partake in evil as well as good, knowing both in their experience. In Genesis 4, Cain murders Abel and when God finds out, Cain quickly concludes that he will in turn be killed. Cain knows evil, but it hardly seems to be wisdom. God, however, says that the apparently justified killing of Cain should not happen, placing a mark on Cain so that no one will take vengeance. Here God is shown to act in order to reduce violence, because humans would act violently based on their limited sense of good and evil. Next, in the story of Noah, God sets out to destroy all flesh because ‘‘the earth is filled with violence’’ (Gen. 6:11, 13). All the world has taken up violent action because humans act on what they know of good and evil. Hence, in these narratives of prehistory, humans enter into violence because of their belief in the dualism of good and evil. God is represented as dismayed by the violent human actions and struggles to reduce violence. As the history of the people of Israel begins, Abraham answers God’s call in a way repeatedly reflected in the Jewish scriptures. He leaves all that might leave him secure in trust to what God asks. The root meaning of obedience is related to listening. Is the voice of God within or from beyond the stars? Could it be both? Abraham, as others after him, does not take weapons, he simply listens and goes where God asks him, and God says that ‘‘by you all the families of the earth shall be blessed’’ (Gen. 12:1–3). When Abraham forgets this covenant that God offered him, he hopes for descendants from Hagar, his wife Sarai’s maid servant. When Sarai becomes upset after Hagar conceives, Abraham gives control of Hagar over to Sarai, and his wife ‘deals harshly’ with Hagar, leaving her in the desert. Though Abraham, God’s chosen one, forgets God’s covenant and seeks to hide what he has done God does not destroy Abraham. Further, an angel of God pledges to Hagar that God will ‘‘greatly multiply your descendants’’ (Gen. 16:10). Here God not only seeks to save someone from human violence, but makes a pledge like the one given to Abraham. Thus, those who are seen as the forbearers of Islam become connected to the Hebrews through God’s care. In a fascinating turnabout, Abraham also helps God reduce God’s urge to violence. God is ready to destroy all the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah, but Abraham

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asks God ‘‘Will thou indeed destroy the righteous with the wicked?’’ and does some principled negotiation with God. Of course, after the negotiations that save the righteous family of Lot, the cities are destroyed, but the vision again is of a God who uses violence reluctantly to promote righteousness. Further, human interaction with God is presented in the text as a way of reducing violence. God listens to humans. Later in Genesis come the stories of Jacob and his sons. When Simeon and Levi slaughter many in defense of their sister Dinah’s honor, Jacob curses his sons’ violence: Simeon and Levi are brothers; weapons of violence are their swords. O my soul, come not into their council; O my spirit, be not joined to their company; for in their anger they slay men, and in their wantonness they hamstring oxen. Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce; and their wrath, for it is cruel! I will divide them in Jacob and will scatter them in Israel. (Gen. 49:5–7)

Hence, at the conclusion of the Genesis, Jacob reflects that such vengeful violence will come back to haunt his family, and the subsequent scriptures reflect this. In all this turmoil, God is seen to show desire for shalom for all creation and between God and creation. The exception to the cycle of violence is Joseph, Jacob’s son who did not seek vengeance against his brothers when they sought to kill him. After Joseph receives Jacob’s blessing, his brothers now fear for their own lives. However, rather than taking justifiable retribution, Joseph follows a different path. When the brothers asked for forgiveness and offered to be Joseph’s servants, Joseph wept, and said: ‘‘Fear not, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today’’ (Gen. 50:15–20). Hence, the conclusion of the Genesis narratives depicts a God who desires to bring good from evil, seeks the repentance of evildoers, and asks that humanity do the same. At times, God even accepts human intervention to stay God’s own urge toward violence. In addition to the literary approach followed above, once the biblical account moves into accounts that are clearly connected to historical memory, the dominant historical critical tools developed in the last two centuries also confirm the mix of traditions and perspectives in the biblical text, as shown in the work of Lind. Hence, both the more recent literary approach as well as the usual historical critical approaches uphold the concerns for peace, even in the midst of the recollection of the violent history, as in the following examples.

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The vision of Yahweh as a warrior is irrefutably early in the tradition, and reflects the celebration of the Exodus from Egypt. ‘‘Yahweh is a warrior, horse and rider he has thrown in the sea’’ is one of the earliest verses in the entire Bible and the entire poem (Ex 15:1–21) probably comes from the twelfth century BCE. Even in this clear attribution of violence and war to God, however, the ambiguity of the Genesis narratives are continued. This is not God speaking, but how the Hebrews have understood the event. God does not give this image, humans give it to God. What the text does present is that it was God who acted to stop the Egyptians and bring the Hebrews out of Egypt, not the Hebrews themselves. So in this paradigmatic event in the history of the people that began with Abraham’s quiet obedience, the people only obey God’s call to leave Egypt. Whatever happens then is seen as God’s action. The next accounts of the entry into the ‘promised land’ also have God’s actions described in terms of violence and war. Again, the song celebrating the conquest is from the twelfth century BCE, and ends with this prayer: ‘‘So perish all thine enemies, O Yahweh! But thy friends be like the sun as he rises in his might’’ (Judges 5:1–31). However, the debate within the text itself about the nature of God continues the tension established from the beginning. If the breath of God is indeed within all humans, God is in the struggle. If God is also beyond our capacity to know fully, then the words attributed to God must be seen as one view. There are other views. What seems not to be ambiguous in these early narratives of ‘the Conquest’ is that God was taking the action which was decisive, not Israel. The account in Joshua ends with this speech attributed to God: The citizens of Jericho fought against you, but I delivered them into your hands. I spread panic before you, and it was this, not your sword or your bow, that drove out the two kings of the Amorites. I gave you land on which you had not labored, cities which you had never built; you have lived in those cities and you eat the produce of vineyards and olive-groves which you did not plant. (Joshua 24:10–13)

Such texts reflect the effort of humans to understand their history in terms that are not just historical. They seek to reflect a deep truth – myth – that is within and throughout history. As such, the Hebrew scriptures debate with themselves about how God and history are to be understood. Hence, the modern debate of how much the biblical record is accurate history and how much of it accurately portrays God begins in the text itself. The Hebrews’ liberation from Pharaoh and entry into the Promised Land is being given this dramatic rendering to reveal the true meaning for this people. That is, God is stronger than any army, needing no army or weapons to act in the world.

In these accounts of Israel being established to the west of the Jordan, an additional view of God’s military activity is revealed: God will also act against Israel. The conclusion of Joshua gives this warning: You cannot serve the lord; for the Lord is a holy God; he is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions or your sins. If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, then he will turn and do you harm, and consume you, after having done you good. (Josh. 24:19–20)

Though the people promise to obey God’s voice, we see the story takes a turn for the worse. In Judges, the ‘enemies of Yahweh’ become the armies of Israel: ‘‘Whenever they marched out, the hand of the Lord was against them for evil, as the Lord had warned, and as the Lord had sworn to them; and they were in sore straits’’ (Judges 2:15). In these stories we see the dramatic vision of Israel’s troubles again attributed to a failure to listen to God. The issue was not military preparations, but obeying the covenant. Armies go forward, invoking the name of Yahweh, and they go down to defeat. The last verse in Judges summarizes the problem: ‘‘Every man did what was right in his own eyes.’’ The prophetic literature comes along with the conquest of Israel, first by Assyria and then Babylon, resulting in the fall of Jerusalem in 587 BCE. With these disasters, the prophets advance another vision of how God acts. Scholars such as Brueggemann call attention to the startling new vision of the prophets. Rather than God being seen as a warrior choosing sides, the vision is of a God for whom the image of a warrior is inadequate. The prophets lift up the futility of using warfare to make right or to please God. Whether it be Israel or Israel’s enemies, the prophets mock the might of weapons, asserting that it is God’s spirit that is over all: ‘‘Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord of hosts’’ (Zech. 4:6). What seemed to be a triumphant victory in fulfilling God’s promise to Israel of the land became agonizing defeat at the hand of the Babylonians. In turn, what seemed to be the final defeat of exile from the land becomes the opportunity to obey God, and in that obedience return again to the Promised Land. Here Israel learns again, say the prophets, that listening to God and seeking righteousness is central: ‘‘Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help and rely on horses, who trust in chariots because they are many and in horsemen because they are very strong, but do not look to the Holy One of Israel or consult Yahweh!’’ (Isaiah 31:1). The prophets begin to offer an alternative vision of what God’s covenant is about. For the prophets, to obey God is to ‘‘seek peace and pursue it.’’ The covenant is understood as a ‘‘covenant of shalom’’ (Ez. 37:26; Is. 2:2–4; Micah 4:1–4). The servant of God is not to be warrior or king, but a suffering servant,

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the Prince of Peace (Is. 6:9). This vision, of course, stresses the themes in earlier texts. Figures such as Noah, Abraham, Hagar, and Joseph have witnessed to this peaceful vision. It is the exploration of the vision of shalom where we see the prophets propose a unifying vision that connects the deep ambiguities around war and violence in the Hebrew Scriptures. In this imaginative concept, both God and the world and all of humanity are seen in harmony. Shalom is what God desires: for God’s self and for all his creation. In the prophetic writings, shalom is seen as the escatological goal for humanity, and is more central to our relationship with God than any form of worship. As such, shalom should be the goal of all our relations with one another always. The violence and war arise not in the pursuit of shalom, but in forgetting that it is the goal of our life with God and one another.

Greek and Roman Tradition Alfred North Whitehead remarked that all of Western philosophy is a footnote to Plato. The Western inheritance of the Greek arguments about religion and ethics has shaped the debates throughout the tradition. We will examine some of the basic thinking about peace, war, and conflict that came to classic expressions in Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero. As in the exploration of the other traditions, the search is for those strands which support the concerns for peace. The long tradition already established by the time of Plato and Aristotle inherited two streams of thought on peace and war that seemed to be mutually contradictory. On the one hand, the deeds of the Homeric epics suggested that heroes were heroes because of warfare. Facing death bravely in war was the pinnacle of the heroic life. On the other hand, for those who possessed more of the virtues of the good life, life and friendship seemed superior to even honorable death in war. Homer puts this choice in the thoughts of Achilles in the Illiad: Two fates are bearing me to the issue of death. If I stay here and attack the Trojan’s city, my homecoming is lost but immortal glory will be mine. If I return to my beloved country, lost is my goodly glory but my life will be all too long, and death will not swiftly take me.

Achilles chooses noble death and gains immortal glory in the memories of the Greeks, and this expresses the concept of the heroic nature of warfare in Greek thought. Homer, however, also upholds the other option. In the Odyssey, the dead Achilles wishes he had chosen life, since his glory in the eyes of others cannot be enjoyed by the dead. Hence, the other strand of thought that seeks to understand and live the peaceful life

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emerges in conflict with the vision of the hero. It is this tension about peace and war with which Greek thought struggled, and whatever answer emerged, all seemed to share Homer’s lament: ‘‘would that strife cease among gods and men.’’ It is this apparently irreconcilable dualism in thinking about war and violence that Plato and Aristotle address. In Book 5 of The Republic, Plato (c. 427–c. 347 BCE) argues that the warfare between the Greek cities is deplorable because it is as if family members were to war with one another. Though accepting war with the ‘barbarians’, Plato is following the line of thinking in Greek thought which wants to expand the realm of those with whom we seek peace. Plato says that all who live in Hellas are ‘‘by nature friends,’’ and so any ‘discord’ that comes about ought to be seen as ‘‘a quarrel among friends,’’ which is to be ‘reconciled’ without war: Consider then . . . when that which we have acknowledged to be discord occurs, and a city is divided, if both parties destroy the lands and burn the houses of one another, how wicked does the strife appear! No true lover of his country would bring himself to tear in pieces his own nurse and mother; there might be reason in the conqueror depriving the conquered of their harvest, but still they would have the idea of peace in their hearts and would not mean to go on fighting for ever. (Plato, The Republic, Book 5)

That is, there is something fundamentally mistaken about pursuing honor in war to its limits because it entails ‘fighting forever’. In the Laws, Book 1, Plato analyzes the argument that war and not peace is the natural state of nature. This Homeric theme was continued by Heraclitus (c. 500 BCE), who put forward philosophical support for this view, concluding: ‘‘War is the father and king of all.’’ Hence, it was a traditional argument that the true nature of the state is to always prepare for war. However, Plato takes up the defense of the desire for peace expressed even earlier in Greek tradition by Hesiod in the eighth century BCE: ‘‘That other road is better which leads toward just dealing; for justice conquers violence, and triumphs in the end.’’ Plato seeks to demonstrate how Hesiod rather than Heraclitus is right. Plato pursues the argument in this way. If it is the case that the ‘‘well-governed state ought to be so ordered as to conquer all other states in war,’’ then it follows that all villages, families, and individuals should be organized toward the same end. If so, then everyone must conceive of themselves as their own enemy: ‘‘all men are publicly one another’s enemies, and each man privately his own.’’ Since such a state is chaos and not order, there must be something that is naturally superior to the state of war, and this is peace. Whether it be

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individuals or villages or states, the goal ought to be to reconcile all ‘‘to one another for ever after,’’ give them laws which ‘‘they mutually observed,’’ so that they will be ‘friends’. Plato concludes: (So) war, whether external or civil, is not the best, and the need of either is to be deprecated; but peace with one another, and good will, are best. . . . And in a like manner no one can be a true statesman . . . who orders peace for the sake of war, and not war for the sake of peace. (Plato, Laws, Book 1)

Although Plato accepted war with the ‘barbarians’ as a necessity, he was developing the argument which expands the reach of peace to those who were formerly seen as enemies. War, at its root, was as self-contradictory as it was self-destructive. Hence, he begins to bring to focus the vision of all the human family being at peace. As a compliment to Plato’s pursuit of abstract reason for peace, Aristotle pursued an investigation of visible nature for clues to peace. In his efforts to categorize the constitutions of the various city-states, he looked for what seemed to be adaptive in the conflicts of the times. In the Nicomachean Ethics he sees that all human virtues are actions that seek a mean between extremes, and also that the mean be for a goal that is noble, ‘‘for each thing is defined by its end.’’ But what unites the virtues in a single person or state? This question suggested to Aristotle that all virtues had to be united and serve a noble end. So, it is a nobler pursuit to bring all the virtues into harmony with one another than it is to simply excel at any one virtue, including bravery in warfare. For individuals, that which combines all virtues is the pursuit of wisdom, philosophy. For states, it is the pursuit of political order which will organize the individual virtues for the sake of the collective life. For Aristotle, courage is the virtue that is demonstrated in warfare, but he suggests the limits of both courage and warfare in the context of human nature. Courage truly is neither fearful of death nor reckless in the face of death. In seeking the mean between these extremes, Aristotle criticizes the ‘lover of war’ who either pursues violence without any sense as to the end served by war or stirs up violence only to flee later. Thus, the truly brave are just those ‘‘who are fearless in face of a noble death.’’ It is these who are rightly honored by the states. For Aristotle, it follows that a person is all the more brave if there is more to lose, and one who ‘‘is possessed of virtue in its entirety’’ and sees the true worth of life is therefore braver in facing death in battle. Analogously, those who have less of the full life of virtue are less truly brave in war, even though their outward actions are identical. Interestingly, Aristotle observes that those with less to lose may make the best soldiers since ‘‘they sell their life for trifling gain.’’ Therefore, though Aristotle accepts the observation that all the city-states highly

honor those who die bravely in battle, he attempts to assess when those are rightly honored. Those who possess the full life of virtue should be so honored. More importantly, Aristotle also attempted to place warfare in a context that could evaluate whether the state was pursuing a good end by going to war. Although individuals can be virtuous, they can only be virtuous in relation with others because humans are social by nature. Therefore, it is the state that is the best of all communities since it seeks the organization of all community life, and ‘‘aims at good in a greater degree than any other, and at the highest good.’’ The highest good is ‘the good life’ for all who are in the community together. As with Plato, it is the web of ‘friendship’ that connects individuals and families and that is the goal of the state. Here, of course, warfare is seen as a way to secure justice so that lovers of war in other states do not conquer those who are just. However, war is not to be desired for itself, it is but a means to another end. In this view, if other forms of relations between states can be created that maintain justice, then war is not a necessity. Here we have Aristotle’s more naturalistic or scientific approach opening the possibility that other ways of shaping relations between states may reduce warfare. This would make the pursuit of the good life easier for all. Here nobility can be facing death bravely without weapons for the sake of an inclusive vision of peace. In accepting death without violent resistance or seeking escape, Socrates becomes the model for the noble way of the philosopher. Though the influence of Greek thought on the Roman religious philosophy of Cicero (106–43 BCE) is great, the influence of Cicero’s contributions to Western thought on peace and war is greater. Cicero took the desire for finding a way to peace through war expressed in Plato and Aristotle by initiating the reasoning and rules of the ‘just war’ tradition. He was read by Christian thinkers such as Ambrose and Augustine in the fourth century when Christianity became accepted by the Roman Empire. These Christian thinkers would make ‘just war’ the orthodoxy for the Church despite the clear pacifist history of the early Church. With the combination of the Greek tradition and the establishment of Christianity in the religion of Rome, the just war tradition will dominate Western thought on warfare. In De Republica 3, Cicero held that through natural law, God provides two fundamental concerns for humans in their individual and collective life: honor and safety. This means that war is only justifiable when either the fundamental honor or the very life of the state is threatened. As with the Greeks, Cicero is aware of the tragic dimension of the tension between these two goals. Life is risked and often lost in defending honor, and honor is often used as an excuse for unjustified destruction. Hence, he attempted to establish criteria for when to go to war and how to wage war.

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In discussing how to decide when going to war is justified, Cicero’s De Officiis 1, explores how the notions of honor and safety might work together. On the one hand, the ‘instinct of self-preservation’ is inherent to all creatures, so concerns for protecting one’s life might seem sufficient in justifying war. However, human beings are distinct from other animals in being given a ‘passion for discovering truth’. If so, then an individual or a social group may suppress or violate the natural quest for truth and so have less of a claim to self-preservation than those who pursue truth. Specifically, if such a person or group who does not care for truth initiates war, their claim to self-preservation is forfeit. Hence, it is in this sense that honor will require us to defend ourselves and come to the aid of those who are unjustly attacked, so taking life or destroying a state in these circumstances is justified. Here Cicero is attempting to show how the natural law of safety and honor are interrelated in that neither by itself is sufficient for deciding when going to war is justified. Cicero was well aware of how appeals to honor and security could cause people to rush headlong into war. Hence, he placed further restrictions on entering war. It was important for the society to argue about whether honor and security are really at stake, and he desired a constitutional government as the best vehicle for this. Even with this done, however, the state should then make clear to the enemy what the violation is and what needs to be done if war is to be avoided: ‘‘no war is just, unless it is entered upon after an official demand for satisfaction has been submitted or warning has been given and a formal declaration made.’’ That is, the justice of the cause of war is not to be decided hastily by only a few nor is it to be entered except as a last resort. As for conduct during a war once begun, Cicero attempted to add restraints to how it was waged and when it should end. As creatures reasonable by nature, we ought to understand that there is ‘a limit to retribution and to punishment’ of those who have wronged us. Specifically, it ‘‘is sufficient that the aggressor be brought to repent of his wrongdoing, in order that he may not repeat the offence and that others may be deterred from doing wrong.’’ Hence, when enemies ask for mercy and throw down their arms, we must not harm them, but rather give them protection. If we must fight until victorious, we should still ‘‘spare those who have not been blood-thirsty and barbarous in their warfare.’’ Since the goal of war is to ‘‘live in peace unharmed,’’ when the enemy ceases fighting, then so must we, even though the enemy be unjust in starting a war or in carrying it out. For Cicero, the Roman way of war was to reflect the Roman concern for peace among all within the Empire. One must prepare for peace by preparing for war, but for war and peace to be just, they both must be pursued for the preservation and honor of truth.

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Christian Tradition The life of Jesus as presented in the New Testament is the basis for Christian commitment to peace and the faith in the resurrection of Jesus as the Christ is the basis for Christian hope that peace will come on Earth. So argue scholars such as Yoder. The accounts about Jesus in the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, attribute words and deeds to Jesus that reveal a way to embody shalom: ‘‘I say unto you, love your enemies’’ (Matt. 5:44; Luke 6:27). This love commandment was not conditional upon something else, such as God’s destruction of one’s enemies or God’s intervention at the end of history. Jesus says, love your enemies now and pray for those who persecute you now. The Gospel writers go on to portray that Jesus’ vision of God was one of God as loving parent to all humanity, since God created all. Jesus says that we are to love those whom we think of as enemies just because God loves our enemies. God is ‘perfect’ or impartial in love, and we are called on to be likewise. The historical context for such a message is crucial for understanding how radical this teaching was, though it of course followed the prophetic tradition deep in the memory of Israel. The work on the social setting of the events portrayed in the Gospels makes this clear, as presented in the work of Horsley and his predecessors. As a Jew, Jesus experienced the violent oppression of the Romans and the violent resistance to that rule by some Jews. Though there were other Jews who sought peaceful ways to respond to Roman rule, others looked for a military king to lead the overthrow of the Romans. They looked to scriptures and saw the Messiah coming in this way. In this light, the gospel claims that the nonviolent Jesus is the expected one is even more startling. If Jesus is the Messiah, then he is behaving contrary to the expectations of those seeking a military leader. The warrior images for the Messiah as for Yahweh are in the Hebrew scriptures, and it is understandable how the brutal rule of Rome would feed the hope for revenge as well as freedom. However, Jesus is emphasizing the images of the suffering servant, the Prince of Peace, as the model for his life. Both of these images are in Isaiah, for example. On the one hand, God and the one to act in God’s name will be like this: Woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees, and the writers who keep writing oppression, to turn aside the needy from justice and to rob the poor of my people of their right. . . . What will you do on the day of punishment, in the storm which will come from afar? . . . For all this his anger is not turned away and his hand is stretched out still. . . . The light of Israel will become a fire, and his Holy One a flame, and it will burn and devour. (Is. 10:1–3, 4, 17)

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On the other hand, there is the vision of the peaceable kingdom in this same prophetic text: For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind. . . . The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox; and dust shall be the serpent’s food. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain, says the Lord. (Is. 65: 17, 25)

Those who looked to Jesus as the military Messiah followed one feature of Isaiah’s vision, and this included some of Jesus’ own followers. The Gospel writers followed the other, portraying Jesus as Isaiah’s ‘Suffering Servant’ who would live and die and rise again for peace. In this context, the confession by his followers that Jesus is the Christ is less amazing than Jesus’ claim that the Christ was not the military leader to free Israel. When Peter confesses that Jesus is the Christ, he expects the military Messiah, and when Jesus teaches that ‘‘the Son of Man’’ will be rejected and killed, Peter begins to ‘rebuke’ Jesus. The writer of Mark describes Jesus’ response: But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter, and said, ‘Get behind me Satan! For you are not on the side of God, but of men.’ And he called to him the multitude with his disciples, and said to them, ‘If anyone would come after me, let them deny themselves and take up the cross and follow me. For whoever would save their life will lose it; and whoever loses their life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.’ (Mark 8:33–35)

This rejection of the model of the military Messiah and the embracing of the suffering servant as the Christ served as the early Church’s normative guide for its relations internally and externally. Of course, the radicalness of such a call to love enemies and suffer rather than fight was not universally followed by the early Christians but it was the dominant perspective for several centuries. On warfare itself, Jesus is silent in the Gospel accounts, although the implication, say Christian peacemakers, is clear from Jesus’ ministry. There are of course other elements in the texts that make the peaceful Jesus ambiguous. For example, although Jesus says to his disciples to ‘‘Put up your swords, for those who live by the sword die by the sword’’ when he is seized for trial and execution, he did instruct his disciples to sell their cloaks to buy the swords in the first place. Further, God’s role in raising his Son from the dead in apparent vindication of Jesus’ nonviolence is also mixed with the threats that when Jesus comes again, there will be violence against those who do not believe: ‘‘For in those days there will be such tribulation as has not been from the beginning of the creation which God created until now, and never will be’’ (Mk. 13:19). These words on the violent end of times are attributed to Jesus in the same Gospel as the command

to love enemies. Hence, there has been an ongoing struggle over how to understand the Jesus presented by the Gospels. On the one hand, Jesus seems to live and advocate nonresistance to violence and conflict, but on the other he threatens divine violence with his second coming. These seem to be simply contradictory. However, between these poles is the vision of a divine Jesus who was confrontational in the face of religious, political, and economic violence, but without using weapons, and who, like the prophets, used the violent warnings that God will vindicate the righteous in order to arouse people to repentance. This option, as in the work of Myer, sees the Jesus of the Gospels as a nonviolent revolutionary, sent by God. Jesus is seen as resisting both the religious and political ‘principalities and powers’ that oppressed those at the margins of religious and social life. In this way, he was a scathing critic of some features of Jewish religious life, although he was doing his critique as a Jew, and he was at least as hard on his own disciples. For example, the temple cleansing shows Jesus taking action by overturning tables and driving out the merchants because he saw the temple becoming a ‘den of robbers’ rather than a ‘house of prayer for all the nations’. Further, he directly challenged the Romans, but did so in nonviolent fashion. For example, the healing of the Gerasene demoniac can be seen as a parable for the eventual driving out of the Roman army. The possessed man has a ‘Legion’, or Roman military unit, of unclean spirits that Jesus frees him from, sending them into swine that run into the sea and drown. Hence, the view of Jesus as either a supporter of passive nonresistance or supporter of usual forms of violence and conflict are both mistaken. Jesus takes something of both views in becoming a nonviolent agitator for social change. If the Jesus of the Gospels shaped his early followers in a Jewish context, Paul shaped the early Christian communities in the Greek and Roman context, as emphasized in the work of Stendahl. In Paul’s letters we see the early Christian community struggling with conflicts from within and persecution from without. Paul linked his view that all Christians were called to a ‘ministry of reconciliation’ with the theological claim that all Christians were reconciled to God through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. At least for Christians, the vision of a jealous God judging the world for its sins was transformed into a vision of a loving God who actively sought reconciliation: So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to God through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. (2 Cor. 5:17–18)

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Throughout his letters, Paul sounds this theme as well as expresses his irritation that Christ’s followers do not get it. He laments the conflicts within the early Church communities to whom he writes. He senses the deep divide between what Christ means for the world and how the world, including Christ’s followers, have received the message. However, Paul repeatedly tries to make the message of peace and reconciliation come alive for these early communities. In Colossians, Paul reiterates that God through Christ is reconciling ‘‘all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.’’ This means that all who ‘‘were once estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds,’’ are also now reconciled so that they are ‘‘holy and blameless and irreproachable’’ before God, ‘‘provided that you continue securely established and steadfast in the faith’’ (Col. 1:20–23). In Ephesians, Paul again indicates what the impact of this reconciliation to God through Christ ought to mean for our human relations. If Christ is ‘‘our peace’’ who has made us all reconciled, then Christ has ‘‘broken down the dividing wall of hostility’’ between us, ‘‘thereby bringing the hostility to an end.’’ In this way, peace is to grow for all humanity through Christ: ‘‘And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near’’ (Eph. 2:13–17). These remarks in Ephesians are in the context of tensions between Gentiles, those ‘who were far off’, and Jews, those ‘who were near’. This context brings us into the larger social conflicts which were brewing in Paul’s time. Conflicts within the new Churches not only reflected conflicts about theology and Church practices, they related to the great divisions in the world at that time. Paul saw the reconciliation offered through Christ as addressing these conflicts as well: ‘‘There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus’’ (Gal. 3:28). The Jews, having been resistant to Greek culture and Roman occupation, were already being seen as enemies by some early Christians. As one who had persecuted Christians, Paul was now at pains to warn Christians about anti-Jewish sentiments. The central part of his epistle to the Romans, chapters 9–11, makes the argument that God’s covenant with the Jews is not set aside by the new covenant through Christ. Not only are Jews such as himself who have become followers of Christ to be accepted, but also Jews who remain faithful to God’s call to them: ‘‘For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable’’ (Rom. 11:29). Although Paul has understandably been read to support Christian supercessionism toward the Jews and superiority to all religions, he can be interpreted here as tearing down the walls of hostility between religions and cultures.

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Islamic Tradition Islam is often understood by many in the West as the tradition furthest from concerns for peace. The very term Islam, translated as ‘submission’, is taken by outsiders to mean that Muslims submit themselves and seek to have others submit to an all-powerful and warlike deity. Allah is then connected with the vision of Yahweh as a warrior and a Christian vision of Christ’s violent second coming. Allah not only wants his followers to fight now, God will also judge all people on the Judgment Day. It cannot be denied that such concepts and images are in Islam as they are in Judaism and Christianity. However, as with these other traditions, there is much more to Islam than these stereotypes. Repeatedly, Muslim scholars have lamented the distortions of their faith, by both scholars and the general public, as in the work of Abu-Nimer. Islam does mean submission, in the sense of self-surrender to Allah, but this is directly connected to the Muslim sense of what peace is about. One root term of Islam means peace. Hence, a Muslim is one who seeks Allah for the sake of peace. With such a profound expression of the desire for peace in the very name of the faith, there is a profound vision of peace in Islam. This vision is meant to include peace in this world and the world to come, peace inwardly and outwardly, between individuals and between social groups, within Islam and between Islam and other faiths. It is in this sense of the term peace that the Qur ’ an states that God who is the ‘author of peace’, invites all humanity into the ‘abode of peace’ (Surah 10.25). Allah prepares a peaceable garden for all who turn to God: ‘‘O tranquil soul, return to your Lord so pleasant and well-pleased! Enter among My servants and enter My garden’’ (Surah 89.27–30). As with Judaism and Christianity, the active concern to reduce violence, resolve conflict, and promote peace is either a minority position in the sense of active peacemaking and absolute nonviolence or it is seen as a derivative of the concern for justice as demanded by God. Also, Islam does have its Holy War tradition, which can set aside all concerns for peace for what is understood as Allah’s command to convert or kill the enemies of the faith. For although Allah is named the author of peace, there are also such passages as this in the Qur ’ an: ‘‘Lo! Those who disbelieve our Revelations, We shall expose them to the Fire. As often as their skins are consumed, We shall exchange them for fresh skins that they may taste the torment’’ (Surah 4.56). As has been seen, such visions of punishment for those seen to disobey God and the true faith exist throughout the Western traditions. What concerns us here is how the struggle for peacemaking can be seen within the sacred text of the Qur’ an and

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within the early history of Islam. The Qur’ a n, which is from the Arabic for ‘The Reading’, is understood as the verbatim world of God dictated to Muhammad (CE 570–632) by the angel Gabriel when Muhammad was 40 years old. Peace, in the full sense of that term within Islam, can be said to be the goal of the Qur’ a n. Peace is the result of submission to what God desires, and God desires right relations between God and humanity and within the entire human family. There are many specific expressions in the text of a vision of these right relations. The primary collection of these expressions may be placed in the concern for the relation with God: the Five Pillars of Islam. These are the expression of faith in Allah as one God and the belief that Muhammad is the Prophet of Allah, prayer five times daily, providing for those less fortunate, observing the daily fast from sunup to sunset during the month of Ramadan, and making the pilgrimage to Mecca at least once during one’s life. The Five Pillars support the actions of the believer in the world. They are followed in order to remember Allah and not be distracted by the self-indulgence in the world that can lead the believer astray. When this faithful relationship between the individual and God is maintained, the reward is the full enjoyment of peace: ‘‘God it is who sent down peace of reassurance into the hearts of believers, that they might add faith to their faith’’ (Surah 48.4). When conflicts do arise within the community, the Qur ’ a n repeatedly enjoins believers to make peace with one another. The goal is unity between believers, which mirrors the vision that God is one and not divided. Of course, the acceptance that fighting may be necessary is there, but the goal is the peaceful resolution of conflict: If two parties of believers fall to fighting, then make peace between them. And if one party of them does wrong to the other, fight that wrongdoer until they return to the ordinance of Allah; then if they return, make peace between them justly, and act equitably. Lo! Allah loves the equitable. (Surah 49.9)

This fundamental desire for peace extends beyond the Muslim faith community to all humanity, including others of different faiths and even those who deny God altogether. This is a feature expressed in the Qur ’ an that is often overlooked. Yes, the text insists it is the final world of God and that Muhammad is the seal of the prophets. However, the Qur ’ an enjoins a different approach to relations between faiths than might be expected: ‘‘Let there be no compulsion in religion: truth stands out clear from error; whoever rejects evil and believes in God has grasped the most trustworthy handhold that never breaks’’ (Surah 2.256). Specifically, Christians and Jews, called the ‘‘People of the Book’’ in Islam, are absolutely respected in the Qur ’ an. Muhammad as the final prophet of God does not set aside but rather fulfills the line of prophets beginning with

Abraham and extending through Hagar and Ishmael as well as Mary and Jesus. Muhammad is therefore the instrument for teaching what always has been taught to humanity by God. We find many of the stories in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures retold in the Qur ’ an. Hence, the Jews and Christians are to be respected: Those who believe (in the Qur ’ an), and those who follow the Jewish scriptures, and the Christians . . . and (others) who believe in Allah and the Last Day, and do right and there shall be no fear come upon them, neither shall they grieve. (Surah 2.62)

Further, because Islam had contact with a variety of traditions beyond Judaism and Christianity, Islam saw other faiths as part of God’s will. Even when these faiths did not believe in one God and were seen as taking ‘false gods’, the Qur ’ an is tolerant. In several places, the Qur ’ an reveals the orthodox Muslim approach: If it had been God’s plan they would not have taken false gods; but we made thee not one to watch over their doings, nor art thou set over them to dispose of their affairs. (Surah 6.107) If it had been thy Lord’s will they would have all believed, all who are on earth! Will thou then compel humanity against their will to believe? (Surah 10.99)

Therefore, this Qur’anic tolerance for other religious traditions, even those outside the monotheistic faiths, is a strong foundation on which to build more peaceful relations between Islam and other religious and ethical traditions. A persistent stereotype of the spread of Islam sees Muslims converting others by the sword. In this view, Muhammad is an astute military leader who began by conquering the tribes in the Arab Peninsula and subsequent leaders who quickly expanded the rule of Islam into the Middle East, the edges of Europe, Persia, and Africa. Islam did spread rapidly, but there are important qualifications to be said about the early history. After Muhammad began to receive the revelations and tell his family, others in his own kin group, and the people of Mecca what he was hearing from Allah, some leaders sought to kill him. Up to this time, Muhammad had been a trusted leader in Mecca, which was the major social and religious center in Arabia. Although there were some who were monotheistic, understanding that Abraham brought the vision of one God to Mecca centuries earlier, most Meccans were not monotheists. When more and more people began to listen to Muhammad, including significant leaders in Mecca, other powers there saw him as a threat to their religion and way of life. The revelations were critical of their religion and lack of justice that flowed from worship of ‘false gods’ and this perceived threat prompted the

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attempt on Muhammad’s life. At this point, leaders of Medina invited Muhammad to come to their city not just to take refugee but to assume the military, political, and religious leadership of the city. At this point, it was not Muhammad that attacked those who had sought to kill him, but rather the leaders of Mecca attempted to conquer Medina. Hence, the initial battles which Muhammad and the early followers of Islam undertook were defensive. This is the outward form of jihad, defined as striving for God, that the Qur ’ a n is enjoining upon followers: attack others only when the faithful are attacked. Hence, the idea of initiating a Holy War, such as the Christian Crusades, was foreign to the earliest practice of Islam and Muhammad. In fact, after the early battles between Medina and Mecca, Islam spread without warfare throughout the Arab Peninsula. Muhammad could have attacked Mecca as he gained superior military might, but he refrained, and finally Mecca accepted Islam and opened its gates to Muhammad. Upon entering the city and confronting those who had repeatedly tried to murder him and wipe out Islam, Muhammad forgave his enemies. This event is the reference in Surah 110 of the Qur ’ an: In the Name of Allah, the Beneficient, the Merciful, when Allah’s succor, and triumph comes and thou seest all enter the religion of Allah, then sing the praise of the Lord, and seek forgiveness of God. Lo! Allah is ever ready to show mercy.

The violent struggles between the divisions within Islam and between Islam and the rest of the world began about 40 years after Muhammad’s death. The splits between the Sunnis, Shi’ites, and Khariji factions followed the battle of Siffin in CE 657 and the murder of Ali who was seen by the Shi’ites as the leader designated by Muhammad. In the subsequent dynasties, the consolidation of power within Islam as well as the spread of the Islamic Empire did use military might to control dissent and conquer non-Islamic peoples, as also occurred within Christendom. However, there was the recognition of the tragedy of these splits within Islam and the wars with nonMuslims. During this time there were those such as the Sufis who looked to the Qur ’ an and Muhammad’s life for a different Islamic response to violence and conflict. They saw jihad as an internal struggle which had the full realization of God’s abiding love for humanity as its goal. In conclusion, the classic texts of the Western traditions provide no unambiguous responses to questions about violence, peace, and conflict. To ask whether or not they support violence or nonviolence, war or peace, and conflict or conflict resolution is too simple. To go back to them challenges our contemporary perspectives on the questions because the conflicting views we wrestle with today are reflected in these texts. However, there is a vision of peace within these classic works that suggests

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that the conflicting dualisms with which we struggle may be interrelated. In this way, peace is the fundamental concept, bridging the separation between God and the world, and friend and enemy. The texts express the supreme desire for such peace.

Religious Ritual and Violence, Peace, and Conflict The primary texts of the religious and ethical traditions of the West will lead us into a deeper realm below conscious reflection on religion and ethics. Given the problematic nature of the primary texts themselves, in that they present peace and violence, what more can be said about them? One angle that takes us beneath the surface of the texts is to connect what is written to the unconscious, to that which is unwritten. Many interpreters of Western religious traditions have taken Freud and Jung as doorways into the psychology and mythology of the texts. Ritual studies have provided another companion for the journey, focusing on how texts may present or even themselves embody ritual performance. What such investigations, as in Eliade, Girard, and Hillman, suggest is that dealing with the texts and stories within the Western tradition’s focus on consciousness will miss the point, or worse. Not only may we miss the point, efforts to seek peace and avoid violence and war though only consciousness and the conscience will lead to disaster. The urge of the violent depths cannot be avoided or repressed or consciously transcended, but must be entered into in some way. The myths of the West, from the ancient tales in the Hebrew scripture and the Greek and Roman myths can be approached not as benighted science or mere fanciful tales, but deep truths not fully expressed in words, though words can take you into those true myths. Further, rather than approaching these many faceted stories as confused unconscious ramblings that need the light of day, as expressed in Plato’s myth of the cave, these stories can lead us into deeper exploration of the human – and divine – psyche. The soul will not be made fully conscious, and it is an ethical and religious mistake to try to do so. In terms of the theme of this encyclopedia, the many tales lodged in the Western tradition pose a conflict of some sort, a conflict that the soul must live into rather than flee from or vanquish in a victory for consciousness. In this realm, the heroes of the story, Adam and Eve, Benjamin, Hercules, the prophets, the Messiah, Christ, and even God are ambiguous figures that present us with the struggle of good and evil, peace and war, conflict and its resolution without giving us a clear victory for either side of whatever dualism is presented. The heroes and gods are flawed, to their core. So, the texts and the religious and moral struggles of life are invitations to move into the

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deeper water of such ambiguity. There will be no retreat to some easy, conscious, clear resolution. This again might leave us with only ambiguity, but there is another suggested resolution, if we are willing to go on the journey. Just as Freud suggested at the end of his life that perhaps Eros and Thanatos could be friends or Jung counseled that we must address the dark side without seeking to banish it, reading or rather unreading the texts into the deeper realms opens up ways of seeking peace even as we acknowledge our attraction to violence and war, our desire for total victory. Of course, the stories can lead us to embrace violence and war, but, like the desire for peace without the struggle, this is but half right. What the depth suggests is a way of living from a place that is beyond or rather beneath the dualisms, a place that goes beyond mere good and evil, mere peace or war. Rudolf Otto in his classic The Idea of the Holy, presented a characterization of the sacred realities across cultures can be thought of as depth psychology for the holy. He realized that a key element in human interaction with what was felt to be divine realms was forever shrouded in mystery. No amount of conscious engagement with the objects of religion would reduce the holy to some profane category of thought. Human thought, human consciousness, and moral codes were inadequate. All the characterizations that Otto attributed to the sacred realm had this quality of mystery. None could be reduced to mere human categories. Given the mystery, however, humans are drawn to engage this sacred realm. For Otto, humans sought to fulfill some need in interacting with the sacred, some deeply felt need that only contact with the sacred mystery might satisfy. Though many in the West might say they do not perceive such a need to be in touch with the sacred, there are many other things, not overtly religious, that can be substituted for traditional religious objects. That is, one could be committed to ones nation or ethnic group or power in the place of the sacred. Otto noticed that anyone who felt in contact with whatever was apprehended as sacred was awed by it. This contact evokes awe in many forms such as fear, reverence, and submission. However, where such reactions might seem to scare away people, given a conscious evaluation of such a reality, Otto noted that people are at the very same time fascinated, attracted, and drawn towards this reality. That is, for the holy, one cannot be truly dealing with it unless one is both awed and fascinated. Now, in addition to these features, Otto believed that human beings inherently felt a religious need that could be satisfied by contact with the sacred realm. Even for those who might say they love God for God’s sake alone, this was the fulfillment of a religious yearning. Particularly in those times of personal or social crises do we find human beings turning their eyes heavenward. Here is where religious ritual comes in.

Rituals, as understood by Gennep and Turner, are ways of opening human beings up to the mysterious sacred realm. Rather than controlling that realm, the rituals might prepare us for contact with the holy. Of course, rituals can be used in many forms and for many occasions, some of which barely seem religious at all. Applying a standard model of religious ritual the urge for peace and war, however, can be illuminating. Following a standard model of religious ritual, there are four phases of any ritual: (1) There is a recognition of a human or world disorder to be resolved ‘religiously’ by connecting to a ‘sacred realm’. Again, what can count as this religious urge is not limited to overtly religious systems; a system such as fascism or communism, nationalism, or ethnic identities can function ‘religiously’. The common element for such systems is that there is posited a transcendent realm that calls forth absolute loyalty and commitment. (2) The normal daily routine is set aside and ritual practices invoked to move the person or group towards the sacred realm. The way this is done, of course, varies widely, but stepping outside normal social relations as marked by changing ways of relating to others and leaving social roles is part of this movement away from the ‘profane’ toward the ‘sacred’. Now, often as the ritual continues, the religious practices become more severe, pushing the participants to the edge of themselves and their society. So, these can look to be and often are violent. Lack of food and water and sleep, being pushed to physical and mental extremes, including beatings and shaming, are often part of this extreme part of movement away from the normal world. In a sense, the sacred is seen to claim the absolute abandonment of one’s identity and entire world. (3) This extreme push to the edges of the normal is understood to result in movement into the ‘liminal’ phase, that is a ‘threshold’ place, disconnected from all that is normal and hence opened up to the religious ultimate. It is a realm betwixt and between the profane world left behind and the hoped for sacred realm. (4) Finally, there is the movement towards reconnecting with the normal world, where the problem to be resolved has been given over to the ultimate reality that grounds the normal world. This final step is often spoken of in terms of a rebirth or restoration or renewal. At this point, there are often celebrations, such as in a rite of passage, that mark a transition from one social situation to a new one. With this view of ritual in mind, it can easily be seen how the use of violence and war can fit this model. In the training of soldiers, the practices of shaving heads, dressing identically, physical training to the point of collapse, the humiliation of their individuality, and erasure of social roles fits very well with the model of ritual. That is, there is recognition that whatever violence or warfare is intended to address takes on a religious cast. Preparing people to kill and die in itself raises religious issues. The

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attraction to such violence, or the many forms of vicarious violence in societies, can be said to indicate the attraction toward the liminal experience, opening one up to the characteristics of the ultimate as Otto has described them. So, actions that look to be horrible, frightening, and violent can themselves be marks of liminality. Hence, the effort to decry war and violence because it is awful misses the point that the awfulness is precisely the religious dimension breaking into the everyday. That is, all war might be seen as religious wars. In all the Western primary texts, this connection of religiosity and violence and war is clear. Many of the accounts in the texts are not too concerned with justifying war, but rather hold up the desire for religious transformation. Whether it be the wars for ‘honor’ among men and gods that drew the Greeks and Romans or Holy War for God in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, the study of ritual indicates that the pull toward such actions are deep, below our rational critique. What of the urge for peace then? How can the desire for peace and resisting and transforming war, violence, and conflict challenge the dark depth of religious war ritual? Religious study of what characterizes the sacred ‘ultimate’ across traditions indicates that only trying to bring the war urges to the light of reasonableness will not work. Rather, what is required are religious rituals to match the depth of encounter offering by participation in the violence of the warrior. However, once we look through such a lens, we can find many examples across the traditions that offer competing rituals, including those that counter the ritual of war. Indeed, many of those who have struggled spiritually against war are also seen to be warriors. In this view, the Hebrew prophets, some Greek heroes, Jesus, and Muhammad and others can be seen as alternatives to those who are attracted to war as in itself holy. So, the Hebrew prophets decried war of not only the hostile neighbors around Israel but of Israel itself, and were often marginalized for their trouble. The mythic figures such as Sisyphus or Prometheus or the exemplar of the philosopher king, Socrates, can offer lives that challenge the pursuit of war from the Greek and Roman traditions. In this light, Jesus’ death and resurrection can be seen as a ‘nonviolent’ overcoming of the urge to violence and war. Likewise, Mohammed’s forgiving his enemies and not seeking revenge is the model for Islam. In the centuries since, figures and groups within each of these traditions have offered religious rituals and practices that move towards peace that match the extremes of warriors. The ‘mystery’ religions of Greeks and Romans often retreated from the profane world, including its appeal to violence. Separatist Hebrew groups and the early Christian desert monks also moved apart from

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society that was seen as corrupt and violent, in order to live a marginal or liminal life away from society. Islam has had its nonviolent mystics and movement such as the Sufis. These individuals and groups pursued what would normally be seen as extreme religious calling and such a pursuit often included a deep commitment never to participate in violence. They matched the preparation of warriors with an internal preparation for peacemaking. See also: Conscientious Objection, Ethics of; Critiques of Violence; Ethical and Religious Traditions, Eastern; Ethical Studies, Overview (Western); Moral Judgments and Values; Religious Traditions, Violence and Nonviolence; Spirituality and Peacemaking

Further Reading Abu-Nimer, M. (2003). Nonviolence and peace building in Islam: Theory and practice. Gainesville, FL: University of Florida. Alter, R. (1981). The art of biblical narrative. New York: Basic Books. Blumenthal, D. R. (1993). Facing the abusing god: A theology of protest. Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox. Eliade, M. (1959). The sacred and the profane: The nature of religion. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Freud, S. (1961). Civilization and its discontents (trans. Stachey, J.). New York: W.W. Norton. Girard, R. (1977). Violence and the sacred (trans. Gregory, P.). Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University. Gordon, H. and Leonard, G. (eds.) (1988). Education for peace: Testimonies from world religions. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. Horsley, R. (1987). Jesus and the spiral of violence: Popular Jewish resistance in Roman Palestine. San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row. Jung, C. G. (1933). Modern man in search of a soul (trans. Dell, W. S. and Baynes, C. F.). New York: Harcourt Brace and World. Lind, M. (1980). Yahweh is a warrior: The theology of warfare in ancient Israel. Scottsdale, PA: Herald Press. Nielsen, N. C. (ed.) (1993). Religions of the world, 3rd edn. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Otto, R. (1950). The idea of the holy: An inquiry into the nonrational factor in the idea of the divine and its relation to the rational (trans. Harvey, J.). New York: Oxford University. Smith, H. (1991). The illustrated world’s religions: A guide to our wisdom traditions. San Francisco, CA: HarperCollins Publishers. Thompson, H. O. (1988). World religions in war and peace. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Turner, V. (1969). The ritual process: Structure and anti-structure. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University. van Gennep, A. (1909). The rites of passage (trans. Vizedom, M. B.). London: Routledge. Wilson, A. (ed.) (1991). World scripture: A comparative anthology of sacred texts. New York: Paragon House. Yoder, J. H. (1972). The politics of Jesus. Grand Rapids, MI: William Eerdmans.

Relevant Websites http://earlham.edu/library – Earlham Library. http://find.galegroup.com/menu/ – Gale Web Reference Library. http://ifor.org – International Fellowship of Reconciliation. http://ploughshareproject.org/journal/ – Journal of Religion, Conflict and Peace.

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Ethical Studies, Overview (Eastern) Purushottama Bilimoria and Peter Wong Yih Jiun, Deakin University and Melbourne University, Australia Christopher Key Chapple, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, California Maxine Haire1 Published by Elsevier Inc.

Introduction Indian Ethics: A Broad Background The Bhagavad-Gita Interruption The Jaina Ethical Tradition The Buddhist Ethical Tradition

Glossary Ahim . sa¯ nonviolence Artha wealth; one of the sanctified goals of human endeavor Dao the Way De excellence Dharma responsibilities, rules Kama pleasure

An unexamined life is not worth living. (Socrates)

Introduction The term ‘ethics’, as is well-known, is derived from the Greek ethos (literally ‘habit’ or ‘custom’) connoting ‘usage’, ‘character’, and ‘moral rules’; as a branch of philosophy it is cognate with moral philosophy which pertains to the analysis of concepts such as ‘duty’, ‘ought’, ‘obligations’, ‘right’, and ‘wrong’. In other words, ethics is an inquiry into the nature of morality and its foundations, particularly the way in which human conduct is ordered, guided, and appraised. The task of ethics is to give an account of the ways in which human beings ought to act, and to describe the sorts of actions that are, at any given time, morally permissible (or obligatory or justifiable, or perhaps, reprehensible) to perform. Ethics also involve reflecting on and evaluating a given set of values, particularly if they are translated into action, often un-selfconsciously or as a matter of ‘habit’. Meta-ethics concerns itself with reflecting on what it means to say whether something (value or action) is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, ‘good’ or ‘bad’, etc., and under what precise 1

Assistance with preliminary editing was provided by Maxine Haire

Concluding Remarks on Indian Ethics Chinese Ethical Traditions Confucian Ethics Conclusion Further Reading

Karma action that conditions future behavior and results Li ritual propriety, rites, conduct, ceremony Moksha liberation from the bondage of karma Ren humanity, benevolence, nobility Samskara residue from prior action or karma Shu mutuality Xiao filial piety

conditions it would seem justifiable to say so, but does not necessarily prescribe or proscribe action. Much of theoretical ethics in Western philosophical practice has tended to move in this direction. It seems a truism that all cultures have evolved or adopted an ordered moral system and practices or set of norms to guide proper conduct and the behavior of its citizens. While the moral insights, their origins, and justifications have often remained unarticulated or passed into religious or legalistic codifications within the culture, the theories buried underneath the actual practices, the underlying assumptions and presuppositions have evaded or defied analysis. Most cultures, however, show some evidence of having developed some means by which reflection and an ongoing enquiry into both the nature of morality (in the broad sense) and the culture’s own moral repertoire are made possible. Religion and theology have traditionally played this dual role, and while concerned with preserving a given moral order they have also added their own reflections, ‘fine-tuning’, or postscripts to the prevailing normative framework. And this is largely true also of Eastern cultures. While in the West this role has largely fallen within the ambit of philosophy, by and large, the Western efforts have tended toward the construction of a rationalistic system of moral principles, and moral theorizing in contemporary philosophy has been concerned in the main with establishing an

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objective set of norms, that is, a normative framework which for all intents and purposes is independent of subjectivists or individualist and culture-specific values as, for instance, would be the case with a moral system based on emotions, intuitions, or subjective feelings, or historical and historicized traditions. Having drawn a broad tapestry of ethics from the Western perspective this article proceeds to consider what its counterpart in the East would look like, what its history has been, contemporary developments, the challenges facing it, and possible future directions. But it would be an oversimplification to speak of ‘Eastern ethics’ as though it were a monolithic system of moral theorizing or ethical practices across the board; rather, there are quite different and distinct ethical systems within the wide canvas that roughly goes under the rubric of ‘Eastern’ (and ‘Non-Western’ would cover an even larger canvas, including virtually two-third’s of the world’s population, history, and cultures!). There is no gainsaying that Eastern traditions have concerned themselves with a quest for the ‘morally good life’ and the attendant principles, laws, rules, etc., that might help achieve this goal. Its thinkers may not, of course, have gone much further than describing or codifying the prevailing and dominant ethos, mores, customs, and habitual traditions – that is, giving expression to what in Sanskrit is termed dharma, very roughly, the social and moral order, or in Chinese traditions, the dao, among other cognate terms. Nevertheless, the questions cited earlier do advert to one issue – that is, the difficulty of locating within the Eastern traditions the sort of ahistorical, abstract, and formalistic theorizing in ethics that we have become accustomed to in Western philosophical circles, from an ethics based purely on natural law (God’s reason) and Kant’s project to construct a pure moral philosophy based solely on principles of reason and not on particular facts about human beings or human history. But it is not unreasonable to suppose that a group of people somewhere could come to believe that morality ‘has’ an important place within human life and that it commands a particular primacy wielding an authority that – if not absolute and sui generis – is at least ‘architectonic’. Hence, Eastern thinkers, like their counterparts elsewhere, recognized morality’s pervasiveness throughout human life and culture, and did not shy away from enquiry into the nature of morality, of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ or ‘good’ and ‘bad’. Reflecting upon the meanings or applications of these judgments has been their way of putting theory, if ‘theory’ it is, into practice. In much of Indian philosophy, one does not start with discursive, critical theory, or theoretical reflection on first principles, axiomatic propositions, intuition, emotive judgments, and so on. Rather one begins with the practices that are

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embedded or grounded in all human cognitive and, perhaps, esthetic efforts. Over time these practices may come to be embodied in a tradition, in comprehensive doctrines, or articulated in texts foreshadowed by, and prefiguring, other texts. The subsequent hermeneutic and critical exegesis of these practices via texts may yield interpretations, protocols, or laws in the sense of practical wisdom (akin to Aristotle’s phronesis), but not in the sense of theoria or purely discursive judgment as, for example, in Kant’s prolegomenon for all future thinking on science and morality. Such observations have led Western-oriented commentators on Eastern ethics to make the skeptical judgments that the Eastern counterpart: (1) consists primarily of descriptive and practical ethics, and perhaps normative ethics, but that it is largely lacking in meta-ethics, and (2) covers such a large variety of different phenomena, from ritual obligations and social custom to religious sacrifice and positive law, that it becomes a daunting task to extract much from this morass that is distinctively ‘ethical’ in the modern Western philosophical sense. The attempt here is to present an alternative perspective. As with any other major civilization whose roots recede into antiquity, one can naturally expect there to be a variety and diversity of ethical systems within Eastern traditions. To cover all of these positions will be an impossible task. Just to take the case of India, even to speak of an ‘Indian tradition’ is to loosely identify an incredibly diversified congeries of social, cultural, religious, and philosophical systems, and appropriations from the hoary Vedas, through Jaina and Buddhist tracts, to colonial, postcolonial, and feminist responses to the earlier traditions. And they have each changed over time. The intention in this brief survey is to focus on five major systems of ethics within basically the Indian or South Asian cluster of cultures, namely Hindu, Buddhist, and Jaina, and two prominent developments from the Southeast Asian or Chinese tradition, namely, Confucian and Daoist ethics.

Indian Ethics: A Broad Background If the chief characteristics of ancient Greek ethics may be traced to the generic goals in life of the good and happiness – these goals which in turn seek to cultivate various features of human excellence and virtuous conduct more than decree or derive rules governing right actions or ‘rights’ – we could begin by asking what were the cognate or analogous characteristics of the moral quest in ancient India? And what terms would we use to describe this moral theory or otherwise, normative order governing such conduct and ends?

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We will begin with Vedic moral thinking that essentially covers the very early period (c. 1800–800 BC) during which time the Brahmanical tradition grew and flourished, but not without its own deeper uncertainties. This will help provide a general framework against which we can see how moral consciousness, certain ethical concepts, and various, albeit conflicting, moral schemes are questioned, developed further, and articulated in later, classical to modern, periods, both within what may collectively be identified as the ‘Hindu’ tradition and the alternative Sramanic, that is, Jaina and Buddhist, ethical traditions that emerged with a stronger social and selfreflexive conscience. The normative ethics of the early period – Vedic ethics – grew largely out of the imperatives of a ritual cosmology and its aligned ‘rites’ discourse. In the due course of time as perspectives changed, moral dilemmas and antinomies and irresoluble conflicts came to the surface; with other shifts occurring in the fabric of the society, the Vedic norms came increasingly into question, undermining the erstwhile normative structure, confidence, violence, and power that this kind of formative moral plank made possible or sanctioned. Vedic Ethics It is often said that the early Indian people – perhaps like human beings everywhere in their practical moral judgments – placed on the side of the ‘good’ such values as happiness, health, survival, progeny, pleasure, calmness, friendship, knowledge, and truth. On the side of the ‘bad’ were, more or less, their opposites or disvalues: misery or suffering, sickness and injury, death, barrenness, pain, anger, enmity, ignorance or error, and untruth. (These could be called ‘capabilities’ and ‘disabilities’ respectively – an influential modern-day framework that Amartya Sen possibly derived from this ancient tradition, and which has now been developed more extensively by Martha Nussbaum.) These positive and negative moral qualias are universalized, in principle at least, for all sentient beings, for it was felt that the highest good is possible when the whole world (gods and animals included) are able to enjoy the good things that the cosmos has to offer. The summum bonum, however, expresses itself in the total harmony or homology of the cosmic and natural order characterized as rta: this highest good is the telos, the creative purpose and motivation that underpins human behavior. The prescribed pattern of social and moral order is thus conceived as a correlate – the perfect correspondence of the natural order. This is the totality of the ordered course of things, and therefore speaks, linguistically, to the truth of being or reality (sat) and hence underwrites the Law (or the ‘natural law’) transcendentally. The preeminent authority for this ontology that grounds the concomitant ethics is the Vedas. Their contents are simply ‘seen’ or ‘heard’ (s´ruti); the ‘revealed’

speech is authorless. Conversely, the principles inscribed in the Vedas are embodied in the gods (the polymorphic pantheon of deities, immortal benign spirits or angelic beings, and demonic counterparts as remnants of the first failed sacrifices) who serve as models and exemplary icons for human conduct. But the gods themselves are not in any deep ontological sense the ‘other’ either, for they are considered as emergently effervescent light-beings of pure m a ntric effect. The ‘divine-light’ beings, not lacking in speech, consciousness, or intentionality, but not necessarily representing transcendental conscience (a Heideggerean requirement) either, are therefore predisposed to being internalized or rendered as superintending agencies who would by dint of the operative autonomous law safeguard for a deferred delivery the apurva or the efficacious traces of the rites of sacrifice (‘offerings’, yajna, ‘gifting’, d ana) performed. The ‘right’ or rightness is simply identified with ‘rite’: it is formalized, taking in varying contexts (i.e., the obligation that is derived from a value, say, survival of the race, becomes the sui generic value itself; e.g., sacrifice, regardless of what is offered in the act). ‘Rite’ now comes to possess an intrinsic moral worth and it becomes the defining ‘normative’ frame of nearly every moral value valorized. How far, however, this trope of ‘authority’ unpacks in real moral terms and impacts on the social lives of people are issues that cannot be taken up fully in this short treatment. Nevertheless, there are certain larger schematas and their structural impacts that are picked up in later traditions – including Buddhist critiques of the Vedic–Upanishadic morality and its excesses – that we will consider later, for it was felt by the Buddha – as Kierkegaard was to say of his own erstwhile tradition – that the ‘religious’ and ‘revelation’ had become isomorphic with ‘authority’, rather than the ‘religious’ being just one representation of ‘authority’ (with or without a ‘founder’ or ‘revealer’). Vedic authority becomes normative in the later periods also; the Vedas are invoked as the source of ethics. To be noted is one other important institution, where four morally significant concepts emerge, namely, varna, as´rama, dharma, and karma (or karman), culminating in the ethical concept of purusharthas – kingdom of ends – all of which are central to classical Hindu ethics. But before giving a thumbnail overview of these concepts, one further point awaits mentioning. In this Vedic ethical system one’s actions are consistent with that which promotes the good so perceived, and one should desist from doing that which promotes or stimulates the bad so that the rta is not unduly disturbed. An act is therefore right if it conforms to this general principle, and an act is wrong if it contravenes it (and so is anrta, or disorder). Since to do what is right safeguards the good of all qua rta (the factual/descriptive order), it is assumed that it is more or less obligatory to do or perform the right acts (the ‘ought’ or moral/prescriptive order). This

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convergence of the cosmic and the moral orders is universally commended in due course in the all-embracing appellation of dharma (from its earlier sense of ‘religious ordinances and fixed principles’). Varna

It comes to pass that rite assumes, as it were, an imperious power all of its own, such that the people forget the original motivation or rationale underlying the imperative. This leads to the establishment of differential duties and moral codes for the major groups or ‘classes’ constitutive of the basically priestly-cum-agrarian society. Each ‘class’ constitutes a needful functional unit in the larger complex. Here a particular principle of social ordering is adopted (probably introduced into India by the Aryans around 2000 BC), according to which society is organized into a fourfold (but originally threefold) functional division or ‘class’ scheme, called varna (literally, ‘color’ or ‘category’). These are, with their respective preserves, namely, br a hmana (brahmin) for religious and educational tasks; kshatriya, for sovereign and defence tasks; vais´ya, for agriculture and economic tasks; and ´sudra, for menial tasks. (One is reminded here of Plato’s ‘stations-of-life’ division.) Overall, the sources of power get distributed evenly at different places, and ideally differences in function need not entail differences in interests, rights, and privileges; but the outcome in practice shows otherwise. A system of subdivisions or ‘castes’ (j a ti ) proliferates the class functions further, gradually turning varna into a discriminatory, hereditary-based institution. In any event, the brahmins certainly enjoy the better end of the system and they wield enormous power. A life-affirming but rigidly casuistic morality develops. In Max Weber’s judgment, the Vedas ‘‘do not contain a rational ethic’’ – if such an ethic did exist anywhere that far back! (Weber, 1958: 261, 337). The stages or life cycles (as´ramas) an individual goes through may entail distinct or differently arranged moral rules, roles, and goals or values for the group or subgroup he or she belongs to. It was likewise for kings and rulers, with added responsibilities and privileges. Differentia are superimposed on the organic unity of nature. A kind of oblique distributive justice is assumed, and in time the question of moral ‘choice’ is categorically left out: one either does it or does not, and enjoys the rewards or suffers the consequences thereof. Here lay the rudiments of the idea of karma, which we develop later. We shall return to the concepts of as´rama and karma shortly. What counts as ‘ethics’ then is largely the normative preoccupations, brought under the pervasive and guiding concept of dharma; the justification is usually that this is the ‘divine’ or natural ordering of things (in the sense of locating the order in some transcendental plenum or law, depicted in the imageless and, later, iconic gods, not

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necessarily in an absolute or supremely existent being, as God), which is also identified with dharma qua Dharma. This is akin to the ancient, especially the Stoics’, conception of Natural Law in the Western tradition. This may also provide a basis for belief in the absoluteness of the moral law from which the rules and norms are supposed to have been derived. But virtually no attempt is made, until perhaps much later or elsewhere in the broad tradition, at self-reflexively analyzing the logic of the ethical concepts and reasoning used. Indeed, questions such as: ‘What do we ‘mean’ when we say of an action that it is morally right (or morally wrong)?’ can hardly be said to have attracted the kind of critical, albeit purely theoretical, attention afforded in (meta-) ethical thinking in recent times. That is not to say, however, that genuine issues, concerns, and paradoxes or aporias of ethical relevance are not raised, even if they are couched in religious, mystical, or mythological ideas or terms. To give an illustration: Scriptures proscribe injury to creatures and meat-eating, but a priest would wrong the gods if he did not partake of the remains of a certain ritual animal sacrifice. With the gods wronged, rta cannot be maintained: what then should he do? It also follows that meat-eating is not unambiguously decried in the Scriptures, as more recent studies have attempted to show. However, that qualification or thinking over paradoxical scenarios merely is not sufficient by itself, for exceptions do not constitute the weight and strength of much of the moral norms that govern the daily lives and affairs of the people. Despite the persistence of the ritualistic Weltanschauung, texts from across the counter-traditions (s´ramana), traditions, such as the _ Jaina and the more deconstructive Buddhist, are evocative of certain more humanistic virtues and ethical ideals, such as being truthful (satya), giving (d ana), restraint (dama), austerities (tapas), affection and gratitude, fidelity, forgiveness, nonthieving, noncheating, giving others their just desserts (justice), avoiding injury or hims a to all creatures, and being responsive to the guest/stranger. As the gods of the Vedas, who portray these ideals, recede from the people’s consciousness, citizens are encouraged to take more responsibility upon themselves, and transform these ideals into virtues, habits, and dispositions with corresponding moral ‘objects’ or reals in the world. Old ethical problems achieve new meaning. Thus the question of whether the princely god Indra should slay the obstructive demon Vrtra becomes a question for the king: should he vanquish the ascetics who stand in the way of his sovereignty? The dharma of ethics and the ethics of dharma

The gradual process of the deconstruction and reconstruction of the prevalent normative Vedic moral

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framework heralded in a new conception of ethics in the classical period (300 BCE-CE1000). It occurred through three heteronymous ethical concepts that did not embed the same degree of absoluteness as the preeminent Vedic imperative norms had. And these concepts foreshadow the trajectory for all future and post-ethical thinking in Indian classical as much as in the contemporary milieu (just as the derivative concepts of natural law, virtue, duty, right, utility, alterity, vagueness, etc., have tended to become in Western/modern ethical thinking.) These concepts are the ubiquitous dharma, karma, and purush artha, and their relative topoi or place and ousia in the discourse of freedom (moksha). We start with dharma. ‘Dharma’, it is to be noted, is an all-embracing concept and is perhaps unique to Indian thought. But the term is also rather diffuse as it has many and varying meanings, ranging from ‘‘ordinance, usage, duty, right, justice, morality, virtue, religion, good works, function or characteristics’’ to ‘‘norm’’, ‘‘righteousness’’, ‘‘truth’’ and ‘‘law’’, beside much else. The word is derived from the Sanskrit root dhr, meaning to form, uphold, support, maintain, sustain, to hold together. It certainly connotes the idea of that which maintains, gives order and cohesion to any given reality, and ultimately to nature, society, and the individual. As will be noticed, dharma takes over from the organic-unity trope enshrined in rta and shifts more toward the human and earthly dimension. In this respect it parallels Hegel’s idea of Sittlichkeit (the actual ethical order that regulates the conduct of the individual, family, civil life, and state) more than it does Kant’s ideal conception of the Moral Law, which is more individualistic, legalistic, and absolutist, and could even be said to place value on selfregarding over other-regarding. Law writers such as Kautilya and Manu make the notion of dharma even more down-to-earth by devising a comprehensive system of social and moral regulations for each of the different groups and subgroups (caste, rulers, etc.) within the Hindu social system, as well as specifying certain universal duties incumbent on all. Vocational niches, duties, norms, and even punishments are differently arranged for different groups, and the roles and requirements also vary in the different as´rama stages for the different groups. Thus, while the wife of a ‘twice-born’ (the three higher classes) may take part in a Vedic rite, a ´sudra would be risking punishment if he so much as hears the Vedas recited – to say nothing of those who fall outside the caste structure (candalas), and other aliens. More often than not though, dharma is invoked as though it were an utterly objective possibility, but there is no theory of moral realism that would blanket the perspectivism of the heteronymous. In fact, it merely gives an overall form to a system of positive law and regulations of individuals and of groups, the specific contents of which are determined by various different factors,

among which the voice of tradition, convention, or custom, and the conscience of the learned, might be predominant. Dharma then provides a frame that, as it were, could flick through different pictures of what is ethically proper or desirable at any one time. What gives coherence to the concept itself is perhaps its coveted appeal to the need to preserve the organic unity of being, to ‘make’ justice where fairness is due, and to minimize the burden of karma, if not also to free the individual from its encumbrances. But what do we understand by the term karma, which is rather popular nowadays even outside India? It is important to consider this concept next here as the burden of heteronymity weighs even more onerously on the dead weight of the traditional normativity, for in the classical period especially it serves to ground a damning critique of faith in the pure and simple causal efficacy of prescribed rites: the moral ramifications of any action – be it a conduct, thought, or a ‘rite’ – is not exempt from the autonomous law of karma. Karma. The basic idea behind this challenging, though to be sure troubling, concept is that every conscious act (cognitive, speech, etc.) and volitional action (physical, psychical, etc.) an individual engages in generates causal conditions for more than the immediately visible effect, such that the net effect, N, of an action X may manifest a san a s) get itself at a later time t1, or perhaps its traces (v distributed over time t2. Action X many combine the residual effects of action Y to generate a compounded, or even reduced, effect at some future moment. And this in turn becomes a critical determinant of another action, Z, or a state of affairs pertaining to that particular individual (perhaps even a collective). The effect of Z might be pleasurable (sukha) or it might be painful and induce suffering (duhkha), but this is the ‘retribution’ entailed in the causal network that is itself an inexorable manifestation of dharma. This linkage of dharma and karma has the following consequences: there are no ‘accidents of birth’ determining social inequities; mobility within one lifetime is however not rigidly excluded; one has one’s dharma, both as endowment and as a social role. One either accumulates an improvement in karma aiming towards a better life, here and hereafter, or one tries to sunder the Gordian knot and opts to step off once and for all from the circus of cyclic existence or sams ara as this condition is known in Indian religious thought. But this is not achieved as simply as it is willed. Indeed, this freedom is placed as the fourth and most difficult of goals in the fourfold categorical ends or purush a rthas, literally, ‘the ends sought by human beings’, and that too not without fulfillment of each of the preceding ends. Again, while this axiology is a reconstruction from the Dharmas´astras period, in intent it also serves to destabilize the monolithic Vedic preoccupation with sacrifice as an external act within certain prescribed and confined performatives.

Ethical Studies, Overview (Eastern)

Purush artha. This preeminent concept inscribes the idea that there are four avenues or goals as the ‘kingdom of ends’ of volitional pursuits in life which are of intrinsic value, namely: artha, material interests; kama, pleasure and affective fulfillment; dharma, again, social and individual duties; and moksha, liberation or gradual detachment from the cares of the three preceding goals of life. They may or may not be continuous with each other, though one goal might prove to be of instrumental value for achieving another, as is often thought of dharma in connection with moksha. But moksha – liberation – is a fortiori the plenum of ‘freedom’ without which dharma as morality – along with the ‘ethical ends’ of artha and k ama – is all but baseless, or mere means (i.e., utility) to some instrumentally conceived end. Still, an ascending scale might well be admitted; and the determination of the relative status of each category could lead to the next; but moksha as freedom in this sense is a presupposition, the ‘pre-theoretic’ possibility, more than an ‘end’ in the cumulative sense, as is often thought. This contention, however, is a subject of much vigorous debate in Indian philosophy. What is significant is that the above conception of human ends provides a distinct backdrop for the detailed working out of the rules, conduct, and guidelines in respect of the institutions of varna (caste) and as´rama (life cycles) inasmuch as any individual will want to strive toward achieving the best in terms of these ends within the limits of his or her temperament, circumstances, status, and so on. Sometimes it is a question of balance; at other times it is a question of which interests or preferences take priority over which. For example, a twice-born in the third stage might consider he has discharged his social obligations (dharma) so his remaining interest (even challenge) is to edge toward liberation by becoming a full-time ascetic. As to what he should do and what he should not do in pursuit of this end is left entirely to his own discretion, for which he relies on his meditative and cognitive insights. His dharma is the correlate of his innate constitution of which he alone is the master: thus an inward-attentive praxis is the source of the principles for his ethic. Here, it may be observed, the gap between intuition and ethics is very nearly closed over. This is another salient feature of Indian ethics. Moksha. Construed as absolute inner freedom, it appears to be the only natural right one has any claim to, for it is deemed to be an a priori or transcendental right; but again it is not achieved without prior fulfillment of duties and obligations implied in the preceding stages of the life cycle. These may comprise obligations toward offspring and kin as well as the performance of obligatory rites prescribed in the dharma manuals, in terms of what is owed (or in old English ‘ought’) to them for their contributions toward the continuing welfare of human beings, indeed ‘the other’. In addition one has the obligation of giving gifts (d a na) and offering libations (homa). Duties

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and obligations, in this cosmic perspective, are what make the world go round. What is significant here is the recognition of the presence of the other and the heteronymous responsibilities these entail. The ends, especially artha, k ama, and dharma, have a distributive – rather than a threatening or coercively retributive – impulse: one engages in commerce with the other, within defined rules; one partakes of pleasure in the company or union of the other, and one’s duties are intentionally in relation to the other (one may have to consider oneself as an other as well, and be mindful therefore of the duties toward oneself or the ramifications of its neglect in regard to the other). The king, too, has certain obligations toward the other, namely, to protect the citizens and their interests and to do right by them. Whether the lawmakers who laid down these particular regal obligations had in their mind the correlative ‘rights’ of citizens (as distinct from their interests) remains a matter of interpretation. For, if dharma sets the limits and constraints on the action of citizens and kings alike, then one cannot say that obligations are entailed by the corresponding rights of others. And reciprocally, certain rights are granted to the citizens in order to protect the people against the king’s Machiavellian tyranny. One may nevertheless ask, how is it that the brahmin continued to claim or appropriate certain rights with respect to the performance of rituals? In consonance with Vedic teachings, rituals had to be performed in certain prescribed ways for them to be binding and effective. But this is a procedural requirement, that is, the claim is that whoever is qualified – bears the oblique mark of adhik ara or ‘entitlement’, ‘rite as a right’ – should perform this according to the rules. It is therefore an impersonal entitlement, although later texts, as seen earlier, fixed the brahmin as the most qualified agent for the task. And this entitlement soon becomes a matter of inheritance. For the lawmakers like Kautilya and Manu, the varnas (vocational groupings or ‘castes’) are arranged in a descending order and it is this scale that determines the claimable entitlements, privileges, and obligations, as well as punishments and violations, incumbent upon each member of the group.

The Bhagavad-Gita Interruption The strong positive and exclusivist rights, however, that were reserved for the upper caste under this arrangement, are severely undermined as we move further into the Epic period where the Mah a bh a rata, especially and the Bhagavad-Gita (Gita, for short, and Bhg for textual reference) which is one of its major books, reigns in a damning critique of not only the normative caste order but also the moral imperatives of rites and sacrifices that had as yet

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not been unseated – even through the Dharmash a stra period (the major legal–customary textual canons). Intriguingly, the symbol of ‘sacrifice’ here is transposed from the erstwhile Vedic ritual act to the context of the battle (inner and outer) as a way of extirpating/deconstructing a declining moral order (adharma) and replenishing it with a new social order. This amounts to a progressive reversal of the natural order of things down the generations. The multivalent nature of the Gita makes it difficult to reduce its core thesis to a simple proposition. However, it is clear that there is a decisive re-examination and transevaluation of the preceding tradition from the perspective of its less stable (conceptual and social) concerns. The Brahmanical tradition that hitherto had a strong hold over life and its organizational aspects (the moral order of things) in India for many centuries had increasingly come under question, if not under direct attack, from all sorts of adverse or heterodox tendencies within and without Indian society. Asceticism, yoga, renunciation of social life-forms, and various kinds of esoteric practices had begun to emerge, and these posed challenges to the Brahmanical orthodox system. Buddhism and Jainism created conditions, in large part, for these tendencies to emerge and flourish. Already there were internal tensions also, for ritualism and the promises it made led to disenchantment of one sort or another, particularly on the part of those who were, by virtue of their caste status, deprived of the privilege of performing sacrifices or having them performed for them. The ascetic orders among the brahmins were late in developing (closer to the Christian era) and even then the orthodox among the orthodox, represented by the Mimamsa, or school of ritual exegetes (hermeneutics), held out against the movement. Some of the orders were atheistic (like the Mimamsa itself), or at least decidedly nontheistic (like the Buddhist and Jain heterodoxy). The institution of renunciation (samny asa, or self-banishment in ascetic reclusivity), based on the rejection of the social order and the affirmation of a more individualistic life-form, further undermined the orthodox Brahmanic hegemony of the normative. Yoga served better the purpose of ascetic renunciation than the ritualistic orthodoxy, although the philosophical Upanishads, with their metaphysical ‘logocentricism’, had already absorbed much of the spiritual elements of yoga (meditation, contemplation, askesis, asceticism, or self-abnegation). However, the Upanishads could not reconcile themselves to the prevailing popular religious practices, such as worship (puja) of the myriad iconic and mythological gods or even God outside the Vedic ritual-sacrificial context even if only symbolically. The Upanishads further could not tolerate involvement in all kinds of activities despite caste and class structures. Various sects adopted differing practices and principles and these caused further

embarrassment to the orthodox. But there was a deeper structural disquiet and questioning and interpolations of Vedic values and the exclusion of ‘the other’ in the monism and detached morality of the Upanishads that surfaced in the epic and was taken to a new epistemological and a/theologic critique, in particular, in theBhagavad-Gt a. The post-Vedic tradition had vexed equivocation over the imperative to act and to abandon action altogether in consonance with the emerging culture of Yoga, with its proclivity towards samny a sa (renunciation) and asceticism (qua s´ramana). When one sacrifices one performs a certain _ act; however, in the actual ‘gifting’ of elements (requisite ingredients) into the sacrificial pit aimed toward the heavens or the gods, one is also ‘abandoning’ one’s claim and vested interest in the material accoutrements devoured as it were by the etheric emergence of the mantra-evoked god or gods. Which of the two moments however counts as the ‘true’ act of sacrifice? If, to turn to an example much discussed in postmodern literature, death is a ‘gift’, then surely the giving up of one’s attachment to life and living (perhaps for the other/the Other/infinity) counts as the true act of sacrifice here, not the actual physical or clinical act of dying. Later exegetical tradition derived too rigid a nuance from the signifier of yajn˜a (sacrifice) rendering it simply as the act of ‘giving up’, or abandoning, which may well result also in nonaction (as when we state that we have sacrificed work for some needed rest). The term that might have been more specific and appropriate for the actual gesture of abandoning, renouncing the ingredients from one’s hands into the altar, namely, ty aga, came in the deconstructive Indian epic-ethics to signify abandona sa) ment, or rather more technically renunciation (samny of all involvement in action. This hermeneutical shift is all but complete by the time of the Bhagavad-Gt a. However, in the ensuing Socratic-style dialog between a pupil and teacher respectively, Arjuna is perplexed over a statement made by Krishna, the speaking Avatara (Descended Lord) in the epic, that seems to impose upon one both the Vedic injunction to act (kuru karma) and to abandon action (ty aga karma). Which one does he ‘really’ favor, and which of the two is truly beneficial? As would be expected Krishna is clearly in favor of karma – even though he tags the suffix ‘yoga’ to it, hence karmayoga – in contradiction to karmasamnyasa, which itself is to be abandoned, or put under epoche´. This is in consonance with the reversal of the Upanishadic attempt to extend the prospect of salvation to all (including women). One performs an action not out of egoistic desires but from a sense of superergotary or for the welfare of the world and for the benefit of all beings. Hence, an ethics of pragmatism is conjoined with the necessity of alterity in the larger order of things; the idea of acting in a mode of ‘gifting’ (marked in the nonconcern with the fruits thereof) is extended beyond – or even against – Vedic rituals, and the more rigidly

Ethical Studies, Overview (Eastern)

circumscribed caste duties as well as the YogaUpanishadic samny asa (renunciation) in the epic culture: one performs one’s duty incumbent upon one’s stage in life as well as, of course, one’s caste, though mitigated by one’s conscience, and in the end out of respect for dharma (i.e., the new law): viz., or duty for dharma’s sake. The Gt a , however, is not bound simply to the discourse of duties, for its idea of adhik ar a (entitlement or intentional agency) opened up other possibilities and claims that might run counter to the ‘rites ethic’ it attempts to rescue, albeit in a broader context of socially beneficial action. In this regard the Gita presents an interesting variance on the nuance attached to adhik ara in its own rather deceptive and delicate use of the term. The significance of the concept of adhik a ra here is not in its resonance with the notion of ‘rights’ (in the modern Western sense), but rather for its use in the Indian context to undermine traditional grounding of norms on a very determined and deterministic founding where the heteronymous will was subjected more to the whims (and or approval) of the gods than on the freedom-presupposed self-nature of the individual agent. This is borne out in an important verse in the BhG (2.47): ‘‘karmany ev adhik araras te m a phaleshu kad a cana,’’ which translates as: ‘‘You have entitlement indeed to actions, never though to the ‘results’ (fruits or expected rewards).’’ There is a noticeable shift from the need to perform and carry out actions as a matter of ‘law’ to the intentionality in the motivation toward such an action, or nonaction, which is a matter of conscience ( a tmasthuti). Arjuna here is being told that since he (Arjuna) belongs to the warrior group, his adhikh ara is to the act (which a warrior performs), and he has no claim on the results that may or may not follow. He is further told, by implication, that he has no entitlement ‘not’ to do the act that has to be done; that is to say, he has no right to desist from what is (by his self-nature) incumbent upon him as a kshatriya or member of the warrior caste. We would venture to suggest that the Bhagavad-Gt a came very close to opening up the earlier notion of adhik a ra toward a notion of ‘rights’ (for whatever it is worth) in the Brahmanical context (for it certainly stretches the erstwhile concept of entitlements beyond the scope intended in earlier texts). It draws its guiding impetus from Mimamsa hermeneutics (or ny a ya) and seeks to apply it beyond the framework of sacrificial and religious rites to the broader context of social dharma. But beyond this it could not go, for good historical reasons. a would have to accept the fundamental idea that The Gt all persons are born equal and that nature does not endow differential markings on the individual which immediately translate into social differentiations. It does, though, concede another kind of adhik ara to all people (one presumes) in the art of Bhakti or devotion, for Krishna promises to heed to whosoever comes to him with a flower, a leaf, water, and a mind fixed on him

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alone, etc. But this overture toward a more universal adhik a ra is constrained in the social context by the overbearing weight of varn a s´ramadharma (‘caste’ structure) and an orthodoxy that could barely face reconciling itself with the challenges of the insipient individualism inherent in the systems of yoga-asceticism and Buddhism (through its denial of the caste structure if not of atman also). Thus the response of the Gt a is restrained and calculated; it merely suggests the possibility of a discourse of universal human rights (manava-sarv a dhik a ra) but does not develop it. It is on the basis of the heteronymous freedom of will recognized and underscored in the Gt a , that the later bhakti sants (bards or ‘saints’), especially Kabir, Rai Das and Tukaram, Guru Nanak (the founder of Sikhism), Mirabai, and Narshi Mehta, appealed to some notion of universality on the issue of the eligibility to devotional practice. This more humanistic strain helped to cut across caste and gender barriers and overcome the prejudices or prerogatives of the ‘twice-born’. Just as for the Buddha a br ahmana (brahmin) is one who is noble by disposition rather than by birth, for the medieval sants anyone who gives herself to Hari (the Lord) has the adhik ar a to devotion and will undoubtedly find Him. Kabir added further momentum to this universality by proclaiming that (1) the real sanctum sanctorum is not in the enclosure of the temple, or by the Ganga (the Ganges River), or in Dvaraka (Krishna’s legendary home), as most pandits would have people believe, but it is in the heart (hrdaya) of each individual, and (2) there is no difference between the I¯s´vara (Godhead) of the Hindu and Allah of the Muslim. This is the juncture where Gandhi’s social philosophy made its pivotal contribution. His immense sensitivity to the disadvantaged, the minorities, the ‘untouchables’ (in the surviving caste ordering, in which he included and extended his nonviolent teachings and support toward the African-American struggle in North America as well), and to women, would not have been possible had the traditional normative framework not been interrupted and the ethically significant circle expanded. Gandhi relied heavily on the Gt a to support his political strategies to those excluded from the hegemonic order. And for this he almost forged an alternative reading of the text, shifting it out of the historical and warfare genre to one of allegorical and intensely moral teachings. Dharma to him no longer sufficed as the arid concept of the ritualistic and legalistic normative that privileged one class or caste over another, but rather a social praxis in which an individual exercised and cultivated certain virtuous dispositions in relation precisely to the other. Just as Levinas drew his inspiration from Martin Buber’s ‘I–Thou’ ethico-theology, Gandhi found Buber’s otherregarding teachings exemplary and a corrective to modernity’s fetish with strident individualism. While in his early reading of the Gt a, Gandhi thought warfare to be consistent with the dharma normative in as much as a warrior

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must follow through his caste duties in an act of selfless own-dharma (svadharma), later on he shifted his position to give preeminence to the principle of nonviolence (ahimsa) as a key derivation from the now more transcendentalized understanding of dharma. Dharma is not just about rites, privileges, duties, laws, and prohibitions (hence exclusions), but has the heteronymous character of both preparing the grounds through praxis of positive virtues (observances, vows, noninjury, saty agraha or truth-making, and self regulative restraints) as well as enabling a more empathic, compassionate, and empowering disposition toward the other. The latter inexorably led him to articulate a discourse of rights reciprocal to duties: hence ‘the brown men’s rights over the colonial masters’ exclusivist privileges’, and the rights of all citizens as equal to each other. Gandhi inspired and unleashed an entire nationalist movement and struggle for India’s – and of much of the colonized world’s – freedom from Europe’s ‘raw othering’ of the non-European based on the seemingly simple teachings of the Gt a on dharma. He shifted the paradigm from the scholastic–dogmatic normativity of pre-gone centuries to a more (already) post-Enlightenment recognition of the broader moral responsibility that subjects have toward the other qua ‘subjects’. And here one is ready-at-hand with the ‘gift’ of oneself in face of the other, and not as the means to some further individualistic or corporate or communal ends (in the sense of divisive community identity politics).

The Jaina Ethical Tradition Parallel with the Vedic continuum generally associated with the Hindu tradition, the s´ramana or renouncer traditions advanced a different approach to the ethical reasoning and the enactment of ethical behavior. Jainism arose in its institutional form at the same time as the Upanishads and the development of the Dharmashastra texts. However, rather than taking authority from the Vedas, Jainism looks to a lineage of 24 great teachers known as Tirthankaras. These Tirthankaras, through their ethical exertion, overcame all the fettering karmas that bound their soul to repeated rebirth and, through their example and teaching, laid the foundation for an alternative religious path leading to purification, peace, and for the adepts, final liberation. The most recent Tirthankara, Mahavira, lived more than 2500 years ago in northeastern India. He was born into a prominent family that followed the teachings of a sage named Parsvanatha, a Tirthankara who lived 350 years earlier. Mahavira was also known as the Jina, or conqueror, indicating his spiritual success. Mahavira began his spiritual quest at the age of 30 and achieved liberation or kevala at the age of 42. Mahavira taught five basic precepts: nonviolence, truthfulness, not stealing, sexual restraint, and nonpossession. The principles of

the Jain faith state that the universe is suffused with countless numbers of eternal souls who are bound to be born again and again until they take up the path of spiritual practice. Mahavira taught that souls exist not only in humans and animals, but can also be found in the soil, in water, in fire, and in the air. He advocated care in all of one’s actions, and was emphatic that all people should observe vegetarianism. From these basic teachings, a new system of ethics arose. Ritual was eschewed by the Jaina community. In its place, wandering mendicants, both monks and nuns, became the primary focus of religious life. Laypersons were to dedicate themselves to sustaining members of monastic orders through donations of food and other basic necessities, and were urged to adopt monastic wisdom in their lifestyle choices. While monks and nuns made a full-time profession of observing nonviolence through care and protection of all forms of life, the Jain lay community heeded monastic advice and entered careers that avoided violence as much as possible. Many Jainas developed successful enterprises in trade, jewelry, and publishing and were prohibited from any businesses that required the handling of animal flesh or by-products such as leather. The Jaina moral code, first fully articulated in the Acaranga Sutra (c. 350 BC), includes five vows that frame ethical behavior, much as the Ten Commandments govern the life of observant Jews, Christians, and Muslims. The first vow, nonviolence (ahimsa) serves as the foundation for the other five vows. According to both the Jainas, it must be applied to all forms of living beings. Even the elements themselves (earth, water, fire, air) must be handled delicately, as life suffuses each of these domains. Detailed instructions are given in the Jaina texts about how to avoid injury by deed, word, and thought. Even pointing must be avoided by Jaina monks and nuns, as it might cause fear to arise in the hearts of animals. The other four vows are practiced in the context of generating no harm. Truth (satyam) must be observed in a way that is both honest and compassionate. Not stealing (asteya) helps one avoid encroaching on the property (and time) of others. Sexual restraint (brahmacharya) helps one avoid emotional and physical harm that can inevitably arise from sexual activity, particularly if one has taken a vow not to marry. Nonpossession (aparigraha) frees one from the burden of owning things. Jaina ethics have profoundly shaped social discourse within Indian history and civilization. During the eighth century, the scholar Haribhadra provided an outsider’s critique of what he considered excessive sensual behavior within the practice of Kula Yoga, a popular Tantric practice. During the eleventh century, the scholar Hemachandra advised King Kumarapala on how to conduct the affairs of state in accordance with Jaina principles, and public advocacy of vegetarianism became the norm in his

Ethical Studies, Overview (Eastern)

domain – what is now the modern state of Gujarat. The Jaina teachers Hiravijaya and Shantichandra advocated for Jaina causes under the rule of the Mughal rulers Akbar and Jahangir in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The lay leader Raichandbhai, also known as Rajachandra (1867–1901), instructed Mahatma Gandhi, profoundly influencing and strengthening his views on vegetarianism, holding to truth (satyagraha), sexual restraint, and nonviolence. One rather unique feature of the Jaina tradition encourages a final fast when one’s life is drawing to a close. As part of their observance of nonviolence, Jainas generally fast twice a month throughout the year and for a longer period each fall during a special ceremonial time known as Paryusa, a time for atonement and forgiveness. A Jaina deemed to be close to death due to an incurable illness may request to observe a final fast. After a long process of introspection, community consultation, and medical affirmation, the candidate will first take only milk products, then only juices, then only water before abjuring all forms of nutrition and hydration. The goal is to move from this life consciously, in a state of meditative prayer, to ensure a better life or perhaps final liberation. Both members of religious orders and laypersons participate in this final fast, which is optional and not required. The Jaina community emphasizes the observance of personal vows as central to the adherence to an overall ethical program. By focusing on the purification and protection of each person’s individual soul, a gentle way of life has emerged that has gained the attention and respect of the Jaina community in India that is now gaining wider recognition in communities interested in vegetarianism, bioethics, and environmental ethics.

The Buddhist Ethical Tradition The Buddha, who also lived around 2500 years ago, promulgated an approach to ethics that emphasizes lists of rules to be observed by monks and nuns. Four rules require expulsion from the monastic order if violated: fornication, theft, killing a human being, and falsely claiming spiritual attainments. Other vows specify behavior that must be observed in accordance with honesty, avoidance of schism, shunning of luxurious beds and overly-comfortable buildings, nonacceptance of gold and silver, parsimonious handling of personal items such as one’s robes and begging bowl, restrictions on travel, and general comportment. These vows continue to define and regulate Buddhist monastic life. Though many of the requirements are specific to monks and nuns, several of the rules may find universal application, such as the precepts of not killing, not stealing, and truthfulness. The later Mahayana Buddhist tradition taught adherence to six perfections which combine a concern for moral

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behavior with the cultivation of positive virtues. These include giving (d a na), morality (s´ila, specified as not killing, stealing, or fornicating; not lying, slandering, speaking harshly, or chattering frivolously; not having covetous thoughts, hostile thoughts, or false views), patience (ksanti), vigor (virya), meditation (dhyana), and the perfection of wisdom (prajn˜ a-paramit a). This last perfection takes human shape in the form of a goddess who symbolizes loving kindness. Spiritual aspiration requires a specific lifestyle, referred to by the Buddha as Right Livelihood. The Right Livelihood for a Buddhist monk requires the adoption of more than 200 monastic rules. Lay Buddhists, though not required to follow the rules for monks and nuns, nonetheless are expected to maintain nonviolence, truthfulness, and not stealing as the anchor for their lifestyle Buddhism began with meditative and monastic practices designed to release the individual from suffering. Karma theory plays a great role in the development of Buddhist ethics. Human greed, hatred, and delusion lie at the root of the fettering, lingering presence of afflicted or impure residues (samsk a ras or v a san as) that must be cleansed as the individual moves toward freedom. Ethical behavior serves as a corrective to address past wrongs and as a way of forging new pathways in the present to guarantee future states of auspiciousness. By sloughing off old impure behaviors and taking on new pure activities, both the individual and society benefit. By skillfully applying personal precepts, the vow-based asceticism of Buddhism helps improve not only oneself but also the world. One contemporary example of a reinterpretation of Buddhist vows might be seen in the emerging field of environmental ethics. Stephanie Kaza, a practicing Buddhist and scholar-activist, has published several works that suggest the application of Buddhist principles would be highly instructive when contemplating issues of ecological concern. She herself trained both as a conservation biologist and as a Zen practitioner and has served in various leadership capacities, both in the academic world and in various forms of American Buddhism. In her writings, she cites the environmental work of the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh, the leading international figures in the Buddhist world, as well as the accomplishments of Daido Loori at Zen Mountain Monastery in New York, Robert Aiken in Hawaii, and the Green Gulch Community in California in experimenting with eco-friendly forms of Buddhism. In addition, she notes the work of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship in raising consciousness in regard to a number of social issues, including the environment, and of Buddhist authors Alan Badiner (Dharma Gaia), Philip Kapleau (To Cherish All Life), and activists Joanna Macy

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and John Seed who created the Buddhist-inspired Council of All Beings. Stephanie’s own writing career began with a close study of the nature of trees, emphasizing the Buddhist principle of interdependence. She edited a collection of Buddhist environmental essays, Dharma Rain, and most recently published a Buddhist critique of consumerism, Hooked!: Buddhist writings on Greed, Desire, and the Urge to Consume. This most recent book includes writings from both Asian and non-Asian scholars and practitioners of Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana Buddhism, seeking to explore the creation of an informed asceticism for laypeople that will allow the wisdom of Buddhist vows to inform individual consumer choices. Kaza writes: ‘‘Perhaps the most useful of the Buddhist teachings is the insight into the emptiness of the ego self. This view holds the key to releasing attachment to the constant selfinflating messages of consumerism . . . The Buddhist view shifts emphasis from objects or beings to the relationships that form them. A relational worldview . . . becomes a powerful tool for dismantling the structure of consumerism’’ (Kaza, 2005: 11). By adopting a new asceticism, these Buddhist thinkers suggest that some of the ill effects of industrial overproduction and media-generated selfidentity based on shopping might be remedied.

Concluding Remarks on Indian Ethics We have traced the ancient origins, limits, and later development of Indian ethics. We have found that one term in Indian ethical discourse that perhaps stands out most preeminently, serving as it often does for the closest Indian equivalent to the notion of ethics – and a subject that rightly attracts much attention – namely, is dharma.. Dharma is the fixed position of duty and of right, in the sense of what is proper and normative. It is by no means restricted to the realm of personal ethics, but it also designates religious observance and secular law, prescribing the individual’s social and legal standing within the wider domains of community, caste, and station. Expanding its range even further, dharma connotes a general principle or law of nature to which the individual is bound in a twofold sense, both in terms of supporting the cosmic, social, and personal orders and deriving from them a corresponding obligation. Thus, as an universal order, it assigns to each entity, personal or impersonal, its specific place within the wider community. A final consequence of this conception of dharma is found in Buddhist logic, where all phenomena in their fixity and quiddity are called dharmas. In its cosmic, and not simply personal, range, however, and because of its dual meaning of ethical duty and right, dharma cannot easily be identified straightforwardly with any of the Western conceptions of duty, much less with

the Kantian maxim of the necessity to do an action ‘from respect for law’ (and not out of any consideration for the moral worth, purpose, end served, or the fruits resulting from the action qua action). For while the imperative of dharma imposes upon human beings obligations toward both fellow humans and nonhuman beings, it is by no means akin to the Christian idea of obedience and humility toward God, or in its secular version, obedience toward a supreme lawgiver, even if, as in Kant, that lawgiver is oneself. It is not categorical in any one particular direction. Dharma prescribes the acknowledgment of obligations not only toward a higher or supreme being, but also toward lower beings and, this again, not as a creaturely duty but as a cosmic responsibility. Dharma is not only a negative obligation in the shape of the restraints of duty, but it is equally the sustaining power of ‘right’ in the sense of righteousness. Self-preservation and the preservation of all things, animate and inanimate, are equally sacred aspects of this mutual cosmic contract, this system of reciprocal duties and rights geared toward maintaining the cosmic, social, and structural orders of the universe. The unity of duties (obligations, ‘rites’) and rights (‘right’) is captured succinctly in the age-old concept of adhik ar a. Human beings are thus not merely the Aristotelian zoon politikon or political animal, but zoon kosmikon as well, and thus the range of dharma is wider and deeper than any of its Western equivalents. Dharma embeds the idea of universal justice involving responsibility in its widest sense, a responsibility for the whole cosmos, not in the form of any external compulsion, but as immanent necessity, so that all that has ever come into existence produces its specific reaction or effect – the law of action and reaction as laid down by the principle of karma, which is more a metaphysical than an ethical doctrine in the usual Western interpretation. Dharma, with its roots in dhr (sustaining) and Vedic rta (order), can open up a more holistic, organic, and ecologically enlightened perspective in contrast to the more nature-subjugating, individualistic, and competitive environment within which we conceptualize ethics. Karma, and even the ideas of a as´rama (life cycles) and purush a rthas (end states), may suggest other possibilities for integrating the disparate elements of human life into this organic whole. And last, but not least, the principle of disinterested, nonviolent action might not go astray in the continuing struggle for justice and peace in the world. It is clear that contemporary ecological discussions searching for an ethical language that articulates the essential interconnectedness and interdependence between humanity and nature have much to learn from such a cosmic notion of dharma, whatever the logical difficulties of deriving definite and justifiable rules of conduct from such a broad concept might be. Under the impact of ecological, feminist, and communitarian critiques, the long-dominant Western ethical

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models which sought to legitimize and ground moral beliefs and actions in fundamental principles, such as Kantian universalizability or utilitarian happiness maximization, are beginning to give way to more ancient and classical emphases on the virtues and on various aspects of human excellence. A correlative shift from a stress on rules of action to an appreciation of modes of being might then proceed. As indicated, it is an omnibus term with multiple nuances covering a variety of disparate and loosely connected ideas – rules of conduct, individual and social, a combination of both Kantian Moralita¨t or individualized duty and Hegelian Sittlichkeit or community life, a theory of virtues and religious duty oriented toward the transcendent goal of moksha or liberation. The challenge becomes one of differentiation of specific notions within this totality applicable to particular situations and contexts. In the development of Indian moral thinking from the Gita to Gandhi, the project of injecting sensitivity to the ethic of ‘alterity’ comes full circle – from Vedic dana (the ‘gift of sacrifice’) to adhik a r a (‘rights’), which finds its way into the Indian Constitution as well under the section on Fundamental (Bill of Human/Moral) Rights; but the project has only just begun: modern Indian intelligentsia, its agents in media, and much of neocolonialism’s secularized middle-class beneficiaries, alas, have deferred or foreclosed this challenge in deference to the creation of a ‘Hindutva’ state first and foremost, based on medieval proclivity toward the normative, the ‘religious’, at the exclusion as much of theory as of the other – the firstborn of ethics – be that the Muslim, or women, or the disadvantaged from the ‘lower’ rungs of caste and ranks in the politics of caste. There is, however, reason to feel hopeful – as long, hard, deconstructive ‘thinking’ on ethics goes on, in India, in modern Indian law, in Indian and comparative philosophy, and in the minds of people with some power and position in the global context.

Chinese Ethical Traditions Not unlike early Indian ethics, Chinese ethics has its roots in tradition, ritual living, and to a certain extent religious sensibilities. Although in the case of the last, while maintaining a deep sense of religious concern, the Chinese intellectual traditions have largely not sought to ground their ethics in a divinity of the kind that is familiar to Western Christian philosophy, perhaps with the exception of Mohism. Generally speaking, Chinese ethics tends to be driven by wisdom traditions that are strongly geared towards the practical, particular, and relational. Rather than a search for truth, Chinese philosophies tend to be dominated by concerns to do with discovering the way (dao or tao). While the Daoist (or Taoist) has made a bid for proprietary ownership of the term, in fact,

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philosophers and thinkers of all persuasions would regard and describe their project as seeking the way. As such, Chinese philosophy could be called ‘learning of the way’. Moral thinking is therefore characterized not by the dominance of logical and rational consistency but by concerns for discovering and articulating ways of being in the community, human and nonhuman, in a manner that maximizes and optimizes the quality of life. As such, peace, harmony, enjoyment, and authenticity are important concerns. Included in the Chinese sensibility is also a strong esthetic dimension. A consequence for the importance of esthetics here is the evocative character of philosophically significant terms. This will be discussed under categories and concepts through which Chinese, in particular Confucian, ethics is best elucidated. However, we bear in mind the caveat that while describing the socalled ‘Confucian ethics’ and ‘Daoist ethics’ the Chinese philosophers did not actually develop a branch of philosophical enquiry called ethics, but we accept that both Confucian and Daoist teachings are deeply ethical. We will first discuss Confucianism, followed by Daoism.

Confucian Ethics The three key figures for Confucian ethics in the early founding period are: Confucius, Mencius, and Xunzi. Five classic texts form the authoritative resource for Confucian reflection: Book of Songs (Shijing), Book of Documents (Shujing), Book of Changes (Yijing), Book of Rites (Yili), and Spring and Autumn Annals (Chunqiu). Later, through the efforts of Zhu Xi (1130–1200), four other works (composed during the Warring States period or not too much beyond) were chosen to become the core texts of Confucian teaching: Analects, Mencius, Zhongyong, and Great Learning. These works, together with the writings of Xunzi (entitled Xunzi), form the basis of Confucian ethics. The lifetimes of the three philosophers, Confucius (Kongzi or K’ung Tzu, 551–479 BC), Mencius (Mengzi or Meng Tzu, 372–289 BC), and Xunzi (Hsu¨n Tzu, 310?–238 BC), span a period of Chinese history that was characterized by incessant interstate warfare between feudal lords who vied with one another for political dominance through military conquests and the forming of alliances. The Warring States period (475–221 BC) was characterized by political unrest and untold suffering on the part of the people, who were pressed to supply material and labor to satisfy the ambition of their lords. How one should live within a world marked by turmoil, how a community should organize itself, and the art of rulership were questions and issues that preoccupied the intellectuals of the day. The high culture of the day was mainly centered in the court; characterized by a heightened appreciation of rituals, performance of sacrifices, and divination that tended to be the preserve of the nobility and court

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officials. Music too was an important aspect – the lyrics of which are preserved in the Book of Songs. Acquaintance with the Songs became the mark of a cultured person. Against such a backdrop, intellectual activities tend to be informed or challenged by the dominance of ritual concerns; as such, significant terms in philosophical reflection tend to have esthetic and performative dimensions. Moreover, verses from the Book of Songs are often cited as justification of specific opinions or actions. Partly because of the gradual breaking up of the feudal system, the period also sees a gradual loosening of social boundaries. So we have instances in the Analects speaking of Confucius (who himself was a descendent of vanquished nobilities from a previous dynasty) selecting students without concern for their social standing, and also of his student attempting to teach the Songs to the people under his jurisdiction. For Confucius, his way could be viewed as an attempt to revitalize the ritual order through educating the aristocrats and intellectuals. It was not a simple conservative return to the glory of the past, though he looked to the golden period of the Zhou culture (1066–771 BC) for inspiration. Confucius sought to create an aristocracy that was not based on blood but on the nobility of character. In a sense, he was subtly subversive of the aristocratic system through a reinterpretation of the tradition. Mencius and Xunzi are two preeminent followers and innovators of Confucianism; each sought to develop Confucius’ teachings in different directions. Traditionally, the two philosophers are characterized by associating them with two interrelated but contrasting aspects of the Confucian way: becoming a sage within and realizing the kingly reign without. The former is more personal and has to do with cultivating the self that is actuated in interpersonal relationships; whereas the latter tends to be more concerned about the effects one’s conduct has on various levels of society, beginning from the family, the clan, the community, the state, to one’s environs, and to even the cosmos. Naturally, the two sagely and kingly aspects are interrelated, since one’s self-cultivation is ineluctably linked to those whom one is in relationship with. With Mencius, he tends to emphasize the significance of feelings as the basis for proper conduct. Expressed crudely, Mencius thinks that one’s human feelings for related others underwrites one’s humanity. (See section titled ‘Ren’ for details.) Those feelings (Mencius identifies four) form the dependable basis for self-cultivation. In other words, they form the basis for ethical conduct. It is this rather introspective Mencian approach to cultivation that contrasts sharply with that of Xunzi, who bases his interpretation of Confucianism on the perspective of ritual propriety. (See section titled ‘Li’ for details.) Apart from the centrality of understanding the person as a ritually established self, Xunzi also absorbed aspects of other traditions into his philosophy – Daoism and Mohism – adopting the

naturalistic cosmology of Daoism and the more rigorous analytical approach of Mohism (ee section titled ‘Zhengming’). Some key concepts that ground Confucian ethics are discussed here. (or jen). The central term in Confucian selfRen cultivation has the connotation of ‘being consummately human’. It is variously translated as ‘humanity’, ‘humaneness’, ‘benevolence’, ‘benevolent action’, ‘nobility’, ‘authoritative conduct’, and so forth. However, such positive descriptions of ren are somewhat misleading in that as a term it is really without content when taken in the abstract. It is the quality of a specific exemplary person, but without the naming and the particularity of whom, located within a particular sociohistorical situation that cannot be known. As such, it alludes to the exemplary human conduct of an individual without identifying what it is. It cannot do so because it awaits one’s creative effort in cultivating and realizing oneself within one’s history and community. In other words, ren can only be recognized in retrospect in the context of a person’s history. At the same time, while a person is living, ren is always, as it was, awaiting fulfillment but never quite in one’s grasp. In terms of practice, ren underscores the act of overcoming one’s petty self, of curbing one’s egocentric desires, in order to learn, to inculcate a greater, ritualized, self through wholehearted participation in the rites. It entails observing the rites as a way of embodying certain desirable qualities; in particular respect, gratitude, and deference. Such participation also provides one with a set of social vocabulary through which communication can take place. Hence, the framework of the self is conceived as basically communicative and communitarian. Ren involves expanding the scope of one’s engagement with others in the community, and also intensifying the quality of those relationships. Thus, sometimes it is spoken of in terms of feelings, especially sympathetic love, which is an aspect that becomes more emphasized in the writings of Mencius; and sympathy culminates in benevolence, constituting Mencius’ psychological interpretation of ren. Notice that native human emotions are cultivated as moral desirables under this category and does not entail or engage a formal, calculative process in the way classical Western ethics came to be articulated (particularly with deontological and utilitarian moralities). Mencius associates ren specifically with the feeling of sympathy. He captures the subtle nuance of the role of sympathy in our moral responsiveness in the following: The reason why I say that everyone has a heart which feels for others is that supposing people see a child about to fall into a well they all have a heart which is shocked and sympathises. It is not for the sake of being on good terms with the child’s parents, it is not for the sake of

Ethical Studies, Overview (Eastern) winning praise from neighbours and friends, nor is it the case because they dislike the noise of crying. Judging by this, without a heart which sympathises you are not human, without a heart aware of shame you are not human, without a heart which defers to others you are not human, without a heart which approves and condemns you are not human. The heart which sympathises is the emergent shoot of ren . . . . (Mencius IIA6, adapted from the translation by A.C. Graham in Disputers of the Tao, 1989: 125–126)

As the forgoing passage indicates, Mencius identifies four tendencies in the human heart as the emergent shoots which when properly tended express the cultivated noble person of the Confucian way. It is from those various qualities of the heart that all actions need to spring – in a spontaneous way – in order for human beings to be able to live harmoniously with one another. However, there are many obstacles that get in the way of an individual, notably, selfish desires, greed, disregard for one’s feelings, etc., and these create blockages for the unprompted release of the person’s human qualities to the point of becoming sagely. In order for one to become truly and profoundly human, those simple, ordinary, and commonplace feelings must be allowed to flourish unhindered. Li It is often translated as ‘ritual propriety’ or ‘ritual conduct’; it also means ‘rites’, ‘ritual’, or ‘ceremony’. At its least profound, li could be thought of as conventions of a culture. Commenting on the relationship, Anthonio Cua suggests that: Li appears to be the convention that defines the form and possibility of moral actions. In this sense, li defines the conventionally accepted style of actions, i.e. the form and possibility of moral achievement within the cultural setting, or what may be termed ‘cultural lifestyle’. . . In a more contemporary idiom, we may express this idea in terms of the tie or contacts of an individual agent’s actions with the cultural form of life which gives them the locus of identification and the possibility of moral achievement.(A. S. Cua, 1971(14): 30–51)

In its function of guiding social conduct, it does so, not so much by clearly stipulated rules or codes, but through expectations and understandings that are embodied through lived participation in community. The excellence of ritual conduct is not found in the various codifications or instructions – rites that are fully functional are communicative and transformative; they constitute what the Confucians understand to be the excellence of being spiritual (shen ). Knowing the rules or codes is the first step; just as a novice learns the rudiments of dancing by being taught the steps and patterns. The mastery of either requires practice and a community of practitioners. It is said that when one has mastered li, appropriate action flows from one effortlessly

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and relationships function ever so harmoniously. Ren and li are intimately connected; their relationship is captured in the following passages from the Analects of Confucius: To return to the observance of the rites through overcoming the self constitutes ren. If for a single day a man could return to the observance of the rites through overcoming himself, then the whole Empire would consider ren to be his . . . . [And to be ren consists in the following:] Do not look unless it is in accordance with the rites; do not listen unless it is in accordance with the rites; do not speak unless it is in accordance with the rites; do not move unless it is in accordance with the rites. (Analects 12.1) To be human and yet not ren, what’s the point of having li; to be human and yet not ren, what’s the point of having music? (Analects 3.3)

Thus, beyond learning the basics of the rites is its mastery through lifelong practice and wholehearted commitment. Here one gradually develops the sense of effortless response in which a strong sense of esthetics is the mark of a cultivated person. The practice of the rites within the context of relationships – in particular, ruler and subject, father and son, elder and junior kinsmen, husband and wife – offer the person, as it were, a scaffolding upon which one’s humanity could be established. And eventually, the scope of one’s engagement with others expands to include those beyond one’s family and clan, an idea systematized and elaborated in the Great Learning. We read in the Analects: Zhonggong inquired about ren. The Master replied, ‘‘In your public life, behave as though you are receiving important visitors; employ the common people as though you are overseeing a great sacrifice. Do not impose upon others what you yourself do not want, and you will not incur personal or political ill will.’’(Analects 12.2)

One could say that society can be conceived of as ‘ceremonial ground’ upon which the individual acts out behaviors conducive to the edification and transformation of community-as-self. The Confucian teaching on ritual propriety received its strongest articulation in the writings of Xunzi and the ). For Xunzi, eclectic Records of Ritual Propriety (Liji ritual conduct is the highest form of human action, and it is the human’s unique contribution: it celebrates, refines, and enhances what is provided by nature. Ultimately, the vision for humans is to enable a cosmic order that is ritualized; the human together with the natural world – the latter expressed as ‘heaven and earth’ – forms a triadic ritual order consisting of heaven, earth, and human. At the same time, it is a realization that such a ritually ordered world cannot be taken for granted, the humans through

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their ceaseless (kingly) effort continue to generate the environment wherein sagely conduct can emerge. At the heart of ritual conduct is a grammar of mutual responsiveness. Thus, generous bestowing and grateful receiving are the two key movements in a ritually ordered world. It is in the spirit of gratitude that the human performs the various sacrifices to ancestors, mountains, seas, earth, and the heavens. And it is also in the same spirit that filial piety is to be understood. When viewed from the perspective of ethical concerns, we see that appropriate ritual conduct is not to be demanded as though it is owed to one; rather, it is the proper expression of reciprocation within the context of particular relationships. Rites and ritual conduct are the means by which relationships are served. But there are serious problems with ritual propriety. While we can understand how the cultivation of ritual propriety can eventually lead to a state of spontaneity (Confucius speaks about the process of cultivation through the different ages of his life, ‘‘. . . from seventy I could give my heart-and-mind free rein without overstepping the boundaries.’’(Analects 2.4)) and inculcate the attitudes of respect and gratitude, modern Chinese reformers have been critical of the oppressive aspects of the teachings of Confucian rituals as they were lived in recent history. When the lofty understanding of ritual conduct becomes corrupted, relationships become ossified, and the call for mutuality turns into oppressive demands. Perhaps such problems could be understood as the negative tendencies of the ritual order that could be ameliorated through a better communication of the vision of arriving at consummate humanity. However, there are also problems that seem endemic to the ritual order that are more difficult to redress: it is the entrenchment of social structures and values that are no longer relevant to the modern world, such as service to the monarchy and authoritarianism. Furthermore, how does it meet the challenges of social phenomena such as emancipation of women, racial tolerance, and sexual (and gay) liberation? Could it be that the rites, being modular (and therefore conservative) in nature, are unable to respond to fresh values in this age of change and experimentation in social arrangements? (cheng-ming). Though commonly Zheng-ming translated as ‘the rectification of names’, it is probably better rendered as ‘the proper use of names’; essentially, it refers to attuning behavior according to roles. The seminal text to this notion is found in Analects 13.3: When names are not used properly, language will not be used effectively; when language is not used effectively, matters will not be taken care of; when matters are not taken care of, the observance of ritual propriety and the playing of music will not flourish; when the observance of ritual propriety and the playing of music do not flourish, the application of laws and punishments will

not be on the mark; when the application of laws and punishments is not on the mark, the people will not know what to do with themselves. (Translation by Ames and Rosemont, 1998)

The idea that names are important to the proper functioning of discourses and ultimately that of social and political institutions later became an influential theme in Chinese political thought. In order to understand why ‘the proper use of names’ has such a wide-ranging effect including the observance of ritual propriety, we need to view it within the context of the rites – the term is essentially a ritual notion. Names in rituals refer to roles. In order for rituals or ceremonies to run smoothly, it is important that roles are clearly identified and that people taking those roles are clear about their particular functions. As the depiction of ritual propriety has indicated, the Confucians conceived of the social realm in ritual terms including, perhaps especially, human relationships. Thus, the names also refer to the roles within relationships. We read in Analects 12.11, ‘‘The ruler must rule, the minister minster, the father father, and the son son.’’ The terms ‘ruler’, ‘subject’, ‘father’, and ‘son’ are some explications of what Confucius means by names. Also, the foregoing translation, albeit awkward when rendered in English, tries to convey how the name directly implicates the function of the particular role. One could say, the meaning of the name lies with its function. Ultimately, the meaning of the name is to be realized by the person inhabiting the role. That is why Confucius thinks that the ‘proper use of names’ will have concrete effects, such as the observance of ritual propriety and the flourishing of music. The application of laws and punishment are meaningful only when they are seen to enhance the ritual order. And only within a functioning ritual order where the people would know the role they are to play and therefore literally know where to ‘‘place their hands and feet.’’ (The latter expression is a more literal translation of ‘‘what to do with themselves’’ in Analects 13.3.) Xiao (hsiao). It is commonly rendered as ‘filial piety’, or simply as ‘filial conduct’. For the Confucians, the relationship between parent and child is taken very seriously; some Confucians would go so far as to identify filial relationship as the very basis of cultivation and humanity. In general, they seem to agree that filial conduct is required for the project of becoming human, though they may differ on how central a practice it is. There is also some evidence to suggest that Confucians may be responsible for introducing the use of the term xiao to mean filial conduct. Apparently, prior to the Confucians, xiao was a term used only in rites honoring the ancestors, including one’s deceased parents. Thus, the novel use of xiao, as serving one’s living parents, seems to elevate what was until then an occurring, ordinary,

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human experience of loving connections with one’s parents to the status of ritual practice. And during the past 2000 years of imperial rule in China, under Confucian influence, filial conduct became an entrenched part of the institution and culture – it was valued, expected, and required of everyone. However, in recent history, this teaching has been under considerable criticism by the reformist intellectuals of modern China. Critics view it as a part of the outmoded ritual teaching of traditional Confucianism, which is seen as an ultra-conservative force that underpins the kind of rigid authoritarianism that kept China from modernizing. While we ought to acknowledge a tendency in certain interpretations of Confucian that tend to encourage the growth of pernicious forms of filial conduct and collaboration with imperial attempts at exploiting the practice to ensure loyalty to the throne, it does not mean that there are no important ideas in the teaching with serious moral content. One way to think of filial conduct is to view it from the perspective of one’s self as constituted by ordinary but basic connections with significant persons in one’s life, without which one cannot be expected to reach the kind of consummate humanity that is attributed to the sages. And it is within the relationship with one’s parents that the initial sketches of our humanity are made, and eventually, it is within this relationship that our achieved humanity could be discerned. While it is obviously desirable to maintain a positive relationship with one’s parents, it is not essential to the practice of filial conduct. One thinks of discussions in Mencius VA1 regarding the sage king Shun, who had to contend with murderous parents and a brother who were bent on taking his life. Yet, Shun was upheld as an exemplar of filial conduct, despite occasions when Shun has to act in contradiction to his parents’ wishes, such as marrying without parental consent. It seems that Shun was able to maintain, despite all his parents’ treachery, a continuing openness to engage with his parents. Viewed this way, adverse understanding of filial conduct as an unquestioning, obedient, supine, childlike attitude that threatens to jeopardize one’s own integrity by pandering to the whims of one’s parents could be ameliorated. It is rendered as ‘mutuality’ or paraphrased as Shu ‘putting oneself in the other’s place’. The locus classicus of this term is found in Analects 15.24: Zigong asked, ‘‘Is there one expression that can be acted upon until the end of one’s days?’’ The Master replied, ‘‘There is shu: do not impose on others what you yourself do not want.’’

Shu brings together much of the preceding categories under the overarching concept of ‘interrelatedness’ or the interwoven condition of human beings. It is about the appropriateness of responses in the relationships one is

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involved in or engaged with both in the ‘close-by’ as well as ‘afar’ contexts, such as in a family, in educational vocation, in business, or in public office. There is no such thing as a sui generis individual, disconnected and disengaged with the larger whole of the community and society; moral excellence, it follows, cannot be cultivated or recognized in isolationist and self-centered terms. If individuals have any claims to rights (as distinct from ‘rites’) these are balanced within a system of reciprocity, mutual obligations, and self-sacrifice, too. The moral horizon is inexorably the greater good of the community of human beings: in this sense shu undergirds a communitarian spirit that begins with loyalty to one’s self, albeit in interrelatedness or ‘threadnesses’ with others, and returns to one’s own self ‘as the other’. This is made possible because others are seen not as different to oneself but rather as ‘kindred’ self, or that the self is viewed as a node within the web of relationships in which the boundary of self is never rigidly set but flexible. The moral aspect is in consideration of the ‘appropriateness’ of the roles and responses that follow from the kind of relationship set up in the productive functioning and governance of the community. Differences, and even inequality, in social and relational ordering or statuses within the community, is not perceived as an anathema. These form the very vocabulary of ritual propriety – they facilitate the achievement of practical (familial, social, and political) goals and provide for services, welfare, and labor for each person according to their capabilities, educational level, and placement. We read in the Analects 4.15: Master Zeng said, ‘‘The way of the Master is doing one’s utmost (zhong ) and putting oneself in the other’s place (shu), nothing more.’’

Daoist Ethics The core texts of philosophical Daoism are the Daodejing (or Tao Te Ching) and Zhuangzi (or Chuang Tzu), of which the putative authors are Lao Zi (or Lao Tzu, sixth century BC?) and Zhuangzi (between 399 and 293 BC) respectively. The early dating of the Daodejing is doubtful and we take the view that the Daoist philosophy is best understood in dialog with the other important schools of philosophies of the Warring States era: Confucianism and Mohism. The Daodejing is written entirely in verse form arranged in 81 chapters, and together with its cryptic message, renders whatever the ethics articulated highly interpretative. The subject of the text is about the way (dao) and its excellence (de); however, scholars argue about whether the way is to be thought of as a transcendental reality, or more ordinarily as a guiding discourse or

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as the collective term for the multiplicity of the various processes that make up this world or this cosmos. However dao might be conceived, the excellence (de) of the way cannot be rigidly grasped, nor can it be deliberately cultivated. Rather, it is the propensity of things and events when allowed to follow their own course. In other words, it does not make sense to wish to reduplicate a particular quality irrespective of differing circumstances. For the Daodejing, spontaneity and deferring to the course of events is the key to being truly virtuous. The Daodejing is replete with imageries which tend to favor what conventional wisdom would assign to that of the weak or the lowly: water, feminine, valley, the sea, and so forth. It also speaks of the excellence of the undifferentiated state of things and events by appealing to imageries such as dark, uncarved block, the infant, and the primitive. While the recommended attitude is one of watchful waiting and cooperation with the propensity of events as they unfold, it is not to be confused with being passive, as the text is careful to point out: the soft dripping of water has the power to wear through the hardest rocks. The Zhuangzi as a text is much more obviously eclectic; it is a compilation of writings by different authors over a long period and even of different philosophical persuasions. However, it is generally accepted that the first 7 chapters, known as the Inner Chapters, are the most philosophically profound of the entire book and likely to be the work of a single author, who is called Zhuangzi, though not much is known about him. It also important to note that although the received understanding places the composition of Daodejing before that of the Zhuangzi, and that Zhuangzi is of the same lineage with Laozi, with the latter as the founder, there is no clear evidence to support this traditional view. In fact, A.C. Graham. has noted that the Inner Chapters do not show any trace of influence by the Daodejing, and that only the later parts of Zhuangzi exhibit any such traits. Hence, it is possible that Zhuangzi himself had never been acquainted with the Daodejing. The differences between Daodejing and the Inner Chapters are significant. While the Daodejing is most concerned with the art of government, this is clearly absent in Zhuangzi. That is not to say that the Inner Chapters are apolitical; rather, it possesses a strong anarchic sensibility. Moreover, the characterization of dao in terms of those imageries so prominent in the Daodejing is palpably absent in the Inner Chapters; the latter seems best characterized by the title of its first chapter, ‘Going rambling without a destination’, (Or ‘Carefree wandering’ in Victor Mair’s translation.) And this is no ordinary rambling – it is that of the great bird, able to soar 90 000 miles high, and keep going for 6 months without losing its breath. It is the great rambling of Zhuangzi, heedless of boundaries: no barrier between human and animal, animate and inanimate, self and other, fiction and fact, dream or reality. The

perspective adopted is clearly nonanthropocentric, and the recommended attitude is one of spontaneity and play. Given the divergences of the two texts just mentioned, what we describe as Daoist ethics therefore tends to be syncretistic. This is not unprecedented, however, since tradition has always viewed the two books as quintessential Daoist texts. They are unlike the works of Confucianism which unanimously take the life and teachings of Confucius to be their source and inspiration; it is not surprising then that there is much more consistency in early Confucianism than early Daoism. In some way, the variation in philosophical ideas between Daodejing and Zhuangzi serve to highlight the spontaneous and unfettered wanderings of the mind and spirit that persist as a dominant trait of Daoist philosophy. As both a complement to, as well as a critique of the Confucian teaching which emphasizes achieving consummate humanity through attention to interpersonal relationships and ritual propriety, Daoism promotes a different approach in order to achieve perhaps not a dissimilar goal – the spontaneous, unconditioned responsiveness of the genuine person. Rejecting the earnest and sincere tones of Confucian teaching, the Daoist emphasizes effortless effort, and tends to be playful, disdainful of authority to the point of being irreverent or even iconoclastic. While the difference between Confucians and Daoists are strongly dependent upon modern scholars’ interpretation of the two, and to date there has been no consensus as yet, there is one central feature of Confucianism that is clearly rejected and even ridiculed by the Daoists: ritual propriety. For the Daoists, the binding nature of ritual practices can never lead to the kind of transforming influence so desired by the Confucians. Thus, we read in Daodejing 19: ‘‘Exterminate benevolence (ren) and forgo propriety (yi), and the people will once again be filial and kind.’’ It suggests that the very identifying of qualities such as benevolence and propriety as desirable, and therefore worth striving for, is itself folly. It is because these kind of striving will always be artificial and forced. The Daoists’ point in the foregoing quotation seems at least in part to do with their critique of the use of discriminating intelligence in a manner that involves distinguishing what is valuable from what is not: ‘‘When the whole world recognizes the beautiful as the beautiful, we have the ugly; when the whole world recognizes the good as good, we have the bad’’ (Daodejing 2). It seems that the value-laden nature of the Confucian rites – the requirement of filial conduct toward one’s parents, paying respects to one’s elders and superiors, expression of gratitude through sacrifices to the various forces of nature – is simply too constraining. For the Daoists, the Confucian program, rather than inculcating integrity and sincerity in the people, will only encourage the spread of contrivance and disingenuous conduct.

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Regarding Confucian morality, at least two possible kinds of responses could be discerned in the Daoists. There is the response of discouraging, as far as is possible, the propensity to evaluate; and, at the same time, seeking to create the environment that promotes contentment. While there would still be a government, for the Daodejing at least, it pursues a policy of returning to a more pacifistic and primitive way of life: Reduce the size and population of the state. Ensure that even though the people have tools of war for a troop or a battalion they will not use them; and also that they will be reluctant to move to distant places because they look on death as no light matter . . . . Though adjoining states are within sight of one another, and the sound of dogs barking and cocks crowing in one state can be heard in another, yet the people of one state will grow old and die without having had any dealings with those of another. (Daodejing 80)

Such a solution has been regarded by many as being too idealistic and utopian in tone, and therefore tends not to be taken seriously. In association with the foregoing political vision, the Daoists could also be viewed as advocating an alternative valuation in contrast with the conventional, one that prima facie prioritizes passivity over action, submission over aggression, meekness over assertiveness. Thus, we read in Daodejing 28, ‘‘Know the male/ But keep to the role of the female. . .Know the white/ But keep to the role of the black. . .Know honour/ But keep to the role of the disgraced. . . .’’ Yet, it is not the attitude of a defeatist, for the Daodejing is convinced that keeping to the so-called ‘weaker’ side of the spectrum, one would ultimately triumph. For the Daoists, there is nothing softer and more yielding as water, which they take to epitomize the highest quality; we read: ‘‘Highest good is like water. Because water excels in benefiting the myriad creatures without contending with them and settles where none would like to be, it comes close to the way (dao)’’ (Daodejing 8). Indeed, perhaps it is the notion of ‘noncontention’ that comes closer to the attitude being alluded to by the imageries of Daodejing 28. It is in this context that , we should understand the key notion of wuwei commonly translated as ‘‘no-action’’ (Daodejing 2), which should be better understood as ‘noncontending action’. Another possible Daoist position could be characterized as a rejection of dichotomous frameworks. That is to say, a world in which the operative categories are of a bivalent nature is problematic for Daoists. It is a position that is most clearly expressed in the Inner Chapters, one that is most likely directed at the other dominant philosophy of that era, Mohism. Instead, Zhuangzi revels in indeterminacy. Daoists experience reality as constant

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transformation and reject the adequacy of using categories deterministically. Not only does reality resist our attempts at grasping what we mistakenly take to be fixed, even our sense of self is contextual and transforms with our ever-changing circumstances. As A.C. Graham points out, such a skeptical view of reality is not unfamiliar to the West, but ‘‘what is so strange to him, in [Zhuangzi] as in Nietzsche, is that there is no vertigo in the doubt’’ (Graham 1989: 186). Zhuangzi’s insight into reality does not result in anguish but relief – anguish is only the result if we were determined to make reality conform to our belief of what it should be contrary to what is the case. Instead of despair, Zhuangzi responds to his insight with a sense of freedom that is marked by spontaneity and play. The sense of spontaneity and play in Zhuangzi is palpably communicated in the numerous stories that make reading the Zhuangzi so enthralling. In contrast with Confucian writings, the Zhuangzi is replete with unworldly characters: there are talking animals, lofty immortals, earthy men and women of different physical conditions and persuasions – even Confucius and his students have been recruited to aid his storytelling; the diversity of characters alone illustrates Zhuangzi’s world, one that encompasses the human and nonhuman. It is a world that is filled with the weird and wondrous, all of whom are Zhuangzi’s playmates as he rambles along the way. Paradoxically, the contrary strategy of attempting to delineate the things of the world as either good or bad, beautiful or ugly, true or false – for the sake of clarity – threatens to bring us to an unproductive and souldestroying, stagnant limbo. The attempt to assign to Zhuangzi an ethics is therefore problematic: to whom does he owe allegiance? It appears to depend upon what or whose perspective he happens to be adopting. Such an attitude could be troubling for ethics, since there are passages in the Zhuangzi that suggest a certain aloofness that is so distant from the human plane that threatens to render the concern for ethics insignificant. Perhaps we could interpret Zhuangzi as advocating a meta-ethical posture, either as a relativist or a perspectivalist. Question is, as Karyn Lai asks, Does Zhuangzi, or indeed Daoism, provide any ethical guidance? Lai argues that appropriate ethical responses of the Daoist kind entail the attitudes of sensitivity and noninterference for individual spontaneity, in which the positions of relevant perspectives must be taken into account before deciding on the best course of action.

Conclusion The foregoing discussions have sought to show that both Confucianism and Daoism possess a strong ethical dimension. We have mentioned at the introduction to this

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article on Chinese ethics that the ancient Confucians and Daoists did not develop a branch of studies called ethics. Nevertheless, it is possible for modern philosophy to do so. Not only is it possible, but it is perfectly legitimate to reflect on the traditional teachings and evolve Confucian and Daoist ethics if both the traditions were to have relevance for the modern world. Thus, we have Lai’s attempt at articulating a Confucian ethics that is normative, in contrast with a Daoist ethics which is meta-ethical in character . At the same time, our discussion of the centrality of the notions of ren and li in Confucian teaching suggests that we ought to be sensitive to the nuance the teaching brings to the notion of normativity. One would like to avoid arriving at an ethics based on a form of Confucianism at its worst, such as one reduced to a set of moralistic admonishment. Rather, at their best, Confucians are reformers; they reinterpret, revive, and re-enchant the most ordinary and familiar aspects of our humanity. The Daoists on the other hand need not fear that they would descend into pedantry. Rather, their spirit could soar so high that it may find itself in a place so remote and lofty that threatens to become completely alien to those of the human plane. As Steve Coutinho worries, ‘‘What is the Daoist’s allegiance to their own human existence?’’ (Coutinho, 2004: 165). It is here that a robust ethics is needed to ground Daoist philosophy. Is Daoist metaethics sufficient to keep them connected to the human? See also: Ethical and Religious Traditions, Eastern; Ethical and Religious Traditions, Western; Ethical Studies, Overview (Western); Nonharmfulness (ahim . sa¯) in Classical Indian Thought

Further Reading Ames, R. T. (1998). Rites as rights: The Confucian alternative. In May, L., Collins-Chobanian, S., and Wong, K. (eds.) Applied ethics: A multicultural approach, 2nd edn., pp. 90–102. Princeton, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Ames, R. T. and Rosemont, H., Jr. (1998). The analects of Confucius: A philosophical translation. New York: Ballantine Books. Babb, L. A. (1975). The divine hierarchy: Popular Hinduism in central India. New York: Columbia University Press. Banks, M. (1992). Organizing Jainism in India and England. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Barnhart, M. G. (ed.) (2002). Varieties of ethical reflection: New directions for ethics in a global context. New York: Rowman and Littlefield. Bauman, Z. (1993). Postmodern ethics. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. The Bhagavad Gita (Bhg or BG) (trans. Sargeant, W. (1984)). Albany, NY: State Univerity of New York Press. Bilimoria, P., Sharma, R., and Prabha, J. (2007). Indian Ethics, Vol I. Classical and Contemporary. Aldershot: Ashgate. Bilimoria, P. (1991). Indian ethics. In Peter, Singer (ed.) Blackwell companion to ethics, pp. 43–57. Oxford: Blackwell Publications. Bilimoria, P. (1998). Testimony in Indian philosophy. In Edward Craig (ed.) Routledge Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, pp. 315–318. London: Routledge. Bilimoria, P. (2000). J. N. Mohanty’s critique of word as a means of knowing. In Gupta, B. (ed.) The empirical and the transcendental: A

fusion of horizons, pp. 199–218. New York: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers Inc. Bilimoria, P. (2000). Authorless tradition. In Gupta, B. (ed.) The empirical and the transcendental: A fusion of horizons, pp. 199–218. New York: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers Inc. Bilimoria, P. (2002). A postcolonial critique of reason: Spivak between Kant and Motilal. Interventions Journal of Postcolonial Studies 42(2)r: 160–167. Brannigan, M. C. (2000). Striking a balance: A primer in traditional Asian values. New York: Seven Bridges Press. Card, C. (1994). Feminist ethics. Kansas: University Press of Kansas. Kanses City. Carmen, J. and Juergensmeyer, M. (eds.) (1991). Bibliographical guide to the comparative study of ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Carrithers, M. and Humphrey, C. (eds.) (1991). The assembly of listeners: Jains in society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chan and Wing-Tsit (1963). A source book in Chinese philosphy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Chapple, C. K. (1993). Nonviolence to animals, Earth, and self in Asian traditions. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Cheng and Chung-ying (1998). On the environmental ethics of the Tao and the Ch’i’. Applied Ethics: A Multicultural Approach, 2nd edn. pp. 151–159. Princeton, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Cooper, D. E. and James, S. P. (2005). Buddhism, virtue and environment. Aldershot: Ashgate. Coutinho, S. (2004). Zhuangzi and early Chinese philosophy: Vagueness, transformation and paradox. Aldershot: Ashgate. Coward, H. G., Young, C., and Lipner, J. (eds.) (1989). Hindu ethics: Purity, abortion, and euthanasia. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Coward, H. (1990). Derrida and Indian philosophy. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Crawford, S. and Cromwell (1989). Hindu ethics for modern life. World Religions and Global Ethics, pp. 5– 35.New York: Paragon House. Creel, A. (1977). Dharma in Hindu ethics. Calcutta: Firma KLM. Cua, A. S. (1971). The concept of paradigmatic individual in the ethics of Confucius. Inquiry 14, 30–51. Dalton, D. (1993). Mahatma Gandhi: Nonviolent power in action. New York: Columbia University Press. Dasgupta, S. (1961). Development of moral philosophy in India. Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal. Deutsch, E. (ed.) (1991). Culture and modernity: East–west philosophic perspectives. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press. Duncan, D. M. (2001). The pre-text of ethics: On Derrida and Levinas. New York: Peter Lang. Dundas, P. (1992). The Jains. London: Routledge. Folkert, K. W. (1993). Scripture and community: Collected essays on the Jains. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press. Graham, A. C. (1989). Disputers of the Tao: Philosophical argument in ancient China. Chicago: Open Court. Graham, A. C. (2001(1981)). Chuang-Tzu: The inner chapters. Indianapolis: Hackett. Gudorf, C. E. and Wolfe, R. W. (eds.) (1999). Ethics and world religions: Cross-cultural case studies. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books. Hall, D. and Ames, R. (1987). Thinking through Confucius. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Hall, D. and Ames, R. (1998). Thinking from the Han. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Hansen, C. (1992). A Daoist Theory of Chinese Thought: A Philosophical Interpretation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hindery, R. (1978). Comparative ethics in Hindu and Buddhist traditions. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Hymns of the Rigveda. (trans. Griffiths, R. T. H. (1973)). Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Ilchman, K. and Queen, E. L. (eds.) (1998). Philanthropy in the world’s religions. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Inada, K. K. (1999). A Buddhist response to the nature of human rights. In Koggel, C. (ed.) Moral Issues in Global Perspective, pp. 22–30. Toronto: Broadview Press. Jacobi, H. (1884). Jaina sutras. Part I. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Jaini, P. S. (1979). The Jaina path of purification. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Ethical Studies, Overview (Western) Jayatilleke, K. (1970). The ethical theory of Buddhism. The Mahabodhi, July 78, 192–197. Jhrinran, S. (1989). Aspects of Hindu morality. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Kabir (1951). Kabir Granthavali (Doha) (ed. and. Vaudeville, C.). Pondicherry: Institut Francais d’’Indologie. stra: Ancient and medieval Kane, P. V. (1968–69). A history of dharmas´a religious and civil law in IndiaVol I-V, vol I.i. Pune: Bhandarkar Oriental Institute. Kaza, S. (ed.) (2000). Dharma rain: Sources of Buddhist environmentalism. Boston, MA: Shambhala. Kaza, S. (ed.) (2005). Hooked: Buddhist writings on greed, desire, and the urge to consume. Boston, MA: Shambhala. Keown, D. (1992). The nature of Buddhist ethics. London: Macmillan. Knoblock, J. (1988). Xunzi: A translation and study of the complete works, vol. I–III. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Lai, K. (1995). Confucian moral thinking. Philosophy East and West 45(2), 249–272. Lai, K. (2006). Learning from Confucian and Daoist philosophies: Ethics of interdependent and contextualised self. Aldershot: Ashgate. Lau, D. C., tr. (1963). Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Lau, D. C., tr. (1970). Mencius. London: Penguin Books. Lau, D. C., tr. (1979). The analects. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Lawton, C., and Morgan, P. (eds.) (1996). Ethical issues in six religious traditions. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Legge, J. (ed. and tr.) (1970). The Chinese classics; with a translation, critical and exegetical notes, prolegomena, and copious indexes. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Li, C. (1999). Confucian value and democratic value. In Koggel, C. (ed.) Moral issues in global perspective, pp. 74–81. Toronto: Broadview Press. Mair, V. H. (1998). Wandering on the way: Early Taoist tales and parables of Chuang Tzu, Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii. Manu (1975). Manusmriti. Yogi, S. B. (ed.) Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. May, L., Collins-Chobanian, S., and Wong, K. (eds.) (1998). Ethics: A multicultural approach, (2nd edn.) Princeton, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Mohanty, J. N. (1995). Theory and practice in Indian philosophy. Australasian Journal of Philosophy March 73(1), 1–12. Morgan, P. and Braybrooke, M. (1998). Testing the global ethic: Voices from religious traditions on moral values. Oxford: Co-Nexus Press. O’Flaherty, W. D. (1985). Separation of heaven and Earth in Indian mythology. In Lovin, R. W. and Reynolds, F. E. (eds.) Cosmology and ethical order. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Perrett, R. W. (1998). Hindu ethics: A philosophical study. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press.

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Podgorski, F. R. (1996). Paths to perfection: Yoga and Confucian. In Carr, B. (ed.) Morals and society in Asian philosophy, pp. 125–144. Surrey: Curzon Books. Prabhu, J. (1988). Dharma as an alternative to human rights. In Narain, A. K. (ed.) Studies in Orientology, essays in memory of Prof. A.L. Basham, pp. 174–180. Agra: Y.K. Publishers. Sangave, V. A. (1959). Jaina community: A social survey. Bombay: Popular Book Depot. Shanahan, T. and Wang, R. (1996). Reason and insight: Western and Eastern perspectives on the pursuit of moral wisdom. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing. Sharma, I. C. (1965). Ethical philosophies of India. New York: Harper and Row. Singh, B. (1984). Hindu ethics, an exposition of the concept of good. New Delhi: Arnold Heinemann. Smart, N. and Thakur, S. (eds.) (1993). Ethical and political dilemmas of modern India. New York: St. Martins Press. Tan, S. (2004). Confucian Democracy: A Deweyan Reconstruction. Albany: State University of New York Press. Tukol, T. K. (1976). Sallekhana is not suicide. Ahmedabad: L.D. Sukthankar, V. S., et al. (1933–66). The Mahabharata, The critical edition of the Sanskrit text, including the Book of the Bhagavad-Gita, issued as The Mahabharata for the First Time Critically Edited, (19 vols). Pune: Bhandarkar Oriental Institute. Tobias, M. (1991). Life force: The world of Jainism. Berkeley, CA: Asian Humanities Press. Tse, C. M. (1989). Confucianism and contemporary ethical issues. In Crawford, S. and Cromwell (eds.) World Religions and Global Ethics, pp. 91–126. New York: Paragon House. Tu, W. M. (1985). Confucian thought: Selfhood as creative transformation. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Umasvati (1994). That which is: Tattvartha sutra. (trans. Tatia N.) New York: HarperCollins. Weber, M. (1958). The religion of India. Glencoe: The Free Press. Wei, X. (1996). The characteristics of Confucian ethics. In Carr, B. (ed.) Morals and society in Asian philosophy, pp. 145–155. Surrey: Curzon Books. Williams, P. (1998). Altruism and reality. Surrey: Curzon Books. Wong, Y. J. P. (1998). Feature review of I.A. Richards, Mencius on the mind: Experiments in multiple definition. China Review International 5(2), 333–343. Zimmerman, F. (1987). The jungle and the aroma of meats: An ecological theme in Hindu medicine. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press (Institute of Indology).

Ethical Studies, Overview (Western) Eduardo Mendieta, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Between Ethics and Morality Ethical Theory and Philosophy Virtue Ethics and the Pursuit of Happiness Deontology and the Pursuit of Moral Life

Glossary Cognitivism The philosophical position that affirms that moral statements admit truth or falsity, and that humans possess the capacity to discern and reason out

Consequentialism and Social Ethics Twentieth Century Developments Further Reading

such moral truths or falsities. Cognitivism stands in direct opposition to emotivism. Consequentialism The moral theory that claims that the moral value of human actions is entirely dependent

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on their consequences, and is thus independent of the character of the moral agent. One can distinguish between ‘rule consequentialism’, which focuses on the rule that guides the act, or ‘act consequentialism’, which focuses on the specific act and end to be achieved by an individual. Consequentialism is most frequently juxtaposed to deontology. Deontic From the Greek, deon, or duty, that is, what must be done, regardless of the circumstance and context. Deontic refers to that which must be done from duty, out of respect for the moral law. Deontological moral philosophies are cognitivistic and rationalist, that is, they assume that moral claims admit of truth and falsity, which can be discerned through the use of one’s reason. Emotivism The moral theory that holds that moral statements and principles are rooted in our emotions and not in reason, which therefore do not admit of truth or falsity, and are thus not open to philosophical analysis or knowledge. We are socialized into feeling a certain way, and that which we deplore, chastise, and frown upon is considered immoral. Conversely, that which is admirable, imitable, and commendable is moral. Morality is dependent on the education of our affect and emotive reactions. Ethics Name for the philosophical analysis of the mores, customs, and practices that guide individuals

Between Ethics and Morality At the outset of any study on ethics or moral philosophy, there should be a clarification about the etymology of the words used to describe the field thus named. It is customary to use ethics and moral philosophy interchangeably, and such custom is partly justified. Ethics and morality have one common word as their source, namely ethos, which in Greek means a way of life, or a practice of a form of life. Ethics comes directly from this Greek word. Morality comes from mores, which was the Latin word used by Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43BC) to translate ethos. The meaning of ‘mores’, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is the ‘‘shared habits, manners, and customs’’ of a particular person or community. Additionally, at least since Aristotle, ethics or the study of moral theory, was part of what was called practical philosophy. Practical philosophy is a subdivision of philosophy that concerns itself with questions pertaining to human action, life, praxis, creations, and organizations. Aristotle, for instance, in his Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, and Rhetoric, treated practical questions as parts of politics. For him, then, ethics and rhetoric (the craft of eloquent

and social groups in their pursuit of the happy life. Ethics is etymologically rooted in the Greek word ethos, which means a form of life. For this reason it is assumed that ethics is always contingent and nonuniversalizable. Morality Alternate name for the philosophical analysis of the mores, customs, and practices that guide individuals and communities in their pursuit of the just and moral life. Morality is etymologically rooted in mores, which is the Latin translation of ethos. Contemporary moral philosophy, however, accepts the convention that when we talk about morality we are making reference to a cognitivistic and rationalistic investigation into the principles of all moral reasoning. In juxtaposition to ethics, morality aims to discern the rational matrix of all moral reasoning and acting, which is beyond time and space. Virtue From the Greek arete, which means excellence, strength, or force of character. Virtues are powers of the moral agent that guides them to do what is admirable and commendable. Virtue ethics, therefore, affirms that individuals are not born morally, but rather are socialized into morality through a process of education. This process of moral education is primarily the training of individuals to exert upon themselves a force that leads them to choose between the mean between two extremes.

and persuasive public speaking) were subdisciplines of politics. The counterparts to practical philosophy are theoretical philosophy and natural philosophy. Theoretical philosophy, in turn, is subdivided in disciplines: metaphysics, ontology, epistemology, logic, and theology. Natural philosophy deals with nature, the cosmos, animals, plants, or both – that is living and inanimate and obeys some sort of law or order. For this reason, Sir Isaac Newton (1643–1727) titled his magnum opus Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (mathematical principles of natural philosophy), while philosophers dealing with questions of economics, government, and morality called their treatises contributions to practical philosophy. At least since the eighteenth century, however, ethics and morality began to refer to two distinct approaches to questions of practical philosophy. Ethics came to be associated with questions of the good life, and thus, it came to stand in for a historically produced and thus contingent set of mores or customs that guide individuals and communities to achieve a ‘good’ life. The good life is the happy and virtuous life, but what is happiness and what is virtuous depends on local practices and

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standards. In almost diametrical opposition, morality came to stand for a supra-ethical or meta-ethical approach that evaluates the ethical standards and principles of a community. Morality claims to refer to something that is not historically contingent and, furthermore, it reigns and is valid across time and cultures. Thus, ethics is to the good life as morality is to the just life; or ethics is to the individual’s historically conditioned social place, as morality is the appeal to transcendent universal principles that are discernable through reason. This linguistic division of labor through which two approaches to moral questions are directly addressed also registers a fundamental paradox, or what sometimes is referred to as an aporia, at the core of every moral act. Every moral act is performed by a person, in a given context, illuminated by the light of his or her community’s ethical norms and principles. A particular moral community therefore always judges every moral act. Yet, that same moral act never ceases to also face another court of judgment: the entire human community, universal reason, and some might say, a divine judge. As moral actors we always face two judging authorities, two consciences. While we may pursue to be ethical by living up to the standards of our community, we must also ask, ‘But is it just? Would my act pass the test of universal morality’? A striking way to illustrate this aporia would be to argue that it would not be oxymoronic to speak of the ‘good Nazi’ or ‘Nazi conscience’, or the ‘good Southern white supremacist’. Yet, it is because we can appeal to ‘moral reason’ that we can recognize and be persuaded that in fact while a person may have been a ‘good Nazi’ or a ‘good white supremacist’, they were still immoral. It is this insight that Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) and G F W Hegel (1770–1831) sought to capture in thought when they differentiated between Sittlickeit and Moralita¨t, where the former refers to the ethical life, or ethos as a way of life, and the latter refers to universal moral reason. With the work of French and German Enlightenment thinkers, ethical questions came to be differentiated from questions of justice, and more specifically, questions of lawfulness and legality. In other words, whereas the ancients saw ethics as just another side of law and politics, after the Reformation, Enlightenment and Scientific Revolution, law, politics, economics, and ethics became separate spheres of inquiry as well as separate value spheres. As separate spheres of human action, each was referred to a unique set of goals or ends, as well as a criterion of evaluation of success. To be ethical no longer meant the same as legality and justice, and conversely, legality and political appropriateness no longer meant that it was ethical. Under the modern condition, referred to as the iron cage of a rationalized world, moral happiness no longer converges with justice and virtue, as it had for Plato (427–347 BC) and Aristotle (384–322 BC).

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Ethical happiness, what the Ancients referred to as eudaemonia, is incommensurable and sometimes at odds with rational justice.

Ethical Theory and Philosophy Just as philosophy is subdivided into practical, theoretical, and natural philosophy, moral philosophy itself is divided into theoretical and applied moral philosophy. Applied ethics, or applied moral philosophy, deals with specific areas of human concern and activity that entail and raise their own specific ethical and moral quandaries. Examples of applied ethics are: business, medical, environmental, sexual, and computer ethics, as well as legal, political, military, media ethics, and bioethics. Interestingly, ‘just war theory’, falls under the category of applied ethics. Yet, it has been argued that the transformation of war in the twentieth century, and the way it affects human existence is so dramatic and pervasive that the decision to when and under what conditions engagement in war is justified belongs to the realm of theoretical philosophy itself, and is not just an application of a particular set of moral principles. This, however, is also true of the other forms of applied ethics. Computer ethics and medical ethics, for instance, are not simply the application of a series of ethical principles to the world of computers and medicine. Rather, computer and medical ethics raise profound and challenging questions about the nature and character of moral agents and the limits of moral responsibility. Theoretical moral philosophy itself is subdivided into meta-ethics and normative ethics. Meta-ethics focuses on the status of moral claims, whether these claims can be known and judged rationally, and how human agents acquire the cognitive competence to both recognize and judge ethical statements. Meta-ethics, therefore deals with moral psychology and epistemology, and of course with the general question of whether morality itself admits to a nonsubjective and nonindividualist existence, and, whether moral principles have an existence independent from the autonomous will of persons. While meta-ethics focuses on the possibility of morals in general, normative ethics focuses on how to achieve the morally good life, that is, the general principles that one should follow in order to achieve a morally righteous life. A lot of work in moral theory falls under one of these three very general rubrics. Yet, this way of presenting a taxonomy of work on moral theory is applied retrospectively, and from the standpoint of what philosophers themselves claim are contingent disciplinary boundaries. Another way of looking at work in moral theory is to offer a typology of moral theories in terms of where they focus their philosophical attention. Moral questions concern questions of what can, could have been, and should have been done by someone in order to achieve a specific goal or aim. Like most human action and behavior, ethical

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acts involved a subject or agent, who decides to do something in a particular way in order to achieve a particular aim or goal. There is an agent, a way of doing something, and then there is the aim. Some moral theories have focused on the moral agent or actor, because they assume that the how and the aim are unimportant to the overall moral character of the act. If an agent or actor is moral, virtuous, caring, and generous then their acts are bound to be moral and the result of their acts will be moral. Virtue ethics, natural law, emotivism, and feminist care ethics are some examples of moral theories that focus on moral agents. Other moral theories have focused instead on the end or goal, and thus argue on the criteria of evaluating the moral worth of an act by how its result enhances or increases a particular moral good. Theories that focus on ends and goals are generally known as consequentialist. Utilitarianism, as well as hedonism, is a form of consequentialism. For this type of theories the moral character of the actor is bracketed or suspended. What is important is if a particular act or norm increases a certain social good and decreases a certain social ailment. Yet another group of theories focuses on neither actors nor ends, but rather on the character of the act itself, that is, on the maxim or rule that may be derived from following this particular act. Moral theories that opt for this approach are forms of moral absolutism and are sometimes known by the name of deontology. Kant’s moral philosophy is an example of deontology.

Virtue Ethics and the Pursuit of Happiness Virtue ethics found its most eloquent and enduring articulation in the work of the Greeks. While Homer’s works, the Iliad and the Odyssey, are studies in virtue and character that Greek philosophers took as guide and inspiration, it is Aristotle who formulated explicitly an ethics based on virtue. Virtue in Greek means excellence, power, and the highest expression of a person’s abilities or knowledge of a craft or skill. It is important to recognize that Aristotle was Plato’s student, and that Plato in turn was Socrates’ student. Socrates is surely the foremost philosophical character in all of Western philosophy, not only because he was martyred by Athenian society, but also because he left us some of the most incisive examples of the philosophical life. He made the pursuit of knowledge, truth, justice, and virtue the goal of his philosophical interrogation and way of life. By means of a rhetorical strategy known as Socratic irony, in which Socrates claims not to know anything in order to pursue a relentless dialog with someone who does claim knowledge, he sought to demonstrate that virtue is knowledge and that injustice is ignorance. This association between virtue and knowledge led to the paradox of what was called akrasia, or weakness of the will, namely the paradox

that though we may possess full knowledge of what is to be done, we choose to act otherwise. Socrates’ moral philosophy is a form of moral intellectualism, or an early version of moral cognitivism. In the Platonic dialogs Gorgia, Protagoras, Sophist, for example, Socrates engages his intellectual opponents, the sophists, who claimed they could teach rhetoric to anyone so that they could use it for their own ends. At the heart of these engaging dialogues are the questions of the relationships among philosophy and virtue, philosophy and rhetoric, and philosophy and moral knowledge. For Socrates virtue, happiness, justice, and temperance are forms of wisdom or knowledge and for this reason, virtue is the heart of moral happiness. The pursuit of virtue through rational enlightenment leads to the happy life. This form of moral intellectualism is known as eudaemonism. Plato will retain his teacher’s moral intellectualism but will synthesize it with his own metaphysics, epistemology, theory of the soul, and cosmology. Plato differs substantially from Socrates in that while the latter often argued from the standpoint of ignorance, the former argues from the standpoint of certitude and claimed knowledge. It is to Plato that we owe one of the most powerful images in philosophy, namely the allegory of the cave. In Book 7 of the Republic (514a), through the lips of Socrates Plato paints the cave in which humans live chained and only able to contemplate the shadows projected onto the walls, which are taken as the real things for they have never seen the light of day or the real as such. The philosopher escapes the cave and ascends to the real world of light and the real objects of knowledge, after which he returns to enlighten everyone inside the cave to the fact that their world is illusory. The philosopher attempts to convince the cave-dwellers that they must shatter their chains, and flee their moral and epistemic slavery. The allegory of the cave is therefore as much about the role of the philosopher as it is about epistemology and moral theory. For Plato, virtue is also a form of knowledge, but one that directs us to the absolute good, one that is transcendent and eternal. Plato’s Republic is one of the first treaties of political philosophy in which the analysis of the just society is approached by way of a thought experiment, namely the projection of an ideal city (Kallipolis). The analysis of the just or beautiful city is developed in tandem with an analysis of the soul and its three parts (the appetitive, the spirited, and the rational). For Plato, moral virtue is entwined with civic virtue, in such a way that the just city is made of moral persons, and moral persons are just citizens. The soul and the polis mirror each other. Aristotle’s ethics is explicitly developed as a critique of his teacher’s. In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle argues that Plato’s reference to the moral good is misguided, for we speak of the good in different ways, just as we speak of being in different ways. Additionally, virtues must be related to the human soul in different

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ways than knowledge and passions do. Aristotle retains elements of Plato’s tripartite division of the soul, but adds to it substantially. Virtues are, according to him, neither capacities nor feelings, but rather states of the human soul. Capacities we have by nature, but we are not judged moral or immoral because of what we are by nature. Nor are we deemed just or unjust by the emotions we have. Virtues are states of the soul that lead their possessor to decide what constitutes a mean between extremes relative to the human situation. Virtues, thus, aim at a mean between two extremes, where one that is an excess or abundance and the other that is a lack or absence. Virtues involve deliberation and thus intelligence, leading to a proper balance between feelings so that specific actions may result. Aristotle argues that there are virtues of character and virtues of thought. The virtues of character guide the life of the citizen and oversee the political life of the human being. The virtues of understanding guide the life of the mind, and are pursued by those who seek knowledge of the highest principles of the cosmos and knowledge of being qua being. For Aristotle the virtuous life is a lifelong project. We are not born moral, that is to say, virtuous. We become so through a ceaseless pursuit of the education of our emotions through deliberation about what would be proper in a given context. In Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle provided us with a detailed analysis of at least 12 virtues that merit listing: bravery, the mean between confidence and fear; temperance, the mean between pleasure and pain; generosity, the mean between giving and taking of money; magnificence, the mean between ostentation or vulgarity and niggardliness or stinginess; magnanimity, the mean between vanity and pusillanimity; a virtue that is the mean between the desire for small honor and none whatsoever, but which has no name according to Aristotle; mildness, the mean between irascibility and turpitude; truthfulness, the mean between boastfulness and self-deprecation; wit, the mean between buffoonery and boorishness; friendliness, the mean between flattery and quarrelsomeness; indignation, the mean between envy and spite. While all of these virtues are indispensable to the political animal that is the human being, Aristotle gives a privileged place to magnanimity. The magnanimous person is the ideal, short of the philosopher who is the supreme ideal for Aristotle, for in this person are all the virtues present and adorned by their dispensation. As with Plato, however, the virtues are indispensable for the just and well-ordered society. Ethics is subordinate to politics, for the human being is a political animal, which can neither grow nor flourish outside the polis. The virtuous civic life is the supreme actualization (energia) of the most fundamental potential (dunamis) of the human being.

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Deontology and the Pursuit of Moral Life Virtue ethics, like Confucian ethics another form of virtue ethics, has as a fundamental assumption that humans are not born moral, but instead are socialized into morality. In both cases, the socialization entails acquiring certain social habits and living in accordance with communally sanctioned or proscribed mores and manners. These morals, in other words, do not travel well. What may be a virtue in one community may be a vice in another. Most importantly, how do we decide whether a virtue is in fact a moral excellence? The pursuit of virtue, in other words, does not produced morality, but the pursuit of morality leads us to virtue. It is in response to these doubts that Immanuel Kant developed his absolutist, deontological, and cognitivistic ethics. Kant begins with a Socratic question: ‘‘Is the pious loved by the gods because it’s pious? Or is it pious because it’s loved?’’ (Euthyphro 10a). According to Kant, and Socrates as well, we cannot judge something moral just because we deem it so, or have been told so. Nor can we derive morality from examples, role models, or paragons of morality, for in labeling them as such, we already operate with an inchoate notion of the moral. Kant argues that we must suspend all appeal to history, folklore, and religion in order to reflect on what we take to be truly moral. In order to do this Kant investigates the a priori assumptions of all moral action. He engages in what he calls a transcendental investigation, that is, he seeks to uncover the conditions of possibility without which morality would not make any sense. According to Kant, there are two indispensable presuppositions of morality: an absolutely free will and a rational nature. Morality is possible at all because humans are metaphysically (absolutely and not contingently) free and they have poor reason. Duty draws out for us this rational and free dimension of morality. A moral act, according to Kant, is one that is done without coercion, or without the fear of retaliation or some punishment. A moral act is one that is done for its own sake, or else it is a not a moral act but a contingent action aimed at achieving some specific end. When we act from duty, we act out of respect for the moral law. The moral worth of a moral act, therefore, is determined not by something external to it, but by the maxim (or principle that determines the will) according to which it is executed. If the moral worth of an act would be determined by something external, then the will would not be free and we would act out of inclination, desire, passion, or moral weakness. Duty thus reflects precisely how the moral is that which is universally necessary and commanded by the power of our reason. To act from duty is to act in accordance with reason and the determination of the free will. There is no other force or power that determines morality than the power of selflegislated duty. Duty in fact aims at what Kant called

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‘categorical imperatives,’ which in contrast to hypothetical imperatives, are what must be done. While hypothetical imperatives are conditional, contingent, and aim at short-lived or narrow ends in such a way that the ends necessitate certain means, categorical imperatives are unconditional and unqualified and apply to all human conditions, and aim not at contingent and shortlived aims but at the very dignity of the human being. According to Kant in his Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, there is only one categorical imperative, which he formulates in this way: ‘‘Act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law.’’ Moral acts are only those that can be universalized. According to Kant this principle of the universability of moral law can be expressed in three other formulas: act in such a way that you treat the humanity of others as well as your own humanity, always as an end and never as a means; act in such a away that you always assume every ‘rational being’ to be a will that ‘legislates universal law,’ and act in such a way that you take yourself, and all other rational beings, to be members of a ‘kingdom of ends.’ The categorical imperative in its three versions essentially argues that morality is the expression of the moral autonomy of rational beings that legislate upon themselves laws that command their utmost respect. Morality, in other words, both expresses the dignity of the human being and commands its utmost reverence and respect. Notwithstanding its seeming rigor and absolutism, Kantianism is parsimonious and abstemious; it neither presuppose reference to specific cultural contexts and customs, nor does it offer a set of rules. The categorical imperative merely makes implicit that which we take to be indispensable and inalienable to morality; but it also offers us a North Star. As Kant noted in the conclusion to his Critique of Practical Reason: ‘‘Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and reverence, the more often and more steadily one reflects on them: the starry heavens above and the moral law within me.’’ Like the lawfulness of the cosmos, which renders it both mysterious and awe-inspiring, the selflegislated lawfulness of morality, renders us admirable and sublime.

Consequentialism and Social Ethics At other end of the arch of the moral act we encounter consequentialism. In contrast to forms of virtue ethics, or any type of moral theory that focuses on the nature and character of the moral agent, and in contrast to deontology in general and forms of Kantianism in particular, consequentialism focuses predominantly if not exclusively on the consequences of moral acts. While hedonism is a form of consequentialism, a form of moral theory that argues that the supreme goal of human action

should be the pursuit of one’s happiness and pleasure, it is utilitarianism that best illustrates consequentialism. The classical and best known articulators of utilitarianism are Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832), and John Stuart Mill (1806–73). It was Bentham, however, who coined the formulation that the ‘standard’ of right and wrong is set by the principle of utility, that is, the greatest happiness for the greatest number. For Bentham, the word ‘right’ has no meaning without reference to the word ‘utility’. What is right and desirable result from splitting the difference between the good that is determined by the greatest ‘benefit, advantage, pleasure, good, or happiness’ to the greatest number, and the greatest pain, suffering, disadvantage, and bad or evil that may come to the greatest number. Good is the maximization of pleasure and the minimization of pain. The desirability of a pleasure is measured, in what has been called ‘Bentham’s Hedonistic Calculus’, with reference to an individual, by its intensity, duration, certainty or uncertainty, propinquity or remoteness, and with reference to a group of persons, all of the already listed circumstances, as well as fecundity, purity, and extent, that is, the number of persons affected by it. It is unclear how Bentham’s utilitarian principle of ‘greatest happiness for the greatest number’ would allow us to discriminate among different ratios of distribution of both happiness and unhappiness among a population. Many risible examples have been dreamt up in order to exhibit such problems. Such difficulties aside, it is indisputable that Bentham was mainly interested in what has been called political morality, rather than personal morality. He articulated his utilitarian moral theory in the context of also articulating the general principles of ‘legislation’. The rules Bentham is drawing out are to be considered as guiding principles for legislators, or rulers of a polity. For him, the art of legislation is what anatomy is to medicine, the supreme science of the body politic. John Stuart Mill sought to correct the deficiencies and lack of precision in some of Bentham’s formulation. Expanding on Bentham’s ‘happiness principle’, Mill argues that by happiness and pleasure utilitarians really mean ‘‘utility.’’ In Utilitarianism, Mill reformulates Bentham’s principles thus: ‘‘Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain and the privation of pleasure.’’ Mill is quick to confront the objections that have been raised against this formulation of morality as the pursuit of happiness and pleasure. Some of these objections have pointed out that such a morality would be worthy of swine, and fools, to boot. Mill admits that there is a hierarchy of pleasures and goods and that some are nobler than others, while some have no intrinsic or conditional value whatsoever. Additionally, Mill acknowledges that ‘‘neither pains nor pleasure are homogenous, and pain is

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always heterogeneous with pleasure.’’ What guides our discernment of why happiness and pleasures are more noble is that they are acknowledged to be so by the greatest number and that these are derived from the ‘higher faculties’. Utilitarianism, thus, can only attain its goal by the cultivation of the nobility of character. For, as Mill put it poignantly, ‘‘it is better for a human being to be dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.’’ Mill tempers Bentham’s hedonism, rendering utilitarianism a formidable moral theory that acknowledges that the goal of moral acts should be the enhancement and thriving of human dignity. In contrast to Kantianism, which is focused on the moral dignity of individuals, utilitarianism is attentive to well-being of moral collectives. In contrast to deontological asceticism and stoicism, utilitarianism is eudemonistic and obsequious of human frailty and neediness. Analogously to Ancient ethics, which thought that the summun bonum, the supreme good, is virtuous happiness, utilitarianism, in Mill’s version, argues that the aim of morality and right is happiness and pleasure in accordance with our rational faculties.

Twentieth Century Developments Ethical theory remains a fertile field of philosophical study and will continue to be so for as long as humans ponder over the meaning of their existence and continue to reflect on their duties and responsibilities towards others, whether these be human, nonhuman animals, and all that makes up nature. In contrast to other philosophical disciplines (such as metaphysics, ontology, epistemology), which like the bottom of the sea is littered with the ruins of shipwrecked systems, every moral and ethical theory continues to have relevance. Three contemporary moral approaches to moral theory make this clear. Discourse ethics, developed in the aftermath of the so-called linguistic turn of philosophy, fused elements of speech act theory, semiotics, pragmatism, hermeneutics, in order to linguistify Kantianism, that is to reformulate the deontology in terms of the philosophy of language and a communicative concept of intersubjectivity. In its most elemental formulation it renders Kant’s categorical imperative in a discursive way: ‘‘only those norms can claim validity that can or could meet the assent of those affected in their role as participants in a practical discourse.’’ For Karl-Otto Apel and Ju¨rgen Habermas, Kant’s rational moral autonomy is expressed in humanity’s ability to engage in discourse, which always already presupposes some norms. Language, they argue, has implied morality already. Care ethics, articulated mostly by feminists in the second half of the twentieth century, has argued that the foundation of morality is not just an orientation towards the just and impartial, but also

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empathy and solidarity. Care ethics began as a critique of the masculinist emphasis of most moral theories and sought to argue that in these theories, women are saddled with invidious moral qualities and capabilities, which in general distort what we take to be moral. The work of philosophers such as Annette Baier, Nel Noddings, Virginia Held, and Eva Kittay, for instance, have combined innovative studies in the history of philosophy, with empirical studies in moral psychology, with perspicacious studies of the male imaginary of philosophy in general. The other approach that illustrates the continuing relevance of ancient moral philosophies is the growing work of Martha Nussbaum, who began as a classicist and has become in the first part of the twenty-first century one of the most innovative and provocative moral and political philosophers. Her work, self-described as the ‘‘capabilities approach,’’ is an original and extremely contemporary treatment of some of our most challenging moral quandaries. Nussbaum’s approach takes elements from Aristotelian virtue ethics, Marxist-inspired notions of human nature, and combines them with elements from Rawlsian contract theory and Kantianism. At the same time, Nussbaum is extremely attentive to the role of the education of the emotions and their role in both cognition and moral attitude towards the world. The capabilities approach aims to draw a threshold of human capabilities that must be attended to, lest we slide below a standard that hinders the realization of human life. Human capabilities are matched by basic human entitlements that point in the direction of the well-ordered and just society. In this way, like the morality of the Ancients, Nussbaum’s moral philosophy is the twin side of a political philosophy. Morality is made possible because we refuse to resort to violence, but it is also made possible by the absence of all forms of violence that undermine and abolish the ability of human to treat each other not just with dignity, but also with empathy and solicitude. For Nussbaum, the frontiers of moral theory lie at the boundary where we draw a line between those who are different from us and those who belong to our moral community. Nussbaum notes that for too long morality has been about treating equals equally, where in fact the heart of morality resides in treating unequals equally, or rather treating those with different abilities in such a way that their different abilities are taken as neither disabilities nor incapabilities, but different modalities of sentience. Moral theories will continue to be produced, because every age produces different ideals and standards of what it means to be the paragon of morality, but such ideals change with the challenges we place in our path with our technological innovations and societal transformations. Nussbaum has argued that we are moral because we are injurable, and thus morality is the suspension of the threat of violence. In this way, she draws our attention to the umbilical cord that links ethics and politics.

746 Ethnic Conflicts and Cooperation See also: Conscientious Objection, Ethics of; Critiques of Violence; Ethical Studies, Overview (Eastern); Ethical and Religious Traditions, Western; Evil, Concept of; Ethical Studies, Overview (Eastern); Means and Ends; Moral Judgments and Values; Political Economy of Violence and Nonviolence; Peace Culture

Further Reading Alcoff, L. M. and Kittay, E. F. (2006). The Blackwell guide to feminist philosophy. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers. Canto-Sperber, M. (2000). Ethics. In Brunschwig, J., Lloyd, G. E. R., and Pellegrin, P. (eds.) Greek thought: A guide to classical knowledge, pp. 94–124. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Cooper, J. M. (ed.) (1997). Plato, complete works. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company. Habermas, J. (1990). Moral consciousness and communicative action. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Held, V. (2006). The ethics of care. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kant, I. (1996). Practical philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kittay, E. F. (1998). Love’s labor: Essays on women, equality, and dependency. New York: Routledge. LaFollette, H. (2000). The Blackwell guide to ethical theory. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.

MacIntyre, A. (1998). A short history of ethics: A history of moral philosophy from the Homeric age to the twentieth century, 2nd edn. London: Routledge. Nussbaum, M. (2006). Frontiers of justice: Disability, nationality, species membership. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Rawls, J. (2000). Lectures on the history of moral philosophy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Schneewind, J. B. (1998). The invention of autonomy: A history of modern moral philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Slingerland, E. (trans.) (2006). Confucius: The essential analects Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company. Troyer, J. (2003). The classical utilitarians Bentham and Mill. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company. Vlastos, G. (1991). Socrates: Ironist and moral philosopher. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Relevant Websites http://www.iep.utm.edu/ – Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy http://plato.stanford.edu/ – Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy http://radicalacademy.com/studentrefphil.htm – Philosophy Resource Center

Ethnic Conflicts and Cooperation Errol A Henderson, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction Two Dominant Approaches to Interethnic Conflict Explanations of Interethnic Conflict Political Goals in Interethnic Conflict Early Warning Indicators of Interethnic Conflict

Glossary Ethnic Group A group of people sharing a distinctive and enduring collective identity based on common cultural traits such as ethnicity, language, religion, or race, and perceptions of common heritage, shared experiences, and often common destiny. Such collectives are also called communal or identity groups. Ethnic Nationalism The belief that the ethnic group comprises a national unit that has the right to possess its own sovereign state wherein full citizenship is a function of common ethnicity.

This article is reproduced from the previous edition, volume 1, pp 751–764, Ó 1999, Elsevier Inc.

The Expansion of Interethnic Conflict Interethnic Cooperation Conclusion Further Reading

Ethnocentrism Refers to attitudes, beliefs, and practices that uncritically assume the superiority of one’s own ethnic group. Instrumentalism A perspective that maintains that interethnic conflict is more a result of elite manipulation than any inherent tendency for dissimilar ethnic groups to be more prone to conflict. Instrumentalists suggest that ethnicity is socially constructed and does not derive from any natural division of humankind. Irredentism The pursuit of the acquisition of the population and/or territory for which a group or state suggests it is culturally associated.

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Primordialism The view that interethnic conflict is a result of inherent differences between ethnic groups who naturally feel amity for their own ethnic group and enmity for those outside their ethnic group.

Secession Refers to the often violent attempt of a political entity (e.g., a region within a state) to separate from a larger political unit (e.g., a state) usually with the intent of establishing an independent state.

Ethnic, or interethnic, conflict refers to disputes between contending groups who identify themselves primarily on the basis of ethnic criteria and who make group claims to resources on the basis of their collective rights. Ethnic criteria may include perceptions of shared culture, nationality, language, religion, and race. An ethnic group is a collective sharing of a belief of common ancestry, a link with a specific territory, a perception of a shared culture, and a belief in a common destiny. This belief in a common ancestry owes as much if not more to myths than to genetics. To be sure, some ethnic communities may result from consanguineous or kinship ties, but to the greatest extent heritage is a function of belief and not genetic descent. It is inconceivable that somewhere in antiquity there are primordial parents of each ethnic group in the world. Nonetheless, myths of common descent are powerful inducements to ethnic identification. Such myths provide symbols around which elites can focus political, economic, and social activity. They provide emblems and totems representing in-group and out-group membership. Two factors are among the most significant bases of group identity: belief in a historic homeland and the perception or practice of a shared culture. The latter is often expressed as shared language, religion, race, or customs.

linguistic commonality does not, in itself, suggest ethnic commonality – nor does religious commonality. Humans have many identities simultaneously and one’s ethnic identity may crosscut rather than overlap one’s language or religious group. For example, ethnically dissimilar Turks and Kurds share the common religion of Islam while one is linguistically Turkish and the other predominantly Kurmanji. Spaniards speak Spanish and so do Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, as well as many South Americans and some Africans. Bretons and Burgundians speak French and so do Quebecois and Haitians. The same can be said for religious similarity. Ethnically dissimilar Azeris, Kurds, Turks, Persians, Arabs, Malay, and Hausa-Fulani share a common religion (Islam). Buddhism subsumes many Asian ethnic groups and Christianity in Western Europe and the Americas is practiced by many different ethnic groups. Interestingly, the distribution of these widely variable characteristics does not appear to be associated with conflict in any consistent manner. For example, ethnicity links the Irish inhabitants of Ireland but religious difference between Protestant and Catholic coethnics appear of greater salience and have come to define the conflict in Ulster. Linguistically and religiously similar Hutu and Tutsi have fashioned separate ethnic identities from their colonial past and have precipitated genocidal violence against each other in Rwanda and Burundi. While religious difference is a conflict-laden fault line between social groups in India, the superimposition of religion and ethnicity is associated with interethnic conflict in Sudan, Tibet, and Israel. The persistence of multiple identities would seem to preclude the salience of a single identity among individuals and populations. It is often argued that where each of these factors is present it tends to reinforce and solidify ethnic identity; however, where these factors do not overlap, ethnic identity may be more malleable. To be sure, persons choose to emphasize one over the other for reasons of status, expediency, or in response to peer pressures. Whereas individuals may choose to identify with one or another aspect of their identity for personal, social, economic, or political reasons, one should not assume that factors operative at the individual level are identical to those operative at the group level. To determine the extent to which a conflict is in fact an ‘ethnic conflict’ is hardly a straightforward exercise. The population of potential cases is quite diverse and often ambiguous owing largely to the absence of a general

Introduction A link with a common territory provides the basis for the perception of historical continuity for the ethnic group. It is in reference to the historic territory that ethnic groups root their collective memories, their heritage, and their traditions. Much use is made of a mythologized history of a classical civilization associated with the homeland. This relationship is so powerful that groups detached from such homelands maintain their symbolic link to it often through the transmission of a nationalist history, folktales, legends, and cultural myths. Where ethnic groups are minorities outside of their traditional homeland, they often face discrimination, which reinforces their group identity around their collective persecution, which in turn intensifies their sense of ethnic identity. Shared culture within ethnic communities provides for ethnic identification. Foremost among cultural commonalities are shared language and religion. Language is often viewed as the most essential criterion for ethnicity, but,

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criteria for the categorization of such conflicts. For example, interethnic conflict ranges from the interaction of competing groups that – at its most bellicose – can take the form of civil wars, to wars between ethnically dissimilar states. Interethnic civil wars include cases such as the dispute among Serbs, Muslims, and Croats in the former Yugoslavia, or the conflicts in Liberia or Sudan; while interethnic interstate wars are epitomized by the Palestine (1948), Suez (1956), Six Day (1967), War of Attrition (1969–70), October (1973), and Lebanese (1982) wars between Israel and various Arab states, or the First (1947) and Second Kashmir (1965), and Bangladesh (1971) wars between India and Pakistan. Ethnicity as a concept is difficult to define, involving, as it does, a group’s perceptions of identity and affinity. Ethnic conflict is also problematic as a category inasmuch as it appears to assume that ethnicity is the most salient issue in conflicts so designated. The presence of ethnicity as a variable does not suggest its centrality as a cause or correlate of intergroup conflict. Since virtually all intergroup conflict involves people possessing distinguishable if not different cultural traits, most intergroup conflicts – including most interstate wars – are ‘ethnic conflicts’; therefore, to label instances of conflict such as ‘ethnic conflicts’ is superfluous. The basic difficulty is that too often scholars seem to implicitly accept the argument that ethnic differences provide the casus belli for these conflicts. For example, sudden convulsions of ‘ethnic violence’, such as in the case of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, are often viewed as resulting from historic cultural gulfs. Hutu and Tutsi have no history of ‘ethnic conflict’ prior to colonization; in fact, they share common language and customs. While the story of Isaac and Ishmael is interesting mythology, Jews and Arabs have not been fighting since antiquity but intermittently since the 1920s. Serbs and Croats hardly fought each other prior to this century. In fact, intermarriage rates were quite high even up to the 1980s. The Sino–Vietnamese conflict of 1979 was not rooted in 1000 years of ethnic enmity but it had more to do with China’s desire to check the Soviet Union’s ally in Hanoi while supporting its own recently deposed ally Pol Pot in Cambodia. Among the more persistent interethnic disputants in the nineteenth century were the Russians and Turks who fought three wars in that century, including the Crimean War from 1853 through 1856, which presumably resulted from Russia’s attempt to protect its fellow Slavs (who were predominantly Christian) and the holy places in Palestine. At the time, the Ottoman Empire was home to millions of Slavs for whom Russia was an important ally since no later than the treaty of Kutchuk-Kainardji (1774); however, politically the empire was dominated by the Turks who were predominately Muslim. The Turks resisted the Russian incursion with the support of France and later Great Britain and Piedmont. However, instead of the ‘ethnic’ label often given to this conflict, a compelling

case can be made that Czar Nicholas simply used the pretext of the protection of Christians and the holy places in Palestine in order to rationalize his territorial demands for the Danubian principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia located within the declining Ottoman Empire. Although cultural dissimilarity among the original belligerents is apparent, this does not demonstrate that ethnic difference was a precipitant to the conflict. Much of the confusion regarding the categorization of disputes as ethnically based or not can be avoided by use of the more appropriate phrase, ‘interethnic conflict’, rather than ‘ethnic conflict’, since the latter appears to suggest that the conflict itself derives from ethnicity instead of the actual issues of the dispute. Often the image of ethnic groups in conflict is an ideological construct of nationalist historians and politicians pursuing their own political ends. Additionally, with multiethnic states being the norm in the system, we would expect an increased incidence of interethnic conflict within and among states if dissimilar ethnic groups were inherently combative. Clearly, interethnic cooperation more than conflict, has been the norm. It is important to understand how the pertinent issues to these conflicts arise and how societies are mobilized around ethnic identity. Heightened emphasis on ethnic exclusivism may generate conflict but how and why that occurs is unclear. Not only must elites assert the salience of ethnic criteria in order to mobilize their societies but the ethnicity argument must strike a cord within the ethnic population in such a way as to compel coethnics to follow. While the motivation to follow is an often neglected and rarely examined aspect of ethnic mobilization, one is reminded that elites can mobilize very disparate communities, and even ‘invent’ communities, and move these societies to conflict. One example is provided by the Italian nationalist D’Azeglio’s famous statement following the wars of unification: ‘‘We have made Italy, now we have to make Italians!’’ Ethnic mobilization presupposes the salience of ethnic identity. An ethnic group has to perceive the political significance of its ethnicity before it can be mobilized for political action. To analyze interethnic conflict one must examine the conditions associated with the increased salience of ethnic identity. Therefore, it is important to pose and answer two questions: (1) What compels groups to mobilize on the basis of ethnicity? (2) To what extent, and under what conditions, are ethnic groups more likely to fight rather than cooperate? The two dominant approaches to interethnic conflict attempt to answer these questions.

Two Dominant Approaches to Interethnic Conflict There are two dominant approaches to the study of interethnic conflict: primordialism and instrumentalism. Primordialists suggest the ubiquity of ethnocentrism.

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Ethnocentrism is the belief that one’s ethnic in-group is superior and that ethnic out-groups are inferior. It also suggests the appropriateness of judging the world from the perspective of one’s own ethnic group. Primordialists argue that the aggression of in-groups toward out-groups is rooted in a primordial urge linking group identity with certain ascriptive characteristics, often ethnicity and/or race. Thus, ethnic identity, in this view, emerges naturally. Primordialists assume that relationships within ingroups are more peaceful, orderly, and supportive while relationships with out-groups are conflictual, anarchic, and destructive. Primordialists insist that ethnic similarity leads to cooperation and ethnic difference leads to interethnic conflict. Few theorists grant wholesale acceptance to primordialist arguments with the exception of sociobiologists following social Darwinist tenets. Instrumentalists posit that interethnic conflict does not emerge from any ‘natural’ division of groups into nations but is the result of elite manipulation of communal appeals in pursuit of their own interests. Instrumentalists conclude that cultural difference does not necessitate conflict, it only makes it easier for elites to move their societies closer to hostility and rivalry. More generally, instrumentalists insist that ethnicity is malleable and its boundaries and content subject to change. Instrumentalists emphasize the instances of positive orientation toward out-groups prevalent throughout social intercourse. Further, in-groups and out-groups are often subgroups within larger social organizations and social integration can encompass previously separated groups. For instrumentalists, ethnicity does not emerge naturally, but is a result of socialization under elite and communal pressures and orientations into the lifeways of one’s dominant community. The socialization process inculcates common language, religion, customs, dress, food, and so on, but it also instills a sense of group fidelity and affinity while simultaneously inculcating a sense of out-group enmity. However, instrumentalists remind us that while powerful, these processes are neither uniform, singular, nor irreversible. Clearly, groups into which persons are socialized are not always the ones they would like to belong to, feel loyalty to, or whose standards they adopt. People have multiple, often crisscrossing identities, and travel and intergroup communication often make these crisscrossing identities more salient than the singular ones that may have resulted from socialization. In fact, individuals are often socialized into groups that are multilingual, cosmopolitan, and quite gregarious toward ethnically dissimilar neighbors. Moreover, there are members who are alienated from their communal groups as well as those who aspire to groups to which they do not belong or those who accept the evaluative standards of an external group. In sum, instrumentalists maintain that primordialists adopt a myopic view of socialization and then promote this unique instance – which should only be

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considered as a special case – as representative of a general tendency. To be sure, socialization is an important mechanism for transferring ethnic amity toward ingroups and enmity toward out-groups; however, instrumentalists maintain – socialization is complex, malleable, and much less invariant than primordialists insist. Not only do instrumentalists emphasize the greater prospect for intergroup cooperation and multiculturalism, but, eschewing the notion of the inherent tendency of ingroup/out-group conflict, they implicitly suggest the dominant role of elite manipulation of cultural difference as a causal factor in interethnic conflict. At the extreme, some instrumentalists suggest that ethnicities are ‘constructed’. Such assessments are only partially correct; for example, a perceived Chinese threat to Bugi, Javanese, and Minangkabau helped fuse those identities into ethnic Malay. While their brethren fight on the subcontinent as rival Hindu and Muslim, in South Africa and Uganda such groups identified primarily as Indians. Nonetheless, the boundary between Malay and Chinese is not imagined nor is the boundary among Acholi, Buganda, and Indian. While ethnic leaders may exploit perceived differences in order to promote their own interests, unless they respond to actual grievances and aspirations their movements flounder. In fact, efforts to ‘construct’ ethnic identities without a cultural basis are often unsuccessful as evinced in the failure to promote the ‘Occitanian’ identity in southern France in the 1960s, or the effort to create a ‘Pandanian’ identity among northern Italians in the 1990s. In sum, primordialists suggest a natural division of humanity into ethnic families that are prone to conflict while instrumentalists focus on the social construction of ethnicity and the role of elite manipulation of cultural difference as important factors in interethnic conflict. Early systematic research on the role of cultural similarity in conflict suggests a relationship between the distribution of ethnic groups and a state’s level of internal conflict. The findings suggest that states that are ethnically diverse are at risk for interethnic conflict; states in which ethnic groups are relatively equally distributed are at highest risk for interethnic conflict; and states that are ethnically homogeneous are the least likely to experience interethnic conflict. On the interstate level the findings have been less persuasive. Early research found, at best, weak relationships between cultural similarity and interstate conflict. Scholars suggested that ethnic similarity often appears to be associated with conflict due to the fact that ethnically similar groups often live close to each other with more opportunities to interact. Recent scholarship has begun to challenge these earlier findings with results that demonstrate that cultural variables are significant predictors to interstate conflict. The two schools, primordialism and instrumentalism, are more ideal types than mutually exclusive frameworks, and most research on interethnic conflict borrows aspects

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of both. Both approaches suggest that ethnocentrism is an important precipitant to interethnic conflict. Synthesizing aspects of both primordialism and instrumentalism, scholars emphasize the role of displacement, territorial imperatives, relative deprivation, and ethnic divisions of labor as factors complicit in motivating ethnic groups to conflict. In the next section, we discuss each of these approaches, in turn, in order to flesh out the rationale motivating ethnic groups to conflict and cooperation.

Explanations of Interethnic Conflict Interethnic conflict has been largely explained by psychological, economic, and political models of conflict in the scholarly literature. Frustration and aggression– displacement models – owing largely to the work of Freud – suggest an animus of in-groups toward outgroups rooted in an innate human proclivity to aggression and group narcissism. Displacement models suggest that interethnic conflict represents a release of accumulated aggression within societies where proscriptions exist against violence toward group members. This violence is displaced to out-groups who are attacked less for material gain but as an outlet for accumulated aggression built up within the society by the inhibition of violence. Displacement is often rationalized through projection, transfer, reinforcement, and pseudospeciation. These rationalizations provide powerful justifications for interethnic conflict and allow in-groups to be unmoved by discriminatory treatment of out-groups. The positive characterization of the in-group is associated with positive effect, and out-groups – which are viewed in opposition to the in-group – are vilified in accordance with the logical requirements of reducing cognitive dissonance. Theorists in this school point out that intergroup violence devolves from the congruence and disparity among beliefs and affective bonds. Other scholars suggest that groups often have incompatible interests and goals and are often in competition for scarce resources. They demur from emphasizing displacement or the external projection of repressed aggression. Lorenz’s work on the territorial imperative in human aggression focuses on what he considered as ‘the drive for territorial acquisition’ as a basis for intergroup conflict. The territorial imperative has evolved from prehistory and serves as an environmental adaptation strategy for group survival in an environment of scarcity. The imperative is manifested in groups facing perceived challenges to scarce resources. The most important scarce resource is land, which provides for the well-being and security of the community. The primary shortcoming of both displacement and territorial imperative models is that since the factors associated with conflict are alleged to be either innate or

constant among human groups then one would expect that interethnic conflict would be an omnipresent phenomena, which it clearly is not. These models fail to explain why intergroup conflict appears to be quite rare for a phenomenon ostensibly resulting from innate human drives and group proclivities. This is a general shortcoming of sociobiological theses on human behavior. Recognizing such difficulties, scholars gave greater emphasis to human volition as well as political, economic, and social factors in explicating interethnic conflict. For example, diversionary models of interethnic conflict suggest that ethnic in-groups often target out-groups in order to foster in-group solidarity through fear of real or imagined external threat. In such instances groups suggest that ethnic difference provides ‘evidence’ of an outgroup’s treachery or disloyalty in order to justify their mistreatment. This is especially prevalent in wartime. The Nazi persecution of Jewish citizens of Germany and the American internment of its citizens of Japanese descent during World War II are examples. Relative deprivation models suggest that interethnic conflict results from perceived disparities between a group’s actual status across some political, economic, or social dimension and its desired status with respect to other groups. These models suggest that a group’s disposition, aspirations, and grievances are dependent upon the frame of reference in which they are conceived. They weigh their status and objectives in terms of a reference group. When a group views a reference group to be relatively more prosperous, a feeling of deprivation emerges that provides a basis for group mobilization. A prominent source of relative deprivation is the extent of economic inequality and the differences in political opportunities in a society. This sort of intergroup envy is considered to be the necessary condition for intergroup conflict and civil strife, more generally. Relative deprivation is a latent disposition that is brought into actuality by mediating factors that allow for the politicization of group frustration. Politicization is more likely when normative justifications for political violence persist or when norms condemning violence are absent. Such justification may range from glorifications of violence such as that found in the works of Sorel and Fanon to proscriptions of violence such as those promulgated by Gandhi and King. Opportunities provided by alternative channels for collective action may also mediate conflict. Finally, the concentration of power with respect to the state and dissidents is an important factor. The relationship appears curvilinear with conflict more likely where power balances are relatively equal and less likely when they are skewed. Where power is more evenly concentrated, frustrated groups have the resources to effectively challenge the state and the propensity for civil strife is likely to be high. Where power differentials are low, the society is highly atomized and organized groups can more easily

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overthrow the state. Where power concentration is skewed in favor of the state, dissidents are restrained by both the low likelihood of victory and the fear of quick suppression. Relative deprivation theorists provide a plausible rationale for intergroup violence; however, they have been less successful at providing the threshold value or critical point at which deprivation leads to conflict. Therefore, it is difficult to operationalize and test the core tenets of the model. Models such as these have been useful in explaining intergroup conflict in general but they have been less effective when applied to interethnic conflict. More successful models have focused on the factors giving rise to the creation of ethnic identity and ethnic mobilization. Discrimination that generates ethnic divisions of labor is probably the most significant inducement to ethnic mobilization. Ethnic divisions of labor exist where differences in economic status and occupational specialization reflect ethnic identity. Uneven economic development may give rise to ethnic divisions of labor. On the other hand, racial and ethnic divisions can be used by elites to divide the working class and prevent worker solidarity while increasing profits by maintaining a reservoir of replacement labor. In such systems, higher status occupations are reserved for the dominant ethnic group while other ethnic groups are lower on the occupational hierarchy. Economic differences, or class difference, come to reflect ethnic differences and shared economic niches reinforce ethnic divisions of labor. Ethnic divisions of labor may have a less pernicious origin, emerging from inducements created by socioeconomic transitions, especially those generated from industrialization. In such situations, ethnic mobilization is a response to structural changes wrought from industrialization and urbanization wherein altruism toward communities of origin (defined largely on the basis of ascriptive criteria) provides a basis for distribution networks. Such networks furnish incentives for cooperation among individuals with a common position in the division of labor. Emerging political structures in such transitional societies then provide the opportunities for ethnic mobilization. Regardless of their origins, it is clear that economic discrimination in such systems becomes, by definition, ethnic discrimination. Therefore, the more intense and prevalent the economic discrimination the more likely that affected groups will mobilize in response to it. However, because of the overlap between ethnicity and class the mobilization can easily take on an ethnic flavor and economic demands can be made in the name of the ethnic group. In addition, those who resist these demands are more likely to consist of the more privileged economic/ethnic groups. Such groups are likely to be viewed as protecting their own favored economic and

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ethnic position. The resultant economic dispute is very likely to take on an ethnic dimension. A recent example is provided by the Liberian Civil War. Master Sergeant Doe’s policies following his 1980 coup included the staffing of administrative posts with his Krahn coethnics and the dismissal of Gio and Mano officials from administrative posts. Rivals in the civil war reflected the interethnic antipathies resulting from Doe’s selective staffing and discrimination. The irony is that the Krahn ethnic identity, only about 100 years in existence, emerged primarily from the division of Liberia into administrative sections during Americo–Liberian hegemony. It follows that the Liberian civil war is less an ‘ethnic conflict’ born of ‘ancient antipathies’ than a conflict in which ethnicity has become politicized through mobilization that emerged as a response to discriminatory staffing decisions. Whether rooted in instrumental or primordial motivations – displacement, territorial imperatives, relative deprivation, or ethnic divisions of labor – ethnic identification can provide a powerful base from which groups mobilize for collective action. The political goals of such ethnic mobilization largely – although not exclusively – determine the extent to which interethnic violence will obtain. Where ethnic mobilization is accompanied by nationalism the results are often violent. It is such ethnically based nationalisms that are related to the most intense and severe interethnic conflicts.

Political Goals in Interethnic Conflict The form that interethnic conflict takes is dependent on the political goals of the ethnic group, the political opportunity structures of the state where the mobilization occurs, and the extent of international involvement in the dispute. Probably the most important factor in interethnic conflict is the political goal of the ethnic group because that will largely determine the response of the state to its demands. In a more democratic political system one would expect a greater likelihood of accommodation and compromise with the mobilized interests of ethnic groups rather than outright repression. However, a state’s response is not solely determined by regime type, it also depends on the state’s economic capacity. If a state is unable or disinclined to accommodate what are perceived to be economic demands of mobilized ethnic groups, it may pursue a policy of repression and in that way exacerbate the incipient interethnic conflict. A state’s policy is also likely to reflect its past and present treatment of the mobilized ethnic group. Repression is more likely to accompany demands by groups that have faced historic or current discrimination. Beyond the state, external factors such as the presence of powerful ethnic allies in contiguous states will shape a state’s response to internal

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ethnic groups’ demands. Initially, though, the political goals of the ethnic group such as domination, inclusion, or autonomy will largely determine the dimensions of the conflict. Domination is quite common in practice, though inclusion is often provided in varying degrees; however, the pursuit of autonomy is the most conflict-prone political goal of a mobilized ethnic group. That domination as a political goal is so prevalent may seem counterintuitive at first glance; however, when one remembers that most states are multiethnic, notwithstanding the malapropism of ‘nation-state’, it is plain to see that in most countries ethnic domination of some sort is practiced. For example, in Britain the English dominate the Irish, Scots, and Welsh. Punjabis dominate minority ethnic groups in Pakistan. Persians dominate Azeri and Kurdish ethnic groups in Iran. European-Americans dominate African, Puerto Rican, and Mexican Americans in the United States. Han Chinese dominate other ethnic groups in China as surely as Russians dominated the multitudinous ethnic groups of the former Soviet Union. Domination refers to control of the state apparatus and the allocation of state resources, especially those governing the opportunities available to ethnic communities. Where membership and participation in the polity is restricted to the dominant group such as in the case for whites in South Africa under apartheid, subordination is usually manifested as de jure recognition of ethnic groups with de facto marginalization of ethnic out-groups. Palestinians in Israel have formal rights such as voting, holding political office, and due process although in practice they are a marginalized group that is effectively ostracized from political power and economic opportunity. Similarly, ethnic Chinese have citizenship in Malaysia and even have a political party in government. However, Malay dominance is maintained and reflected in the status of Malay as the official language, Islam as the state religion, a Malay sultan as head of state, and Bumiputra policies in the country affording Malay preferences in education, employment, government contracts, and sources of capital and credit. Often, ethnic groups aspire to inclusion on a nondiscriminatory basis within the host state. Civil rights movements such as those of African-Americans in the 1960s pursue the dismantling of discriminatory policies and practices in government, employment, housing, and education, while often promoting a multicultural model of society with equality of opportunity for nondominant ethnic groups. Such programs may also lead toward proportional representation, consociations, and powersharing strategies within states. These policies may also engender revanchism by a dominant group unwilling to cede the status quo. Such revanchism is evident among South African and American whites facing vastly altered multicultural societies.

Autonomy is the quest for political independence such as in a federal system as pursued by Quebecois in Canada or accomplished by the Flemish and Walloons in Belgium. A more violent form of autonomy occurs when ethnic groups pursue secession in order to form their own autonomous states. This process involves mobilization through appeals to ethnic nationalism. Nationalism is the view that the political and the cultural unit should be congruent. Self-determination is the doctrine that national groups have the right to decide which political authority will represent or rule them. It is recognized in international law and was articulated to recognize the right of ethnic groups against foreign domination. Ethnic nationalism asserts this right of self-determination for the ethnic group, and usually maintains that the group has a right to possess a sovereign state. The nation is the largest identity group to which most individuals swear fealty. As such, there is a shift of the amity/enmity of primary groups to the ‘nation-state’. The relationship that emerges engenders patriotism within the new states while breeding ethnocentrism and intolerance toward ethnic outgroups within their territorial boundaries. When ethnicity becomes the basis of nationalist mobilization, that is, where ethnic groups mobilize for political autonomy and the possession of a state; the potential for interethnic conflict is heightened. Many of the wars of this century were the result of either groups pursuing selfdetermination or states denying it. After World War II, such struggles for national self-determination often took the form of wars against colonial domination (e.g., in Vietnam, Algeria, Kenya, Mozambique, Angola, and Guinea-Bissau). Colonialism or imperialism also often has a strong ethnocentrist element. Colonial powers often rationalized their subjugation of colonized peoples on the basis of the latter’s alleged cultural inferiority. For example, the colonial subjugation of African peoples was rationalized as part of ‘the white man’s burden’ to ‘civilize’ Africans instead of a racist foreign policy that violated the sovereignty of nations and the human rights of ethnic groups on the African continent. It is not clear at what point an ethnic group becomes a nation. A nation is often conceived simply as a selfconscious ethnic group determined to possess a state. The designation of a group as either a nation or an ethnic group can be quite arbitrary and often reflects ideological concerns and the relative power of the groups contending. Often nationalist groups insist on their groups’ nationalist claims while simultaneously denying that right to other groups. The relationship is referred to as the ABC paradox. The ABC paradox is a condition wherein nation B invokes the principle of self-determination against nation A but denies it to nation C. For example, Bengalis in Bangladesh fought Pakistan for their independent state but now repress the calls for autonomy from the largely Buddhist (Bengalis are largely Muslim) Chakmas of the

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Chittagong Hill region. These groups have suffered governmental discrimination, including forced relocation, murder, rape, and the desecration of their religious centers. Jews in various European states following the Nazi genocide pursued Zionism (Jewish nationalism) to establish the state of Israel in the former Palestine mandate. Once established on the basis of the right of Zionist selfdetermination, they rejected the national status of ethnic Palestinians and denied the legitimacy of Palestinian nationalism. Kurds seeking the establishment of an independent Kurdish state (Kurdistan) view themselves as a nation, while Iraqi, Iranian, and Syrian leaders consider them as a nettlesome ethnic group within their territorial boundaries. In Turkey not only is Kurdish nationality denied but the Kurdish ethnic identity is denied by Turkish political elites who refer to Kurds in their state as ‘mountain Turks’. A reverse process is at work in Bulgaria where the existence of ethnic Turks is denied and their population of over 1 million is referred to as ‘Islamicized Bulgarians’. Similarly, Polish nationalists during the interwar years simply refused to accept that there was a Ukrainian nationality within their state. Descendants of Dutch settlers in South Africa viewed themselves as a distinct nationality and even appropriated the name African (Afrikaner) for themselves while denying the national status of the Zulu, Xhosa, Ndebele, and other Africans who peopled the area, referring to them as Bantu. It should be clear then that a state’s policy toward its cultural groups may dampen or increase the likelihood of interethnic conflict. On the other hand, discriminatory and repressive policies aimed at indigenous groups are likely to exacerbate interethnic tensions. This is tantamount to the pursuit of a domination strategy by the dominant culture group within the state. The pursuit of autonomy by a dominant group within a state may take the form of irredentism – the pursuit of the acquisition of the population and/or territory with which a group or state suggests it is culturally associated. The concept is derived from the Italian irredenta (unredeemed) territories of Trente, Dalmatia, Trieste, and Fiume which though ethnically Italian remained under Austrian or Swiss rule following the unification of Italy. Today, as in the past, irredentism is one of the more violent forms of interethnic conflict. For example, Somalia’s attempt to annex the territory and populations of ethnic Somali in the Ogaden region of Ethiopia led to the bloody Ogaden War in the Horn of Africa. Even Hitler invoked irredentist claims in his annexation of Austria and occupation of the Sudeten region of Czechoslovakia. In this way irredentism, a form of interethnic conflict, was a precipitant to World War II. Regardless of the political goals of groups, regimes, or third parties, mobilizations based in ethnic nationalist demands are the most conflict prone because (1) group

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members often identify intensely with ethnic nationalist demands and are willing to make great sacrifices to achieve them; (2) such mobilizations more often generate state repression; and (3) they invite third-party intervention to quell the conflict that often risks spilling over into neighboring territories especially when refugees from the conflict flow across state borders. However, other political, economic, and cultural factors, as well, seem to increase the likelihood of conflict between ethnic groups. The prominence of several of these factors in instigating interethnic conflicts has led scholars to regard them as early warning indicators of interethnic conflict.

Early Warning Indicators of Interethnic Conflict With the violent potential of interethnic conflict so readily apparent, scholars have begun to focus on early warning indicators of potential interethnic conflict. These indicators are evident in the political, economic, and cultural relationships between groups within and across states. Political factors include the type of political regime, the extent of multipartyism, democratization, and alliance ties. Democracies, to the extent that they offer diverse channels for political interests and various bases for mobilization, tend to ameliorate interethnic tension. However, in underdeveloped states, multipartyism, which is often associated with democracy, tends to instability. Often this is owed to the congruence of political party membership and ethnic identity. In such an arrangement, elections are little more than censuses and political interests are defined in ethnic terms. In some political systems where ethnicity determines representation actual censuses may be destabilizing since they determine the disposition of political spoils and the control of the political apparatus (e.g., Lebanon, Nigeria). Since autocracies use repression to check ethnic mobilization, the incidence of interethnic conflict may appear low. This, it is argued, is how Stalin was alleged to have kept a lid on the interethnic rivalries in the Soviet Union. However, one should remember that in autocratic regimes interethnic conflict usually takes the form of the targeting of ethnic groups by the state. In such situations what results is often democide (state-sanctioned murder of its citizens) or genocide (state-sanctioned murder of specific cultural groups) such as was attempted by Stalin against the Ukrainians, or by the Hutu against the Tutsi most recently in Rwanda, and by Tutsi against Hutu previously in Burundi. Clearly, autocracy is associated with interethnic conflict; however, democratization in autocratic regimes may be an early warning indicator of interethnic conflict as well. Recent history reinforces the notion that the breakdown of the political order associated with transitions

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from autocracy can exacerbate cultural fissures in the short term as groups seek to fill the power vacuum resulting from the declining authoritarian power by mobilizing on the basis of identity. In the presence of institutional breakdown, multilateral assistance that does not include arms transfers to any party appears to be associated with reduced interethnic conflict while unilateral aid that includes the provision of arms is associated with an increased likelihood of interethnic conflict. Regardless of regime type, states that utilize ethnic criteria for citizenship are more likely to experience interethnic conflict. The imposition of a state religion or language in a manner that restricts the political participation of culture groups often augurs interethnic strife. Suppression of dissent, discriminatory legislation, the denial of citizenship rights to members of targeted cultural groups, the failure to redress discriminatory practices, and the failure to prosecute those who engage in discriminatory practices are also precursors of interethnic conflict. Among the economic early warning indicators, the most prominent is the development of ethnic divisions of labor. Conflict is more likely when groups move out of traditional spheres and contend for occupations where they were historically barred or where the dominant group does not intend to cede entry. In the first half of this century, recently urbanized African-Americans who left the rural South and the traditional plantation economies were set upon by European Americans intent on preventing their access to urban factory jobs. The Notting-Hill riots in Britain were a similar instance of this sort of interethnic conflict. A similar process is evident today with regard to Turks in Germany and Mahgrebins in France. Ethnic divisions of labor may also inoculate societies from interethnic conflict by providing occupational niches for immigrant ethnic groups. It is important to remember, though, that an ethnic division of labor is always potentially a basis for ethnic mobilization especially in the presence of perceived economic discrimination. Cultural early warning indicators include the distribution of ethnic groups within states. States that are very diverse usually are not threatened because the organization of ethnic groups as coalitions is usually required for political action and to the extent that such coalition building is not dominated by a single group then it probably will not engender ethnocentrism. Homogenous states do not have significant ethnic fault lines to experience the violent cultural tectonics necessary for interethnic conflict; however, they may experience other types of conflict. For example, Somalia consists primarily of ethnic Somalis and is one of the most homogenous states in the world; nonetheless, it disintegrated due to the intraethnic violence of rival clans.

Moderate levels of homogeneity appear to be the most conflict-prone especially where the groups are interspersed and not simply concentrated in one region. Regional concentrations can be more effectively managed by elites but may also concentrate ethnic power in such a way that secession is pursued. The dispersal of groups results in ethnic intermingling that may reduce interethnic tensions and even allow for assimilation. On the other hand, in interspersed communities increased interaction also provides greater opportunities for conflict and ethnic sparks may lead to conflagrations that quickly spread and are less amenable to elite management. Further, refugee flows may upset fragile interethnic balances in interspersed regions providing justifications for elites intent on scapegoating immigrant groups. In addition, a history of ethnic discrimination, previous interethnic conflict, the teaching of ethnocentric history, and the popularization of ethnic discrimination in the media are warning signs of interethnic conflict. The best predictor to future interethnic conflict is previous interethnic conflict. The teaching of ethnocentric history persists largely due to the fact that, often, history is written to justify, rationalize, and celebrate conquest and subjugation. In the United States, the struggle to provide multicultural curricula is part of the process of challenging the ethnocentric curriculum that has been prevalent throughout its educational system. In South Africa, white violence accompanied black students’ resistance to the teaching of the white settler’s language, Afrikaans, in their schools. An extreme case of the impact of the popularization of ethnic discrimination in the media is provided by the Rwandan case where radio broadcasts not only fomented the genocide in that country but included instructions for its execution. For many theorists, these examples provide evidence that states across the range of levels of development are vulnerable to some form of interethnic conflict. Prevention, mediation, and intervention in interethnic conflict require paying attention to these and other early warning indicators. Failure to attend to such indicators often leads to the intensification and expansion of interethnic conflict.

The Expansion of Interethnic Conflict Research suggests that the most violent intergroup conflicts begin with a dispute over some value-related issue that leads to crisis. A study by Vasquez demonstrates that crises intensify and disputes expand as a function of several factors: territorial contiguity, alliances, rivalry, contagion, and a breakdown of the political order. These factors intensify rivalry and lead to contagion in situations of political breakdown such as in the former Yugoslavia and in the Great Lakes region of Africa. Interethnic conflict appears to follow a similar epidemiology.

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Contiguity is one factor in interethnic conflict insofar as opportunities for conflict are increased as a function of the increased number of interaction opportunities provided by proximity. For example, the contiguity of Kurdistan with Syria, Turkey, Iran, and Iraq is such that conflict among Kurds and their rivals often spills over into other states. The same can be said for the conflict in the Great Lakes region in Africa where refugee flows from interethnic conflict in Rwanda spilled over and exacerbated the Tutsi-inspired rebellion in southeastern Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) and has led to refugee-related conflicts with Tanzania, Uganda, and Burundi. Clearly, Greek and Turkish contiguity has been an important factor in exacerbating the conflict in Cyprus just as Great Britain’s proximity to Ireland exacerbates the conflict in Ulster. Vietnam’s proximity to Cambodia provided access for Hanoi’s invasion and overthrow of the Khmer Rouge in the face of Pol Pot’s repression of ethnic Vietnamese. One may argue that geographical neighbors are more likely to be both culturally similar and prone to conflict. Common borders and territorial contiguity being such powerful factors in interstate conflict, it follows that cultural cousins have a higher probability of being involved in disputes, especially disputes over territory. This argument suggests that interethnic conflict is overstated and that since cultural cousins are more often neighbors, and neighbors are more likely to fight, distance over ethnicity is the significant variable in interethnic conflict. This hearkens back to the territorial imperative arguments of Lorenz and the ethologists. The role of alliances in spreading interethnic conflict is apparent as well. For example, alliances between Tamil separatists and the Indian government have played a role in the internationalization of the interethnic conflict in Sri Lanka. In the 1990s, the Tamil Tigers and other separatist Tamil organizations maintained offices in India while New Delhi air-dropped relief supplies to respond to the (Sinhalese dominated) Sri Lankan government’s military offensive against Tamils in the Jaffna peninsula. In this way alliances between Tamils (mainly Hindu) and India served to intensify and expand the conflict prior to a short-lived Indian sponsored cease-fire. The role of alliances is also manifest in the genocide of the Armenians by the Young Turks during World War I. While neighboring Greece could oversee the treatment of their coethnics along the Greek–Turkish border, Armenians were without a coethnic state to protect their welfare and to offer a countervailing force against Turkish oppression of its minority citizens. The interethnic violence that ensued resulted in the killing of more than 1 million Armenians. The presence of alliances between repressive governments and other states may also increase interethnic conflict as countries turn their backs on their allies’ treatment of their ethnic minorities. This was especially

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evident during the Cold War where Western states supported regimes repressing their ethnic minorities such as those in the former Zaire and the Philippines in attempts to balance perceived Soviet threats. A similar argument can be made for Israel’s treatment of its Palestinians and apartheid South Africa’s treatment of its African citizens. Both states’ discriminatory policies were rationalized in the West on the basis that they were bastions of anticommunism in regions that were viewed as strategically or at least economically important to Western interests. Among the worst examples, the presence of great power alliance links with the Indonesian government is associated with the seldom-cited state-sponsored genocide of East Timorisians in Indonesia. Hardly an exclusive phenomenon of Western foreign policy, a similar relationship was evident in the case of Soviet support for Ethiopia, which overlooked Amharic dominance of Eritreans, Oromos, and Tigraens. Similarly, Communist China, in their ongoing rivalry with Vietnam, supported Pol Pot’s repressive regime in Cambodia, which committed genocide against its own people as well as thousands of ethnic Vietnamese. Factors such as contiguity and alliances intensify and expand interethnic conflict and create enduring rivalry between ethnic belligerents. Rivalry in interethnic disputes leads to a rigidity in decision making that reflects the difficulty of resolving conflicts associated with the often transcendent stakes of interethnic conflict. Rivalry allows interethnic disputes to persist as compromise with ethnic rivals becomes indefensible. Those who undertake such compromises are often viewed as ‘selling out’ to historic enemies. Concessions may generate reprisals from one’s own communal group as was evident in the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, by a Jewish fundamentalist as he pursued negotiations with the Palestinians. A little more than a decade earlier Islamic fundamentalists assassinated the Egyptian head of state, Anwar Sadat, after he had negotiated a peace accord with Israel. Interethnic rivalries often take on a zero-sum form as issues and stakes in disputes become less concrete and are infused with symbolic value and transcendent quality. Such stakes become less tangible, less resolvable, and more contentious. What results is the use of punishment strategies to force concessions from the opponent. However, such strategies usually result in increased rigidity on the part of the rival. Further, leaders may risk losing their reputations for credibility if they compromise such transcendent issues. These cultural factors intensify all stakes by increasing the symbolic value of issues, inducing cognitive rigidity on the part of the antagonists, creating a context where positions are assumed to be consistent with identity instead of divorced from them. In such an instance parties are less concerned with ‘what one believes’ and are more concerned with ‘to what group one belongs’.

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Disputes over territory are the most likely to be associated with conflict for two related reasons. First, land provides the demarcation for the state itself, and thus provides an important dimension of a state’s sovereign identity. In addition, a state’s chief function is to provide for the security and welfare of the inhabitants of its territory. Security, in its most fundamental sense, is the protection from territorial incursions by foreign powers, and social welfare is largely a function of the capacity of the land to provide the material subsistence upon which the inhabitants’ well-being relies. The fact that territory provides a basis for these fundamental political and economic requisites creates a condition whereby land is the cardinal resource for states. Evidence of this fact is provided by empirical work that demonstrates that territorial issues are most likely to give rise to violent interstate conflict. Since land is such a valued resource its redistribution is usually only accomplished following armed conflict. Nonetheless, redistributions of land in the post-World War II era have often been nonviolent, especially in the period of decolonization. This leads to our second point with regard to the significance of territory in interethnic conflict. In such cases, land, already a highly valued resource, is often imbued with culturally endowed qualities making its dispensation even more contentious and difficult. Endowed with symbolic value in the context of interethnic disputes, such territorial issues are among the most intractable and enduring in world history. One need only reflect on the ongoing struggles regarding the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim ‘holy lands’ in the Middle East to appreciate how nettlesome such interethnic disputes become. Such struggles are hardly amenable to the usual ‘give and take’ of mediation required to resolve complex issues. The convergence of cultural, political, and economic factors in interethnic territorial disputes may help to explain why irredentist and secessionist struggles are often so persistent and violent. Interethnic conflict seems to intensify intergroup conflict in at least two ways. First, cultural values infuse the issues of the dispute with symbolic and transcendent qualities. In such instances decision makers are compelled to become more rigid and inflexible as concrete stakes take on symbolic value. Second, cultural factors infuse territory, the most conflict-prone agent in a dispute, with transcendental value and therefore intensify its already conflict-prone nature, making it more intangible and making disputes regarding it more irresolvable. These types of barriers to conflict resolution are emblematic of interethnic conflicts while they are assumed to be mitigated in disputes within ethnic groups. The accumulation of intractable disputes leads to enduring interethnic conflicts. Such persistent interethnic conflict may lead to institutional breakdown as has occurred in Lebanon and in the former Yugoslavia. Political opportunity is provided by institutional

breakdown as political access becomes unlimited and unrestrained competition emerges approximating a Hobbesian state of nature. Scholars emphasize that political decay (especially of empires such as the Soviet Union or Austria–Hungary) often creates an institutional vacuum that resembles the global anarchy. Under such conditions, what results is a sort of ethnic group security dilemma wherein the ‘groupness’ of one set of individuals is perceived as inherently threatening to another. In such situations the security of the ethnic group is often viewed primarily as a function of its group solidarity and its military capability. Group solidarity reinforces military capability and strong group identity is viewed as necessary to group survival while threatening to other groups. In such environments interethnic cooperation is difficult. However, even in the case of societal transformation the resultant competition for political resources does not necessarily result in interethnic violence. Czechoslovakia’s ‘Velvet Divorce’ is one of the rare instances of a relatively nonviolent resolution of interethnic disputes in the context of societal transformation – in this case secession. Nonetheless, the combination of these factors – territorial contiguity, alliances, rivalry, contagion, and a breakdown of the political order – often results in an expansion of the conflict beyond the original belligerents. Strategies to reduce the likelihood of the expansion of interethnic conflict involve the attenuation of the factors associated with the enlargement of the violence. Moreover, multilateral peacemaking may be an important strategy to contain and reduce interethnic conflict. Both peacemaking and peacekeeping have shown some success in reducing the short-term violence associated with interethnic conflict to the extent that such interventions have provided buffers between antagonists such as in the conflicts in the Middle East and Cambodia. In the long term, however, it is important to foster cooperative environments among groups within and across states. The requisites for interethnic cooperation are briefly outlined in the following section.

Interethnic Cooperation First, we are reminded that interethnic cooperation occurs quite frequently in societies and is the modal form of interethnic activity. However, interethnic cooperation is more difficult where scarce resources are sought by competing groups as is usually the case in most modern states. Since most states are multiethnic, state leaders must be vigilant in their pursuit and advocacy of nondiscriminatory policies in their societies. For this reason, interethnic cooperation is largely a function of purposive policies aimed at reducing interethnic tensions and eliminating exploitable opportunities for elite manipulation of ethnic divisions. Actual or perceived

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discrimination is probably the most important factor in interethnic conflict because it provides the basis for the perceived need to recognize the salience of ethnicity and to mobilize around ethnic identity. Interethnic cooperation is not only incumbent upon the timely identification and response to early warning indicators of interethnic conflict; but Horowitz’s research suggests several strategies by which to contain, limit, channel, and manage interethnic conflict and to promote cooperation. These strategies include: dispersal, promotion of intraethnic over interethnic cleavages, coalition policies, promotion of nonethnic cleavages, and reducing disparities between ethnic groups. Dispersal may take the form of developing a federal system wherein political spoils and opportunities are not defined simply by one group’s possession of the political center. In such a system ethnic group interests – hence ethnic mobilization – will not converge around the center, attending instead to the diverse and dispersed points of power within the system. Interethnic conflict, then, may seem less a zero-sum game exacerbated by a sense of urgency born of fears of political subjugation. Conflicts that do emerge may be localized and losses in one area may be offset by gains in others. States may also attempt to foster intraethnic divisions in order to offset interethnic conflict. This policy intends that allegedly more benign subethnic identification competes with and undermines more overarching and more deadly ethnic group identification. Social class or region may be emphasized as countervailing pressures to ethnic identity. One shortcoming is that such a policy runs the risk of intensifying intraethnic cleavages leading to violence within groups that may spill over into larger domains. Electoral inducements such as consociationalism and proportional representation may promote interethnic coalitions that may foster cooperation. Since cooperation is more likely under more open political structures and healthy economic conditions, policies of liberalization and growth are often promoted as strategies for violence reduction. While democracy is not immune from interethnic conflict, it is associated with decreased levels of interethnic strife. On the other hand, there is a scholarly consensus that autocratic political structures engender state repression while economic downturns provide the opportunity for scapegoating targeted ethnic groups such as was the case in interwar Germany. However, interethnic cooperation is also possible in single-party and poor states such as in Nyerere’s Tanzania. In sum, state leaders can reduce the likelihood and impact of interethnic violence by pursuing policies that provide redress for previous wrongs while promoting antidiscriminatory policy in the present. States can ensure open political processes and timely prosecution of those who perpetrate violence against culture groups. They

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can also promote a rigorous public discourse on how best to resolve interethnic issues and promote free participation in a broad range of voluntary and public organizations for their citizenry. This usually requires the skillful management of different issue areas, as well as different policy domains (e.g., domestic constituents and foreign audiences). The prospects for the reduction of interethnic tension appear greater in more democratic, economically stable, and culturally nonpolarized societies. The international community also has an important role to play in interethnic relations as states fulfill their responsibility under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and intervene in cases of widespread interethnic conflict. States should insist on the physical protection of culture groups and should encourage governments to provide equal protection under the law to all of their citizens. States should also provide legal assistance to governments acting in good faith that require technical assistance to strengthen their legal systems. They can speak out against violations of norms regarding the treatment of culture groups and should protest, censure, condemn, and sanction those states not in compliance with such norms. States can also help to provide an international clearinghouse on the treatment of culture groups through IGOs and NGOs in order to peacefully resolve interethnic conflicts. All told, policies intended to mitigate interethnic tensions must attend to the political, economic, and cultural factors that give rise to interethnic disputes and seek strategies to resolve these issues at the individual, state, regional, and global system level. The most important factors include the attenuation of discriminatory policies at the state level and the promotion of human rights through multilateral intervention at the international level. The scholarship on interethnic conflict suggests that multidimensional approaches appear best suited to create an environment conducive to the mulitcultural flourishing of human societies.

Conclusion Interethnic conflict is neither ubiquitous nor irresolvable; however, it does pose a persistent problem to the multiethnic states that comprise our global system. It appears that attempts to reduce the incidence of such conflict should attend to the issues around which ethnic groups mobilize. Once we determine the issues under dispute we will be better equipped to resolve the conflicts that arise from them. This approach demands that analysts not assume out of hand that ethnic difference is the main factor ‘causing’ interethnic conflict. There is little evidence to support the contention that either interethnic similarity or dissimilarity is associated with civil or

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international conflict. Nonetheless, certain factors appear to be associated with what is commonly conceived as interethnic conflict. The overlapping of language, religion, and ethnicity within nondemocratic systems with ethnic divisions of labor and a history of past and current discrimination seem to be associated with the increased incidence of interethnic conflict. The reduction, management, or prevention of interethnic conflict appears to require the reduction of these characteristics and conditions. Interethnic cooperation requires attentiveness on the part of state leaders to abjure discriminatory policies, to redress past wrongs, to provide for political representation and economic opportunity, to foster multicultural education, and to assist in the promotion of an international environment that is conducive to the peaceful resolution of disputes. See also: Clan and Tribal Conflict; Cultural Anthropology Studies of Conflict; Enemy, Concept and Identity of; Ethnicity and Identity Politics; Prevention of Violent Conflict by Structural Accommodation; Ritual and Symbolic Behavior; Territorial Disputes; Violent Conflict: Contemporary Warfare, Mass Violence and Genocide Dataset 1985–2005, Typologies, and Trends

Further Reading Banton, M. (2000). Ethnic conflict. Sociology 34(3), 481–498. Bercovitch, J. (2003). Managing internationalized ethnic conflict: Evaluating the role and relevance of mediation. World Affairs 166(1), 56–68.

Brown, C. and Karim, F. (eds.) (1995). Playing the ‘communal card.’ Communal violence and human rights. New York: Human Rights Watch. Brown, M. (ed.) (1994). Ethnic conflict and international security. Princeton, NJ: Princeton. Esman, M. (1992). Ethnic politics. Ithaca, NY: Cornell. Fox, J. (2002). Ethnic minorities and the clash of civilizations: A quantitative analysis of Huntington’s thesis. British Journal of Political Science 32(3), 415–434. Galvan, D. (2006). Joking kinship as a syncretic institution. Cahiers d’Etudes Africaines 46(4), 809–834. Gurr, T. (ed.) (1993). Minorities at risk: A global view of ethnopolitical conflict. Washington, DC: US Institute of Peace. Gurr, T. and Harff, B. (1994). Ethnic conflict in world politics. New York: Westview. Henderson, E. (1997). Culture or contiguity: ‘Ethnic conflict,’ the similarity of states, and the onset of war, 1820–1989. Journal of Conflict Resolution 41(5), 649–668. Henderson, E. A. (2000). When states implode: The correlates of Africa’s civil wars, 1950–92. Studies in Comparative International Development 35(2), 28–47. Horowitz, D. (1985). Ethnic groups in conflict. Los Angeles: University of California. Huntington, S. (1996). The clash of civilizations and the remaking of world order. New York: Simon & Schuster. Mazrui, A. (1990). Cultural forces in world politics. London: James Currey. Midlarsky, M. (ed.) (1992). The internationalization of communal strife. New York: Routledge. Ryan, S. (1995). Ethnic conflict and international relations, 2nd edn. Brookfield, VT: Dartmouth. Sambanis, N. (2000). Partition as a solution to ethnic war: An empirical critique of the theoretical literature. World Politics 52(4), 437–483. Tiryakian, E. A. (2004). Introduction: Comparative perspectives on ethnicity and ethnic conflicts. International Journal of Comparative Sociology 45(3–4), 147–159. Wimmer, A. (2003). Democracy and ethno-religious conflict in Iraq. Survival 45(4), 111–134.

Ethnicity and Identity Politics Colin Wayne Leach, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK Lisa M Brown, Austin College, Sherman, TX, USA Ross E Worden, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction The Role of Ethnic Identity and Politics in Conflict The Dialectics of Ethnic Identity Politics

Glossary Affirmative Action An umbrella term for policies and programs that recruit subordinate groups, such as women, people with disabilities, and people of certain ethnic groups, for educational and occupational opportunities.

Conclusion Further Reading

Dominant Group A group within a society that has high status and/or disproportionate control over power and resources. In-group A group to which a person feels he or she belongs.

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Majority Group A subgroup of people that consists of the larger part of a specified population. Minority Group A subgroup of people that consists of the smaller of two or more groups from a given population.

Introduction Many believe political activity centered around ethnic identity is a major source of divisive conflict in the world today. Some scholars argue that the world is in the throes of an ethnic revival that threatens to wrench apart established systems of order. The apparent increase in ethnicity-based solidarity and political activity is most often attributed to the opportunity presented by recent shifts in the nature of political, economic, and moral authority. Some argue that the dissolution of several multi-ethnic states, such as the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia, has opened the way for a new wave of ethnic group mobilization in places like Uzbekistan, Latvia, Slovakia, Croatia, and Serbia. As in the period of rapid African, Asian, and Caribbean decolonization in the middle of the twentieth century, ethnic identity appears to have become the currency of deferred aspirations for political, economic, and cultural empowerment. This is no less true within existing nation-states as groups like the Basque in Spain, the Hutu in Rwanda, the Tamil in Sri Lanka, and the Flemish in Belgium use ethnic identity to mobilize and maneuver people in order to challenge existing societal arrangements. In this age of political, economic, and moral uncertainty, many view the politics of ethnic identity as an attempt by those with little power to affirm their threatened identities and to assert their claims for material resources and political clout. For most subordinate groups their main bargaining tool is the threat of societal instability. As such, ethnic identity politics constitute a threat to established authorities and centralizing values, such as individual rights, majority rule, and a homogeneous national identity, that are the basis of these authorities’ governance. Thus, in the popular view, it is the groups small in number, low in power, and hungry for resources – such as the Chechens in Russia, the Catholic–Irish in Ulster, the Que´be´cois in Canada, native peoples in North America, indigenous groups in Latin America – that assert ethnic identity as a political strategy by which their lots can be improved. This view of ethnic identity politics frames ethnic identity as a tool used by the politically less powerful

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Out-group A group to which a person feels that he or she does not belong. Subordinate Group A group within a society that has limited access to power, resources, and social status.

to oppose the status quo. The perception is that subordinate or minority ethnic groups are the causes of divisive conflict. However, this perspective leaves unexamined the role of ethnicity and identity politics in the construction and maintenance of political power by majority and dominant groups. Rather than being solely ‘a weapon of the weak’, ethnic identity politics also may be central to modern forms of state formation and maintenance. For example, the early development of modern nation-states relied greatly on the use of majority or dominant ethnic identity and its associated politics. The political entities of France, Germany, New Zealand, and Spain were all based on the articulation of a national identity that was, to some degree, ethnic in nature. Certain ethnic features were consolidated into a national identity while other ethnic features were excluded. In Spain, for example, Castellano became the official national language despite the fact that people in several regions speak distinct languages (e.g., Galicia, the Basque country, Catalonia). In a similar manner, ethnic identity is an important part of contemporary political efforts to maintain established authorities in increasingly pluralistic states such as Canada, Germany, India, Russia, and the United States. Rather than being an instrumental strategy designed to take advantage of a crisis in political authority, ethnic identity politics have been and continue to be central to the workings of modern nation-states. In fact, it may be difficult to separate modern politics from either identity politics or ethnicity. Indeed, Mary Bernstein argues that identity is necessary to the generation of political movements as it rallies individuals around a common cause and mobilizes collective action. In this article we examine ethnic identity politics by first reviewing the respective roles of ethnic identity and politics in group conflict. In discussing ethnic identity politics we try to explain its prevalence, with special attention to its possible psychological and social functions. We then review the ways in which the political process is rooted in conflict, as well as the special place that group identity has in politics. Next, we describe ethnic identity politics as a dialectical struggle for power by dominant and subordinate groups by using ethnic identity to mobilize and maneuver their respective constituencies. Such

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contestation can be violent or peaceful, and we examine the factors important to each approach. This includes a comparison of the decidedly nonviolent philosophies of Mohandas K. Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. with the more ambivalent perspective of Frantz Fanon. In a concluding section we address the possible futures of ethnicity-based identity politics, with a special interest in the impact of globalization. Throughout this article we review the constructs of ethnic identity and politics from both a macrostructural level of analysis (drawing mainly from work in sociology, political science, and anthropology) and a microstructural level of analysis (drawing mainly from psychosocial research).

The Role of Ethnic Identity and Politics in Conflict As mentioned in the introduction, many observers believe that ethnic identity politics produces conflict. However, it is difficult to assess the validity of this claim because both ethnic identity and politics are used as separate explanations in scholarship on peace, conflict, and violence. Their combination in the term ‘ethnic identity politics’ offers little clarification of which of the constituent elements leads to conflict. Is it ethnic identity itself, so that any collective identification around ethnicity will, by its exclusion of certain nonmembers, lead to competition and conflict? If so, this suggests that politics is but one arena in which the conflict over ethnic identity is played out. Another possibility is that conflict is likely only when ethnic identity is used as a tool in political battles. This suggests that something about the political context makes ethnic identity particularly conflictual. These two possibilities hint at the complicated relationship between ethnic identity and politics. They also suggest some of the many ways in which the combination of the two phenomena in ‘ethnic identity politics’ may lead to conflict. Given this complexity we will examine ethnic identity and politics separately, with special attention to the role of each in intergroup conflict, before discussing their combination. Ethnic Identity Explaining the prevalence of ethnic identity

There is little doubt that ethnicity is the most widely used description of group identity in the world today. This prevalence may be due to (1) the way ethnicity is commonly conceptualized by both scholars and lay people; (2) the special place ethnicity has had in the formation of modern nation-states; and (3) the subjective reality and psychosocial benefits of ethnic identification. We discuss these three possible explanations in turn.

First, the conceptualization view proposes that ethnicity is a popular description of mass identity only because it encompasses so many of the other forms of group identity discussed in the modern period; the term ethnicity can refer to ‘race’, culture, geographic region, language/dialect, religion, and sometimes economic or social position. Ethnicity is often used as a proxy for all of these terms and is also used to describe groups that are characterized by some, often complicated, combination of them. For example, identity politics and group conflict in Northern Ireland is often described as ethnic without much concern for the specific contributions of its religious (Protestant/Catholic), political (Unionist/ Nationalist), national (British/Irish), power (dominant/ subordinate), numerical (majority/minority), geographic (rural/urban; Northern Ireland/Ireland/Britain), or sociolinguistic (English/Gaelic; British accent/Irish accent) dimensions. Given this reality it is important, from an analytic point of view, to understand what ethnicity is meant to describe in its particular usages. Describing a conflict as ‘ethnic’ often says very little about it; therefore, serious analysis requires a more exacting description of the parties involved and their relationship to each other. A second, more historical and political, perspective suggests that ethnicity is a major form of group identity mainly because it was essential to the early development of the nation-state, currently the primary form of political organization. The ascendance of the modern nation-state occurred through the active political construction of nationalities around language/dialect, geographic region, religion, and other components of ethnic identity. In agreement with a host of other scholars, such as Benedict Anderson, Ernest Gellner, Eric Hobsbawm, and Thomas Nairn, in 1991 political philosopher Etienne Balibar argued that modern nations are predicated on the coming together of disparate peoples as part of a ‘fictive ethnicity’ that identifies them as one group. From its modern inception, the nation-state has relied on ethnic identity as a tool through which the body politic could be formed and re-formed. Thus, in his 1990 book, Iron Cages: Race and Culture in 19th Century America, historian Ronald Takaki describes the efforts of the First Congress of the United States to establish the requirements of citizenship in the new Republic. In an attempt to replicate their own identity, the Congress believed good citizens must be republican in values, virtuous in morals, male, and White. Throughout this formative period, ethnicity, as well as other characteristics, was always an implicit, if not explicit, criterion for political and economic enfranchisement. The third perspective on the prevalence of ethnic identity argues that ethnicity is a psychologically meaningful and beneficial form of group identity. This would explain why ethnic identities continue to resonate with people, despite the inexact and shifting basis of ethnic

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categorization and the fact that political elites have often manipulated its meaning. We discuss this view in greater detail in the following section. The psychosocial functions of ethnic identity

Ethnic identity may be one of the most prevalent forms of group identity because it can serve at least four psychosocial functions for group members: (1) providing self-esteem; (2) bestowing social status; (3) supplying existential security and knowledge; and (4) granting social protection. First, as with personal and group identity more generally, ethnic identity may provide self-esteem and thus facilitate psychological well-being. Identification with an ethnic group can be an important source of self-esteem that is not solely dependent on individual status and achievement. This may be especially important for members of ethnic groups that are devalued by the larger society. Psychological research suggests that strong identification with stigmatized groups acts as a buffer against feelings of individual inadequacy in the face of low status. By attributing the negative evaluation to others’ bias, people maintain a positive view of themselves and an optimal level of selfesteem. This process has been used to explain the general finding that Black Americans have not been found to have lower self-esteem than White Americans despite awareness that they are not well thought of in the society at large. Second, established groups, such as ethnic groups, provide their members a certain degree of social status based upon their standing within the group. Cultural competence, for example, as demonstrated by language skill or story telling may bring one status within the group and this can also be an important source of self-worth. Third, ethnicity can provide existential security by affirming members’ goals, values, beliefs, practices, and norms. Participating in a socially validated group gives a sense of belonging and, in most cases, also provides knowledge essential to the successful navigation of the group. Finally, active membership in and identification with an ethnic group can protect individuals from collective threats, such as physical attack or political exclusion, and enable them to take collective action. If the ethnic group is treated as a collective entity by others, members share a common fate and therefore benefit from some degree of coordination. Recognizing this interdependence may in turn foster group identity and cohesion, binding the group more tightly together and improving its ability to respond to external threats. Ethnic identity and subordinate versus dominant group status

While membership in any ethnic group can provide psychological benefits, people’s experience of ethnic identity may differ depending upon the position of the group.

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Research on group identity reveals that members of dominant groups often have the privilege of their culture and interests being the mainstream. As such, their ethnic identity is generally affirmed in the culture and institutions of the state. Consequently, members of dominant groups often prefer conceptualizations of the nation as consisting of one (ethnic) group. In contrast, subordinate group members are by definition devalued within the society. While they may view themselves as members of the nation, they simultaneously identify with their ethnic group. Their preference is to maintain these dual identities. In addition, they tend to prefer notions of pluralism in which they affirm multiple identities in contrast to assimilation in which they must disavow identities in service to the dominant identity. Ethnic identification and conflict

As noted above, ethnic group identity can provide a number of social, psychological, and practical benefits to those who so identify. However, a great deal of theoretical and empirical work has examined the role of ethnic identification in the promotion of conflict. There is, in fact, a long tradition of psychosocial theorizing that views the formation and maintenance of identity as inherently conflictual. Hegel provides an influential perspective, in The Phenomenology of Mind (1841), where he describes the process by which people develop identity as a ‘‘life-anddeath struggle’’ between dominant and subordinate groups. Hegel’s framework can be found in numerous approaches to group identity and conflict, including that of Karl Marx, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Frantz Fanon. Many psychodynamically oriented theorists also share Hegel’s view that identity development depends upon a recognition of self through a recognition of and differentiation from others. According to Hegel, each group tries to achieve dominant status by defining itself as superior to others. The dominant and subordinate groups are thus locked in a ‘dialectical’ struggle for identity in which each group’s identity is defined by its relationship to the other. The violent conflict between the Hutu and Tutsi groups in Rwanda may serve to illustrate how the dialectical framework applies to ethnic conflict. Since invading the region centuries ago, the Tutsi minority in Rwanda has dominated the Hutu majority, controlling the bulk of the economic, political, and cultural institutions. The Tutsi were thus able to define themselves as superior to the Hutu, whom they held in low esteem. The Hutu, given their subordinate position in the dialectic, were thus forced to displace the Tutsi in order to define themselves as something other than subordinate. This has often led the Hutu to violently oppose their subjugation, as in the 1959 uprising that displaced the Tutsi king and led to the formation of a democratic republic, at least on paper, in 1962. Of course, the historically dominant Tutsi have

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sought to regain power whenever deposed, locking both groups into what seems like an interminable contest for power and the right to not be subordinated to the other group. In the absence of a truly pluralistic form of government, each group’s ascendance to dominance guarantees the subordination of the other and thus prompts the subordinate’s eventual opposition and attempt at reversing their position. The concept of ethnocentrism closely parallels these ideas in its explanation of ethnic and other group conflicts. Social Identity Theory, developed largely by social psychologists Henri Tajfel and John Turner, formalizes the notion captured in ethnocentrism that groups tend to see themselves as superior to others. It has spurred a great deal of empirical research on the social competition between groups for a positive identity. In studies with a wide variety of social groups, ranging from ethnolinguistic to occupational to laboratory created, this research has shown that (in)group members tend to favor their own groups over other groups. That is, people generally rate the personal attributes, language, and opinions of their group more positively than those of other groups and, when given the chance, allocate more material resources to their own group than to other groups. Given that people strive to establish the superiority of their own group over others, it is not surprising that when given an opportunity to compare groups directly, they tend to favor their own group. Despite the fact that most contemporary research on ethnocentrism has been conducted in Western Europe and the United States, the phenomenon does not appear to be limited to these regions. In the 1960s a team of anthropologists and psychologists collaborated to conduct what they called ‘‘A Cooperative Cross-Cultural Study of Ethnocentrism’’ to assess the prevalence of ethnocentrism in Northern Canada, East Africa, West Africa, New Guinea, and 17 other regions around the world. While in-groups did not consider themselves superior to all outgroups on every possible dimension, in-groups did believe that they had more moral virtue than others. Therefore, morality-based ethnocentrism appears to be an ubiquitous aspect of intergroup relations. A great deal of theoretical and empirical work suggests that social competition is the predominant way in which people achieve a secure and positive identity for themselves. In much of Western philosophy and psychology, identity is itself about conflict. Identity, and struggles to attain and maintain it, may therefore be an independent source of conflict and violence between ethnic groups in the political arena. Nevertheless, conflict is not the only way that individual or group identity forms or maintains itself. Large-scale international studies of intergroup conflict have not found that strong and positive group identity necessarily leads to conflict with or derogation of other groups. Similarly, research on Social Identity Theory in

Europe, North America, and New Zealand has not established that all groups, under all circumstances, construct their identities through invidious comparisons with others. A number of contextual factors, such as control over resources, perceived threat, competition, and the scarcity of resources, can promote conflict in terms of group identity. Summation

Given its broad definition and its importance in the construction of the modern nation-state, ethnicity is an exceedingly popular description of human social groups. Contemporary social science uses ethnic group membership and identity to explain everything from purchasing patterns to musical taste to war. It is clear that despite its fuzzy and ever-changing definition, ethnicity plays a central role in our understanding of ourselves and the world in which we live. Group conflict is often understood in terms of ethnicity, by both participants and observers, because ethnic identity is one of the most salient social groupings in political and social life, particularly among ethnic subordinate groups. While ethnic identification itself may promote conflict between groups that define themselves ethnocentrically, much of ethnic conflict occurs in the context of broader political struggles for power and dominance.

Politics Political power is typically gained and held in an outright conflict between rivals. Political opponents must be defeated at the polls, in legislative chambers, in the media, and sometimes in the streets. Political conflicts appear rampant even in single party or dictatorial political systems where rival factions and administrative departments within the same political organization battle for position and power. Of course, the level of conflict in a political system is related to the structure of that system and the degree to which it pits constituencies against one another. In ‘winner takes all’ and two-party systems, such as the United States, there can be great conflict between parties to achieve the majority position. In parliamentary or proportional systems, power-sharing and coalitionbuilding may be more likely, although it is not clear whether such systems reduce the level of conflict between parties when the parties are not forced to cooperate to achieve a majority. Given the level of conflict inherent to the political process, all politics may rely on a form of identity politics to mobilize and maneuver the specific groups of people needed to gain or maintain power. Political parties with names such as Green, Labor, The People’s Party, New Jewel Movement, National Front, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, or Hezbollah identify

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themselves in a way that supports their constituents’ identification with the party and its platform. In some cases, political parties are explicit in their appeals to ethnic identity, as with the Tamil United Liberation Front or the Sri Lankan Muslim Congress in Sri Lanka, and the Scottish National Party in the United Kingdom. Throughout the world politics is infused with both subtle and obvious appeals to the ethnic identity of potential supporters. For example, in the 1970s and 1980s, the leaders of the ruling Congress Party in India went to great lengths to appear strong to their predominantly Hindu constituency by putting down a rebellion organized by members of the Sikh religious minority. At the same time, the Congress Party made great efforts to end the uprising in such a way as to also appear fair and tolerant to their Sikh supporters. In ethnically diverse states such as India, South Africa, and the United States, political groups depend on support from multiple ethnic constituencies and must therefore make complicated appeals to multiple groups. However, numerous cases exist in which ethnicity has been used as a ‘wedge issue’ to divide political support along ethnic lines. Jill Quadagno, in her 1995 book, The Color of Welfare, discusses US President Nixon’s quiet encouragement of affirmative action programs for some ethnic minorities as a calculated attempt to erode White American support for the Democratic party. As mentioned in the introduction, dominant groups can use identity politics to maintain and consolidate their own political power while limiting that of others. Quadagno documents such a case in US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s efforts to promote the Social Security Act of 1935 in the US Congress. Many (White) Southern Democrats opposed the act because it would provide an income to unemployed and retired Black Americans that would exceed the prevailing wages in the region. To guarantee the support of the Southerners in his party, Roosevelt advocated a provision that excluded agricultural and domestic laborers. Because Black Americans typically filled these positions, the provision excluded most Black Americans from a major advance in social welfare and full political enfranchisement. Here, the consolidation of Democratic power and the maintenance of White ethnic domination in the South were achieved at the expense of a subordinate ethnic group. Summation Examining ethnic identity and politics separately suggests that each is related to the other in complex ways. Ethnic identity and politics are both powerful means of social differentiation and major sources of conflict. It is therefore not surprising that their combination in ‘ethnic identity politics’ is expected to promote extreme conflict, and often violence. As we have seen, ethnic identity may be

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used politically by both dominant and subordinate groups, although their particular strategies may differ. In fact, ethnic identity politics are an important means by which dominance is achieved and maintained, but also challenged. Hegel’s characterization of identity may therefore also be fitting for the politics of ethnic identity, as dominant and subordinate groups are locked in a dialectical battle for power. In a dialectical struggle, one party’s use of ethnic identity to achieve political dominance can work to encourage resistance by another party through the use of its own ethnic identity. In this way attempts at dominance, rather than always leading to another’s subordination, can lead to resistance and a counter move for power. Consequently, Hegel, and the many others who share his basic assumptions, view the dialectic of identity as inherently conflictual, and often violent.

The Dialectics of Ethnic Identity Politics In 1951, political philosopher Hannah Arendt argued in The Origins of Totalitarianism, that ‘‘the only direct, unadulterated consequence of 19th century antisemitic movements was not Nazism but, on the contrary, Zionism, which, at least in its Western ideological form, was a kind of counterideology, the ‘answer’ to antisemitism.’’ While Arendt was careful to point out that Jewish identity was not simply a reaction to anti-Semitism, she described the ways in which attempts at political dominance that use ethnic exclusion can fuel resistance in the form of oppositional ethnic identity politics. In the following section we discuss the identity politics of dominant and subordinate ethnic groups, with special attention to ways in which their power positions affect their identities and their actions. It is important to note, however, that while some groups may operate from well-established positions of domination or subordination, groups are also deeply affected by their perceived potential for domination or subordination. In the case of equal power groups, for example, the political dynamics of their ethnic identity may have a great deal to do with their desire for future domination or their fear of future subordination. Dominant Groups Given their advantaged political position, dominant groups tend to engage in ethnic identity politics as a means to secure or consolidate power, as mentioned in the preceding section on politics. Instrumentalist theories within political science argue that elites manipulate the masses by using ethnicity to incite fear or panic, or to get constituents to ‘rally around the flag’. The Soviet Union, for example, had a long history of mobilizing and manipulating ethnic identity (often referred to as ‘nationality’) to maintain the central authority’s political power. Even

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before coming to power, the Bolsheviks strategically supported national ‘self-determination’ in order to gain the support of the many ethnic groups incorporated into the Russian empire. Later, in the 1920s and 1930s, Stalin created five separate ethnic groups out of one, by dividing the Central Asian region of Turkestan into five republics: Kazakhstan, Kirghizistan, Tadzhikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. By outlawing the religion and alphabet these groups had in common, Stalin promoted separate ethnic identities in an attempt to neutralize the panTurkic sentiment he saw as threatening the national integrity of the Soviet Union. Thus, Stalin promoted the distinct ethnic identities of Uzbek and Kazakh as a countervailing force against an identification as Muslim or Turkic that might have unified Central Asians against Moscow. In this case, an authority used ethnic identity politics to limit the potentially threatening identity politics of subordinate groups. However, in the following section on subordinate groups, we will discuss ways in which Central Asian investment in these manipulated ethnic identities came back to haunt the Soviet Union. Another example is the Jordanian government’s ‘Jordan First’ campaign. The actual ‘Jordan First’ document is best summed up by its stated goal of enacting ‘‘a working plan that seeks to deepen the sense of national identity among citizens where everyone acts as partners in building and developing the Kingdom.’’ Jordanian national identity is weaker than those of many other Arab states and a compounding factor is that around half of Jordan’s citizens are Palestinians. Since the influx of Palestinian refugees that occurred after 1967, Jordan has had to deal with varying levels of hostility between Jordanians and Palestinians. In September 1970 King Hussein launched military attacks against Palestinian militant groups in Jordan that were attacking Israel. This ‘Black September’, as many Palestinians refer to it, is still a major source of tension between Jordanians and Palestinians today. Thus, with the number of Palestinians in Jordan so significant and the tension between Jordanians and Palestinians often worrisome, King Abdullah II launched the ‘Jordan First’ campaign in October 2002 in an attempt to consolidate the disparate interests of his country in the face of the then impending US invasion of Iraq which threatened to destabilize the region. The campaign also attempts to strengthen the ‘national identity’ by saying that above all else, people have to place the interests of the Kingdom first. The Jordanian government crafted the document to praise pluralism and cite it as part of the Kingdom’s strength but was careful to say that it is ‘‘imperative (to place) Jordan’s national interest in the forefront of all the considerations of the State and the homeland, Government and civil society.’’ It remains to be seen if these attempts by the Jordanian government will be successful in uniting the country.

It is important to note, however, that the ethnic identity politics of dominant groups is not necessarily as conscious or calculated as some of our examples suggest. More subtle strategies of maintaining political power have been analyzed by theories of group dominance or hegemony. These theories argue that groups with wellestablished and relatively secure political dominance need little in the way of explicit ethnic identity politics to maintain their position. Such groups can utilize ideologies of conservatism and individualism to protect the status quo, and thus protect their privileged position without the appearance of self-interest. However, as group dominance theories argue, this lack of self-interest is often more apparent than real, and thus dominant political positions may always be rooted in the promotion of a particular ethnic group’s agenda. In contemporary cases of well-established ethnic subordination, dominant ethnic identification often occurs in the terms of nationalism. A person who benefits from the status quo identifies as ‘truly’ American or British or French and valorizes the founders of his or her ‘great nation’ – founders who often share his or her ethnicity – without suspicion of strategic ethnic identity politics or ethnocentrism. In 1995 Michael Billig described this sort of clandestine politics of ethnic identity as a ‘‘banal nationalism.’’ Although group dominance theories (e.g., world systems theory, social dominance theory) explain a great deal of political inequality that cannot be otherwise explained and are popular in some circles, they have only recently received some empirical verification – perhaps explaining why ethnic identity politics are typically associated with subordinate groups. Subordinate Groups While dominant ethnic groups may use identity politics as means of limiting the political power of others, their attempt can inadvertently galvanize the ethnic identity politics of subordinate groups. During the loosening of control under Gorbachev’s perestroika in the Soviet Union, for example, Uzbekistan and other republics sought an unprecedented degree of independence, fueled by a burgeoning nationalism that was encouraged, ironically, by Moscow’s earlier support of ethnic ‘self-determination’. This sort of oppositional identity politics involves centering a social movement around connections to a specific category of people and what is perceived to be their common political agenda. In 1996 Anner wrote, ‘‘The premise of (subordinate) identity politics is that all members of the group have more in common than the members have with anyone outside the group, that they are oppressed in the same way, and therefore that they all belong on the same road to justice’’. In many cases, organized political movements are considered the best ‘road to justice’.

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Political movements

Political movements are an important form of opposition for subordinate ethnic groups. They typically involve the mobilization of large numbers of people under an explicit political platform or agenda centered around the group’s ethnic identity and social experience. Political movements have as their goal a change in the prevailing political system and related social and economic arrangements. This change usually involves some capitulation by the dominant group(s) and is often pursued through legal challenges to existing practices or laws, political lobbying and leverage, and non-cooperation in the political or economic sectors. How is it that identity with a subordinate ethnic group may foster organized collective actions in the form of a political movement? The sociological and social psychological literatures suggest that subordinate groups engage in political movements when they perceive their disadvantage to be (1) shared, i.e., affecting the group as a collective (2) illegitimate or unfair, and (3) changeable through their political efforts. First, the perception of a shared disadvantage is key to collective political action. This perception involves the sense that one is part of an oppressed collective and that each group member’s experience is influenced by his or her membership in the collective. The permeability of group boundaries seriously affects group members’ perceptions of a common fate. Studies reveal that a sense of shared disadvantage is more likely if the boundary to an advantaged group is perceived as closed. However, if the boundary to the advantaged group is seen as permeable, individual attempts at joining or ‘passing’ into the dominant group are likely. Some suggest that the civil rights movement of the 1960s in the United States was in part spurred by the shared perception among Black Americans that they were deprived as a group. In this case, both the leaders of the movement and the mass media highlighted the unequal social conditions that many group members viewed as a threat to their collective well-being. This recognition of a common oppression and shared fate made collective political action seem necessary. Research suggests that it is the combination of the perceived deprivation of one’s group and increasing expectations for one’s group that leads to discontent. The theory of Relative Deprivation predicts that people experience discontent only when they believe that their current attainments do not match their expectations, particularly when they compare themselves to a group that has more than their own group. Moreover, according to optimal distinctiveness theory, membership in a minority group fosters comparisons between the status of one’s own group and that of other groups. This process may heighten the experience of relative deprivation among subordinate groups because members will emphasize (1) the commonalities within their group and, (2) the disparities between the dominant group and their own.

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Although the recognition of group disadvantage may be necessary for the development of a collective movement, it is not sufficient. A subordinate group may, in fact, believe that such inequities are legitimate. For example, many social theorists suggest that dominant groups develop ‘legitimating myths’ to justify the oppression of others. The caste system in India and the companion belief that people who are of a low caste warrant their current status due to transgressions in a previous life and the Protestant work ethic and the companion belief that certain groups are worse off economically because they are lazy are such examples. When the subordinate group believes its status to be legitimate, there is little reason for a collective political movement, and the hierarchy is rarely challenged. Thus, political movements by subordinate ethnic groups tend to rely on a belief that their group’s disadvantage is unfair and undeserved. Finally, some modicum of efficacy is necessary to engage in what is often a long and difficult battle to have the group’s disadvantage recognized and addressed. For instance, during the Black Power Movement, the Chicano Movement, and the Asian American Movement in the United States, and in the anticolonial movements in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, the people most heavily involved in collective political action were not those most deprived economically or politically. It was for the most part the college-educated and middle-class members of these ethnic groups that started the movements and set their agendas. People who feel that they have the requisite resources are likely to participate in organized political movements and are likely to believe that political activity will result in positive change. Violent or Peaceful? Much of Western scholarship on the conflict motivated by ethnic identity politics has been influenced by Hegel’s dialectical perspective. Many analysts believe that Hegel saw such conflict as inherently violent, as he argued that each of the involved parties ‘‘aims at the destruction and death of the other.’’ While it is unclear whether the destruction Hegel speaks of is actual or metaphorical, the place of violence in ethnic identity politics is an issue of great concern. The main preoccupation in this area has been how and why ethnic groups come to see violence as a viable form of political conflict, and why they engage in violence rather than in electoral or other non-violent forms of collective activity encompassed in political movements. Before proceeding, however, it may be useful to distinguish between violent actions that are planned as part of a political agenda or tied to explicit political demands, and a more ‘spontaneous’ violence that responds to political (or politicized) events. Violence based on political agendas includes terrorism, civil war, and rebellions, while event-based

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violence more closely describes riots and lynchings. The latter form of violence is easily distinguished from the sort of organized political movements discussed in the preceding section. Unlike participants in prolonged social movements, those who engage in event-based violence – such as the urban unrest that occurred in Los Angeles, US or Brixton, England in response to perceptions of police brutality – tend to be the most isolated and disenfranchised of their group. While participants may see such actions as sending a political message, they are rarely regarded as a political strategy effecting change. Agenda-based violence, on the other hand, is quite different. The preceding section on political movements suggested that organized political activity by subordinate ethnic groups tends to be based on the perception that there is an illegitimate inequality between groups that can be changed by organized political activity. Agenda-based violence by such groups is a form of political activity encouraged by the belief that efforts in the political realm alone will not produce positive change. Such violence is often seen as viable when subordinate ethnic groups have little or no faith in the ability of the political or judicial systems to address their grievances because they view these systems as contributing to their oppression. In such cases, subordinate ethnic groups see violent opposition to the status quo as a legitimate form of resistance. Frantz Fanon, an influential theorist who analyzed twentieth-century sociopolitical movements in the United States, Asia, the Caribbean, and Algeria and other parts of Africa, argued that oppression compelled people to use violence to combat the violence inherent in systems of subordination. Fanon describes the ways in which the institutionalized violence used by dominant groups to maintain their position (e.g., poverty, lynching, police brutality) could become banal, and thereby takenfor-granted by many within the society. According to Fanon, in a dialectical battle for position, violent opposition by subordinate ethnic groups is simply engaging in conflict at the appropriate level. Following Hegel, Fanon sees the subordinate group’s position as a direct result of another group’s identification as a dominant group. Thus, the only alternative is for the subordinate group to displace the group responsible for its low position and to replace it, thereby becoming dominant. There are, of course, other perspectives on the legitimacy and efficacy of violence in ethnic conflict. For example, nonviolent approaches to social change are most often defined according to those advocated by Mohandas K. Gandhi (regarding Indian independence from Britain and political enfranchisement for Indians in South Africa) and Martin Luther King, Jr. (regarding Black Americans and other disenfranchised groups in the US). While Gandhi and King shared a commitment to nonviolent protest rooted in their respective spiritual

beliefs, they also shared a more pragmatic belief that violent opposition by subordinates only invites a violent response from the dominant group. From their perspective, organized political violence only works to reinforce and reinvigorate unjust and often brutal domination. For both Gandhi and King, the only way to achieve a lasting social justice free of violence by either dominants or subordinates is to change the very nature of group identity through a ‘politics of conversion’. Thus, Gandhi argued that the oppressed can free ourselves of the unjust rule of the Government by defying the unjust rule and accepting the punishments that go with it [. . .]. When we set its fears at rest, when we do not desire to make armed assaults on administrators, nor to unseat them from power, but only to get rid of their injustice, they will at once be subdued to our will.

Unlike Fanon, Gandhi clearly separates the system of domination from the group that dominates. This allows him to believe that the dominant group can recognize inequality in the system and be moved to reform it and themselves. Thus, the nonviolent approach to political activity does not endorse the Hegelian view that identity is achieved only through a bitter and often violent conflict between groups brought about by competition for dominance. Ultimately, it is a group’s assumptions about the relationship between identity, be it dominant or subordinate, and conflict that determines the place of violence in the widely divergent political courses charted by Gandhi/King and Fanon.

Conclusion Identity politics based in ethnic identification may be especially conflictual and sometimes violent. In contrast to the popular view, this is not because ethnic identity politics are practiced solely by minority or subordinate groups who thirst for power and resources. Groups of majority or minority, dominant or subordinate, status can utilize the ethnic identity of their constituents to raise political consciousness, organize political activity, and make claims for social, economic, and other resources. Given the broad definition of ethnicity, its role in the formation of modern nation-states, and the psychosocial reality and possible benefits of ethnic identification, all politics today may be, to some extent, ethnic identity politics. Therefore, the conflict and violence often associated with ethnic identity politics has more to do with the conflict associated with ethnic group identity and the political process than with ethnicity itself. Both ethnic identity and political power can be achieved through intergroup conflict in search of dominance. Ethnic identity politics can thus be seen as a dialectical struggle for

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power between groups, with each using ethnic identity as a means toward this end. Of course, such uses of ethnic identity would have little success if ethnic identification did not resonate with people and perform important psychosocial functions for them. In the popular view, ethnic identity and related politics are seen as inherently divisive and conflictual. Paradoxically, however, identity politics is both unifying and divisive: while people are unified within a particular ethnic group, they simultaneously identify other groups as competitors or threats to their political aims. The power of identity politics is often dependent upon the mass appeal of the identity that the political activity is centered around. In Britain, for example, immigrants from the many former British colonies in the Caribbean formed ‘Afro-Caribbean’ or ‘West Indian’ political and social groups to address their shared perceptions of discrimination and cultural chauvinism. Thus, appeals to local or national authorities could be made in the name of the collective West Indian minority rather than separately in the name of those from Barbados, Grenada, Guyana, or Jamaica. Similarly, ‘Asian’ organizations were formed in Britain to address the shared social position of the many disparate immigrant groups from the Indian subcontinent. Identification as ‘Asian’ in Britain brought together a wide array of people who differed in nationality, religion, caste, region, class, gender, and numerous other forms of social difference. Their identification as Asian, as opposed to Punjabi, Pakistani, or Muslim for example, allowed them to form a larger collective based on their shared status as an identifiable minority in British society. In some cases, Afro-Caribbeans and South Asians joined to form ‘Black’ caucuses – as in the British Parliament – based on their shared subordinate status. This allowed an even larger body of people and stronger political force to be mobilized around issues seen as common to the participants. Thus, framing a movement around subordination, rather than a fairly narrow ethnic identity, can foster cross-ethnic coalitions that draw on a wider base of support. In many cases, the failure to form an overarching identity and related political agenda has led to the splintering of political movements. For example, there has been a continual struggle in India, since gaining independence from Britain in 1947, to balance national solidarity with the competing claims of the various ethnic, religious, and caste groups in the society. Attention to ethnic identity politics in these situations, and in others, allows an examination of the ways in which social groups define themselves, identify their interests, and pursue what they see as the political aims relevant to their identity and interests, all in the context of the social, economic, and power relations between groups.

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It is important to note that academic conceptualizations of ethnicity and identity politics remain contested. As mentioned above among political scientists, instrumentalists believe that dominant groups use ethnicity to their political benefit. However, the primordialist position assumes that ethnicities and identities are given at birth, unchangeable, and that differences between groups cause conflict. In contrast, the constructivist position assumes that identities are malleable and that differences do not necessarily lead to conflict. Future scholarship may uncover whether one perspective is more valid and in which contexts. In addition, certain sociological theories view identity politics as problematic and contest the nature and efficacy of identity politics. For example, Marxist theories often dismiss identity politics as a contemporary opiate of the people and obfuscation of the real issues of class inequality. However, Bernstein counters by stating that these theories often ignore that people have intersecting identities and that ethnicity and class often correlate in meaningful ways. As another example, social constructivist theories generally implicate identity politics in reifying arbitrary distinctions between groups based upon fictional concepts of race/ethnicity. However, Bernstein counters that essentialism may be used strategically. Moreover, we add that while the construction of ethnic categories may often be arbitrary, the consequences of those categories may be felt materially, economically, occupationally, and in various other ways. As mentioned above, Bernstein argues that identity is essential for political mobilization. Future work may determine which of these perspectives is a better characterization of the role of ethnicity in politics. Globalization and the Future of Ethnic Identity Politics Scholars are growing increasingly concerned with the future direction of ethnic identity politics. Much of this effort has concentrated on the effects of the increasing globalization brought about by rapidly advancing technology in travel, media, and communication. There are two opposing views: one that sees the world getting smaller and more homogenous through increased contact, and another which sees the world as growing more and more heterogeneous as we all come to know a greater variety of people than ever before. Proponents of each view do not, however, agree on what the consequences of the expected change will be. Increasing homogeneity

Among those who predict increasing cultural homogeneity as a result of globalization, some believe that divisive identity politics will not survive the increased interdependence brought about by a global culture. This view

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sees ethnic identity politics and subsequent conflict and violence as a thing of the past as identities rooted in local ethnicities and nations fall away in favor of more global identities based in individual freedom and purchasing power. If the world becomes one very large market where everything can be bought and sold, collective identities may indeed provide very little cachet for individual consumers. This ‘one world, one market’ scenario, where the many diverse peoples of the world get past their differences to share a common Internet software, cola, or phone company, appears in an increasing number of advertisements by multinational companies and represents one way in which (market) globalization may diffuse ethnic identity politics and thereby reduce the conflict and violence associated with it. Not all observers agree, however, that ethnic identity politics will decline with the increased homogeneity expected from globalization. A second perspective predicts that increased homogeneity will undermine subordinate ethnic identity politics while quietly promoting dominant ethnic identity politics. Here, there is concern about the spread of an economic, political, and social culture that, while calling itself ‘global’, is actually rooted in mainstream US and Western European cultures and values. Globalization is seen as a new kind of nationalist imperialism without frontiers, beamed into every home across the world and packed into every consumer product. Sociologist Howard Winant warns against the possibility that advancing globalization is establishing a new form of dominant identity politics based upon a racialized global hegemony of North over South. He views oppositional ethnic and national identity politics as a necessary response to this trend – a response that can be aided by an alternative use of media and communication technology. In Australia, for example, a number of Aboriginal groups have used local radio and television broadcasting to reinvigorate interest, especially among the young, in their language, culture, and politics. Here local media is used by subordinate groups to provide an alternative to national and global media. Increasing heterogeneity

There are also those who believe that globalization will serve to highlight greater cultural heterogeneity; however, they disagree about the potential benefits and costs of this change. Some find troubling the increasing level of cultural diversity made apparent by increased contact, as each ethnic group may be encouraged to enter into competition with every other to secure an increasingly scarce political power. Here, increased contact is expected to cause increased conflict. Others see globalization as making the technology of media and communication available to a wide variety of ethnic groups who can each use it to develop

their culture, language, and politics. Globalization can in this way lead to greater equality and pluralism by promoting cross-group connections through increased mutual knowledge. Clearly, the future direction of ethnic identity politics, and its relation to globalization, remains an open question. Unfortunately, the dialectical approach to ethnic identity politics does not offer a prediction as to which future is most likely. It does, however, suggest that the consequences of globalization and advancing technology will be determined by the way in which ethnic groups use them in their quest for identity. If one group uses globalization and technology to advance a claim of superiority over another group, this will most likely result in a counter claim, perhaps through the use of parallel tools, by those so subordinated. The dialectical circle of conflict and violence will simply turn on, perhaps at a faster pace. The promise in globalization and advanced technology lies in its potential as a means by which equality can be established and maintained.

See also: Colonialism and Imperialism; Cultural Anthropology Studies of Conflict; Ethnic Conflicts and Cooperation

Further Reading Anner, J. (ed.) (1996). Beyond identity politics: Emerging social justice movements in communities of color. Boston, MA: South End Press. Balibar, E. and Wallerstein, I. (eds.) (1991). Race nation, class: Ambiguous identities. London, UK: Verso. Bernstein, M. (2005). Identity politics. Annual Review of Sociology 31, 47–71. Bremnar, I. and Taras, R. (1993). Nation and politics in the Soviet successor states. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bulhan, H. A. (1985). Frantz Fanon and the psychology of oppression. New York, NY: Plenum. Calhoun, C. (ed.) (1994). Social theory and the politics of identity. Cambridge: Blackwell. Cerulo, K. A. (1997). Identity construction: New issues, new directions. Annual Review of Sociology 23, 385–409. Fanon, F. (1967). Black skin, white masks. New York, NY: Grove Wiedenfeld. Hale, C. R. (1997). Cultural politics of identity in Latin America. Annual Review of Anthropology 26, 567–590. Hutchinson, J. and Smith, A. D. (1996). Ethnicity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Layton-Henry, Z. (1984). The politics of race in Britain. London: Allen and Unwin. Pichardo, N. A. (1997). New social movements: A critical review. Annual Review of Sociology 23, 411–430. Rajchman, J. (ed.) (1995). The identity in question.New York, NY: London: Routledge. Sampson, E. E. (1993). Identity politics: Challenges to psychology’s understanding. American Psychologist 48(12), 1219–1230. Tajfel, H. and Turner, J. C. (1986). The social identity theory of intergroup behavior. In Worchel, S. and Austin, W. G. (eds.) Psychology of intergroup relations, 2nd edn., pp. 7–24. Chicago, IL: Nelson-Hall. Winant, H. (1994). Racial conditions: Politics, theory, comparisons. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota.

Ethnopolitical Conflict, Misperceptions and Miscommunication in

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Ethnopolitical Conflict, Misperceptions and Miscommunication in Ifat Maoz, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel Donald Ellis, University of Hartford, West Hartford, CT, USA ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Focus and Goal Characteristics of and Psychological Processes in Deeply Set Ethnopolitical Conflicts

Glossary Communication Codes The practice of using language and communication (including naming, describing, referencing, and discourse patterns) to organize social reality. A communication code is a system of cultural meanings that incorporates behaviors into a code. These codes reflect cultural values and role relationships that determine the potential meanings of individuals in interactive situations. Communication codes may lead to moments of asynchronous interactions between conflicting parties that result in confusion, misunderstanding, and undesirable attributions. Differential Framing Intentionally organizing and interpreting facts and positions to manipulate perceptions and opinions. This leads to the ‘labeling’ problem where a contentious group is described as either ‘terrorists’ or ‘freedom fighters’ depending on how their issues are framed. Ethnopolitical Conflict Ongoing states of hostility and opposition between two or more ethnic and/or national groups of people.

Focus and Goal Conflict is a situation of opposition, disagreement or goal incompatibility between people or groups of people characterized, in some case, by physical violence. Although there are many types of conflict such as intergroup, organizational, interpersonal, and emotional, we focus here on ethnopolitical conflicts that are ongoing states of hostility and opposition between two or more ethnic and/or national groups of people. The goal of this article is to discuss phenomena commonly observed by social and political scientists as misperceptions and miscommunication between the opposing sides in deeply set ethnopolitical conflicts. But before discussing misperceptions and miscommunication in conflict, we will briefly describe the major characteristics of deeply set

Misperceptions and Biased Construals in Conflict Miscommunication in Conflict Further Reading

In-Group Favorability Bias The tendency of group members to perceive, judge, and explain identical behaviors of the in-group and out-group in ways that favor the in-group. Mirror-Image Phenomenon When one side’s negative images of its opponents reflect, in a mirror image, similar negative images that its opponents have of it. Self-Serving Attribution Bias in Conflict The tendency of groups in conflict to use two different norms of attribution, one toward themselves and one toward the opponent. Thus, they tend to explain their own friendly and moderate behavior in terms of internal traits, and their own aggressive behavior in terms of external factors. However, they use an opposite norm of attribution toward the opponent. The Hostile Media Effect The tendency of opposing sides in conflict to see an attempt at a balanced presentation of their problem by a third party as hostile to their position and as biased against them.

ethnopolitical conflict that are closely related to the psychological and communicative processes that are highly typical of such conflicts.

Characteristics of and Psychological Processes in Deeply Set Ethnopolitical Conflicts Deeply entrenched ethnopolitical conflicts such as, for example, the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians in the Middle-East and the one between the Sinhalese and Tamils in Sri Lanka are clearly distinct from each other, yet share several commonalities. They involve high levels of disagreement, and thus are very hard to resolve. These conflicts often persist over generations and involve highly

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polarized groups who view themselves as oppressed, victimized, or righteous and view the other as the cause of their troubled condition. Such intractable ethnopolitical conflicts have been written about by various authors. In a data set gathered by Gleditsch, Wallenstein, Eriksson, Sollenberg, and Strand, they report 34 armed conflicts in 2001 with 25% of them lasting 25 years or more. Intractable conflicts are responsible for economic loss, destruction of infrastructure, violence, trauma (including intergenerational trauma), refugees, and serious declines in healthcare and education, and take a particularly malicious toll on women and children. Such ethnopolitical conflicts have five characteristics (see Ellis 2006 and Coleman 2003) that are closely tied to the psychological and communicative processes and phenomena associated with such conflicts. Power imbalance. The first is power imbalance in which qualities of the dominant group (ethnicity, language) are used as a means of defining the other and maintaining power. A dominant group (e.g., Israeli Jews, Sinhalese) competes with another group (e.g., Palestinians, Tamil) for definitions of violence, morality, education, and criminal behavior. This competition finds its way into the political fabric of the societies and amounts to structural victimization that is self-perpetuating. Identity conflicts. Second, Coleman explains how deeply set conflicts are about central problems of existence and cannot be resolved easily. They are not issues solved only by negotiating about tangible resources such as land and water, but are based on opposing human needs. An example is when group identity is based on being the opposite of the other, or not being the other. As Kelman explains, Israeli Jews and Palestinians formulate identities that include the absence or negative image of the other. Thus, for example, in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, the identities of Israeli Jews and Palestinians are commonly perceived by the sides as structured contradictions. The positive identity of a Palestinian is by definition the opposite of that of an Israeli Jew. Resolution can only be successful by ‘deconstructing’ this opposition and constructing new identities. Polarization. Third, the relationships between parties to ethnopolitical conflicts involving high levels of disagreement are typically the consequence of lack of contact and the resultant stereotypes and misinformation that accompany such a situation. But, paradoxically, the parties to the conflict are geographically, linguistically, or economically related to one another and have no opportunity to extract themselves from the relationship. The disputants feel as though they are in a monolithic mixed-motive dilemma; that is, they cannot escape this relationship that requires intense cooperation and competition, but is characterized by polarized identities that become worse when groups members try to express their identity. Extreme emotional processes. Extreme emotional processes are a fourth quality of these conflicts. Self-righteousness, rage, and indignation are part of the process. For example,

in the Israeli–Palestinian and the Sri Lanka conflict, Palestinians and Tamils often express the feeling of being humiliated. The others are viewed as less than human and the groups continue a pattern of aggression and defensiveness. Blood feuds such as those in Israel, Sri Lanka, Balkans, and Rwanda carry images of horror, death, and inhumanity that simply cannot be ignored or easily forgotten. They become, as Ellis puts it, defining features of the conflict and perpetuate injustice. Trauma. Finally, deeply entrenched ethnopolitical conflicts result in enduring trauma for victims, and even intergenerational trauma. Research continues to show that exposure to violence, loss, atrocities, and human suffering leads to chronic health problems and a reduced living capacity. In 1998, Wessells describes how deeply traumatized were those who witnessed atrocities in Rwanda. The impact on children was particularly intense. These conflicts spawn long-term tension and hatred that takes a toll on generations. Although the high levels of disagreement in ethnopolitical conflicts mostly evolve around substantial issues such as land and other resources, these disagreements are often further increased by psychological phenomena of biased perceptions, biased construals, and misunderstandings that characterize situations of dispute.

Misperceptions and Biased Construals in Conflict The subjective construal of social reality, involving biased interpretations and perceptions, plays an important role in conflicts and social disputes. Such conflicts are characterized by high uncertainty, along with a strong interest in interpreting and explaining opponents’ behavior and trying to foresee and predict it, as well as high motivation for self-justification and criticism of the adversary. Under such conditions, people tend to subjectively perceive and interpret the reality of the conflict, influenced by the attitudes, prior expectations, and the opposing opinions and interests of the different sides in the dispute. One of the important phenomena in intergroup conflict which has been much investigated and treated by social psychologists is the sides’ lack of rationality. Such phenomena as prejudice, negative images, and stereotypes of the opponent, as well as distorted perception and evaluation of the behavior of members of the other side in the conflict have been identified as playing a crucial role in maintaining and intensifying intergroup animosity. Deutsch asserts that the great tension that is associated with conflict diminishes intellectual resources for dealing with information and leads to perceptual distortions. Such perceptual distortions and biases can contribute substantially to the maintenance and escalation of conflict.

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Misperceptions and Misunderstandings in Conflict Biases in perception of social or political information play an important role in intergroup conflict as described by Maoz in 2004. Our perception of events, behaviors, and information in conflict situations is affected both by our previous experiences, beliefs, and conceptions and by our current hopes, fears, and needs. The resulting misperceptions and misunderstandings ultimately contribute to the escalation of conflict. We describe below several such biased perceptions that are characteristic of groups in conflict. Negative perceptions and images of opponents. A basic misperception in situations of conflict is that of negative representations and images of opponents, so that they are perceived as having evil intentions, low morality, and inferior traits. Such negative perceptions are manifested in the phenomenon of the diabolical image of the opponent, and in the mirror-image phenomenon, where one side’s negative images of its opponents reflect, in a mirror image, similar negative images that its opponents have of it. The mirror-image phenomenon was first defined in the context of intergroup relations by Bronfenbrenner, in a study dealing with Soviet– American perceptions of each other during the 1960s. This phenomenon had also been demonstrated in other conflicts such as the Arab–Israeli conflict. Studies of this phenomenon found that each of the sides tended to attribute positive traits to itself and see itself as moral, fair, and peace-seeking, while attributing negative traits to the opponent and seeing it as immoral, unfair, and aggressive. In addition to the negative image of the opponent studies of international and social conflicts found consistent biases of negative perception, evaluation, and judgment of behaviors and actions ascribed to the opponent. For example, studies of US–Soviet relations found consistent biases involving the use of a double standard where American students evaluated the same actions as more negative when they were attributed to the Soviets and as less negative when they were attributed to the United States. Similar biases were also found in the arena of the Arab–Israeli conflict. In a series of studies by Heradstveit, he interviewed members of the political elites of the two sides to the conflict (members of the Israeli elite and of the Egyptian, Lebanese, and Syrian elites). He found that the sides had a greater tendency to mention and emphasize hostile and extreme behavior of the opponent, with indications of extreme intentions that were low in their credibility taken as indicators of the opponent’s belligerent intentions in general. On the other hand, the sides belittled the value of positive indications and moderate actions of the opponent, expressing lack of trust in the ‘real moderacy’ of its intentions. Self-serving attribution biases in conflict. Groups in conflict also tend to demonstrate a self-serving attribution

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bias. In other words, they use two different norms of attribution, one toward themselves and one toward the opponent. Thus, they tend to explain their own friendly and moderate behavior in terms of internal traits, and their own aggressive behavior in terms of external factors. However, they use an opposite norm of attribution toward the opponent. The opponents’ moderate or friendly behavior is perceived as imposed on it by the situation and, thus, as temporary and not reflecting its real inclinations, while its hostile behavior is attributed to internal, and therefore stable, factors. Studies by Rosenberg and Wolfsfeld also clearly demonstrate the phenomena of self-serving attribution bias of groups in conflict. These studies found that Israeli Jews tended to attribute successes and moral acts of Israeli Jews to internal factors, while tending to attribute immoral acts of Arabs to internal factors. The Arabs, for their part, tended to attribute failures of Israeli Jews to internal factors. The in-group favorability bias. The biases of perception and attribution described above are characterized in the research literature as manifesting the in-group favorability bias, with identical behaviors of the in-group and outgroup being perceived, judged, and given explanations that favor the in-group. Evidence of in-group bias was also found in studies focusing on violent or aggressive behavior. Thus, studies conducted in the context of the Arab–Israeli conflict pointed to a clear tendency of respondents belonging to the two sides in this conflict to evaluate given violent or aggressive behavior as more grave or less justified when it is attributed to the adversary than when it is attributed to one’s own side as described by Maoz in 2004. The tendency to denigrate the opponent and favor one’s own side can also affect the way people belonging to sides in a conflict process and interpret information or reports that are related to the dispute between the sides, even when this information is presented by an outside source that is not a side in the conflict. Such phenomena are demonstrated in studies focusing on biased construal of information in a conflict. Biased Construal of Information in a Conflict In line with the findings on the in-group bias, studies dealing with biased construal of information in dispute point to phenomena in which belonging to one side in a conflict leads people to view information or accounts connected to the dispute in a way that justifies their own position and negates that of the opponents. Biased assimilation. A basic manifestation of this tendency is in the phenomena of biased assimilation, where the opposing expectations and attitudes of partisans to a dispute cause each of them to perceive and interpret the same ambiguous evidence as confirming and even strengthening their own position. Biased assimilation

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was demonstrated in the classic study by Hastorf and Cantrill, in which soccer fans of two rival teams viewed a movie of a soccer match between them. They found that each side saw the movie as indicating its own rectitude and the violent and unfair behavior of the adversary. In another study 25 years later, Lord, Ross, and Lepper demonstrated the existence of the phenomenon of biased assimilation in other contexts, finding that both supporters and opponents of capital punishment tended to see in the same studies and scientific data that were presented to them, and which included mixed results as to the effectiveness of this punishment, evidence bolstering their position. Each of the sides easily assimilated and accepted the research findings that supported its own position, but sharply criticized the scientific credibility of the studies whose findings undermined or contradicted its stance. The hostile media effect. One implication of biased assimilation is that opposing sides would tend to see an attempt at a balanced presentation of their problem by a third party as hostile to their position and as biased against them. This phenomenon, named the ‘hostile media effect’, was demonstrated by Vallone, Ross, and Lepper, in 1985 when the same segments of news coverage of the massacre at the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps (that occurred in the course of the 1982 Lebanon war) were perceived by individuals identified with each of the opposing sides to the dispute (pro-Israeli and pro-Arab students) as biased in favor of the opponent while reflecting hostile attitudes toward their own side. The investigators note that it appears as if the pro-Israeli and pro-Arab respondents actually saw different news segments. Pro-Arab respondents reported that most of the references to Israel in the news segments were favorable to it, and only a small part of these references unfavorable to it. A mirror image of this impression was found among the pro-Israel respondents, who reported that only a small part of the statements concerning Israel were positive, whereas most of them were unfavorable to it. In addition, respondents felt that exposure to these news segments would cause ambivalent viewers or those without a formulated opinion to assume hostile attitudes toward the side supported by the respondents. Thus, pro-Arab respondents believed that the general news coverage gave the neutral and uncritical viewer a basis to favor Israel, whereas proIsraeli respondents believed that the same news coverage gave the neutral viewer a basis to oppose Israel. The phenomena discussed here demonstrate that affiliation with a side to a dispute substantially affects the way in which people perceive and interpret information related to the dispute, even when this information originates from a third party as described by Maoz. Consistent with the assumptions of the in-group favorability bias, each of the sides in a conflict perceives information or reports connected to the dispute in a way that justifies its own positions and negates the positions of

the opponent. This tendency of sides in a conflict to misconstrue information in a way that legitimizes and strengthens their own motives and positions, substantially increases misunderstandings and disagreements in a conflict.

Miscommunication in Conflict Misperceptions and misunderstandings in conflict are also manifested in the concrete talk between groups in dispute. Studies on communication between groups in conflict have identified several forms of miscommunication. Such miscommunication intensifies misunderstanding and hostility and hinders reaching agreement. According to Tidwell, communication practices in the form of ingroup and out-group exchanges instigate dispositional differences that cannot be resolved, and communication can be responsible for producing as much conflict as it resolves. We discuss here several forms of miscommunication that have been found as characterizing groups in conflict and even increasing disagreement and polarization between such groups. Finally, we end this article by briefly elaborating on the role of communication in peace building and conflict resolution. Cycles of Perpetual Argument Clearly, intractable ethnopolitical conflicts include disagreements over tangible resources such as water, territory, and wealth. But symbolic needs related to culture, identity, respect, and recognition must also be satisfied if the conflict is to be resolved. If a group ‘wins’ access to a tangible resource but still feels humiliated or disrespected then the conflict is not resolved. This means that communication, relationships, psychological principles, and deep cultural knowledge are central to intractable conflicts. It means that when groups communicate, they confront one another. Argument is very characteristic of conflicting groups. The traditional approach to argument is as a competitive zero-sum game that is almost always doomed to fail or further entrench positions. Identities in intractable conflicts are strong, rigid, and stable. They do not change easily. In fact, identities are so strong that the conflict threatens the individual’s sense of self. This threat evokes a powerful response. Typically this response is aggressive and can escalate. Ethnopolitical conflicts usually involve polarized negative identities where one’s sense of self is dependent on being in opposition to another. The Israelis and the Palestinians, for example, are currently communicating using incommensurate cultural systems. Their identities, historical narratives, and political experiences lock them into a reality that cannot reach beyond its own borders.

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The Palestinians speak a language of oppression and occupation, whereas the Israelis speak a language of terrorism and a right to exist. The interaction between the cultures is about who is right or wrong. Deeply-rooted conflicts also have strong emotions at their core that are not easily restrained. Works by Ellis and Maoz in 2002, and Maoz and Ellis in 2001 show that Israeli Jews and Palestinians exchange emotionally intense arguments that seem to entrench their positions more than it tempers them. Thus, sides in conflict such as Israeli Jews and Palestinians live in perpetual argument where positions are hardened and resistant to change. Research by Maoz and Ellis empirically demonstrates processes of polarization that results from argument and shows how this type of rhetorical environment is descriptive of intractable conflicts. When a Jew challenges the significance of the Temple Mount to Islam (and vice versa), or a Hutu defies the ethnicity of a Tutsi, these people are using in a vocabulary that is so repugnant to the other side that there is no room for communicative contact. Such vocabularies are so extreme that interaction becomes an exchange of incompatible positions. They are then left with little to do. The two sides usually retreat into silence or advance toward more hostile contact. Even if they ‘agree’ to tolerate one another for a period of time, one side is often incapable of upholding the agreement. Argument is indeed ineffective in most ethnic conflicts which are, by their nature, severe. And when attempts to convince the other side and win arguments fail, misunderstandings, tensions, frustrations, and disagreements are exacerbated and the quality of the relationship further deteriorates into even more hideous forms of expression. Differential Framing Another mechanism related to miscommunication in conflict is differential framing. Psychological literature contains several studies showing that proponents and opponents of particular policies, such as capital punishment, liberalized abortion, or US military intervention in other conflicts, construe these policies and the facts that support them differently in ways that preserve or even increase the misunderstanding and disagreement between the sides. However, aside from spontaneous differences in framing, which are caused by perceptions and notions that are characteristic of sides in a conflict, differential framing of a social or political situation can be intentionally created in order to influence perceptions, opinions, and reactions. Several researchers have demonstrated the manipulations that are used in framing problems or decisions. Similarly, research has shown how political manipulation of meanings and images can lead to differential framing of conflict situations. In recent times, the political struggle to manipulate such meanings and images and

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thereby induce support or opposition to certain policies has increasingly been conducted via the media. Thus, depending on the views and interests represented through the media, the same people can be called terrorists or freedom fighters and the same acts can be referred to as murder or self-defense, ‘violent riots’ or ‘peaceful intifada’, ‘restrained response’ or ‘the injuring of dozens of civilians’. Such manipulation of labels can be effectively used to influence political attitudes and behavior. For instance, through a careful choice of terms an act of ‘laundering’ can be performed, where individual or collective actions that may otherwise be constrained or censured by moral and ethical standards are cleansed of their problematic nature and hence justified or even encouraged. Manipulation of images and labels in communication, popular discourse, and the media is particularly intense in contemporary conflicts. This competition over interpretive frames and intentional manipulations of labeling and frames intensifies and inflames misunderstandings and disagreements, thus further perpetuating and even escalating the conflict. Communication Codes In addition to the elemental qualities of interaction described above, communication entails a continuous process of monitoring and coordinating among participants. The majority of basic misunderstandings and miscommunication between conflicting groups is rooted in incompatible cultural patterns of communication. During this communication process, parties are regularly making inferences, interpretations, and constructions of meaning. A ‘social reality’ arises out of this coordinative process that utilizes language (and various linguistic practices of naming, describing, classifying, referencing, and the like) to render this reality. Communicative relationships between conflicting parties cannot be reduced to a manageable number of elements. Communication is a complex process that is more than lexical and grammatical sequences that constitute meanings. Rather, the interaction of participants relates them to their environment in all its complexity. Messages carry cultural meanings as well as being shared systems of symbols. Part of this complexity is the fact that words and messages change meaning according to context. Habituation and recurring contexts lend stability to messages, but cultural, historical, and social changes make meanings quite variable. The particular interactional problem for conflict theorists is to correlate linguistic and sociological phenomena. If language reflects culture and society then it should be possible to determine the specific way that this reflection occurs by determining how cultural factors influence message strategies. But seeking such relationships involves more than simply identifying

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sociolinguistic correlates. It involves thinking of cultures as an entire system of meanings that incorporates meaningful behavior into a code. This code is culturally based and subsumes shared values, role relationships, knowledge about the environment, ideology, etc. Communication draws its meaning by understanding it as part of a cultural code. Although codes are strongly embedded in cultures, their expression is influenced by a variety of social conditions. Both an Israeli Jew and a Palestinian when confronted with a political opinion have the option of arguing, but Jewish argument reflects a communication code based on Western style logic, and argument in modern Arabic is more associated with ‘face’ and politeness. This is because the communication codes of the two cultures are different. However, expected code patterns of communication are modified by context and particular communication conditions. Codes determine the meaning potential of individuals in interactive situations. They are orientations toward the use and interpretation of language. Just as cultures orient similarity to dress, food, and music they also share orientations toward communication. This simply means that messages and tendencies to interpret them in a particular way depend on group membership. Yet, codes are not an essentialist quality of cultural members. They are responsive to situations. Problematic talk is marked by a series of asynchronous moments because of differences in sociocultural background and communication conventions. Since conflicting parties are rarely very aware of cultural code conventions that contribute to interpretations, they seldom identify causes of problems accurately. This makes confusion and misunderstanding even more troublesome. They account for what happens in psychological rather than cultural terms and end up perceiving the other as aggressive, uncooperative, incompetent, or some other undesirable personal trait. Repeated conflict encounters generate inaccurate, unpleasant, and unproductive biographies of the other.

Codes and Ethnopolitical Conflict We have been engaged in research studies that utilize the concept of communication codes. They are related to communication problems in some complex ways. Patterns and forms of communication are deep-rooted in members of cultures, and are often responsible for misunderstandings and difficulties in conflict resolution. Our work with argument in Israeli–Jewish and Palestinian dialog groups has been informed by Katriel’s ethnographic work on dugri and musayra which are communication codes for Israeli Jews and Arabs, respectively. These codes can serve as a useful example. Their dynamics highlight how confusion, misunderstanding, and erroneous interpretations characterize the relationship between these two groups. The

Israeli–Jewish dugri code is characterized by talk that is ‘‘straight and to the point.’’ It is a ‘‘no nonsense’’ form of communication distinguished by a concern for information with niceties and emotions becoming secondary. Musayra, in sharp contrast, means to ‘‘accommodate’’ and ‘‘go along with.’’ Musayra communication is indirect, polite, courteous, and nonconfrontational. We will use these two codes illustratively to further clarify the details of communication codes and how they contribute to miscommunication in conflict. Communication codes are culturally distinctive. Israeli dugri speech is associated with native-born Israelis of Jewish heritage. As Katriel explains, the code is unique to Jews of European heritage and became even more highly defined in the pre-state period of Israel in the 1930s and 1940s. Musayra emerges from Arab culture although its geographic location is diverse. It is rooted in a culture that values honor, hospitality, and collectivism. Communication codes mirror a cultural psychology and sociology. They are related to how people see themselves. As with any relationship between language and culture, communication codes are consistent with cultural attitudes, values, and history. For example, Hatim has written about the importance of honor in Arab cultures. The musayra code, and the message characteristics associated with it, is consistent with the expression of honor. Katriel explains that the dugri code is perceived by native Israeli Jews as a desirable form of communication and reflects their cultural history. Both dugri and musayra are held in esteem by their respective cultures. Codes determine meaning and significance. Interaction patterns habituate and are the basis of interpretations by others. This interpretation relies on speech codes. In a negotiation or dialog group when an Arab deploys the musayra code and is polite and indirect, the noncode user interprets the speech as being weak, ingratiating, and manipulative. Such an interpretation can lead to all sorts of communication problems including confusion, disrespect, uncertainty, and a conclusion that the other is not serious. Israeli Jews have a reputation for being rude and aggressive. The dugri code includes bluntness and forthrightness that is easily responsible for this reputation. It is not uncommon to hear an Israeli say something direct such as ‘‘you are wrong.’’ This is easily considered rude, but not if you understand the code. A code user will not come to any hasty conclusions about the meaning of the utterance because it will be understood as a normal way of speaking. Codes are located in the world of language and communication. This means that communication codes are not inside the heads of others or contained in generalities about cultures. They are empirically observable in the language and communication patterns of cultural members. The dugri code is apparent in the direct and blunt speech of a native Israeli Jew, as are the qualities of

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musayra for Arabs. Studies exposing the empirical communication patterns associated with culture have examined sociability, repetition, and indirectness in Arab communication, argument style, and other communication patterns. Finally, communication codes can be used to understand, predict, and control communication. They can be used to improve communication and manage conflict. People do not communicate in a machine-like manner. They can learn to modify and adjust to other codes and even adjust and modify their own code. Communication codes are steeped in cultures but there is still potential for change and the opportunity to avoid troublesome aspects of codes. A dugri speaker can learn to recognize how others perceive him or her and adjust accordingly. Moreover, knowledge of codes is crucial for conflict resolution. Practitioners can direct conflicting parties to contexts and activities designed to maximize opportunities for success. Still, it is important to underscore that just as cultures change and evolve, so do codes. Codes are not deterministic and they can be moderated and altered, as any communication can, by the properties of particular contexts. The debilitating qualities of codes, which make change and resolution difficult in the Israeli–Jewish and Palestinian conflict, can be moderated in dialog and other peace-building and conflict resolution contexts. Successful communication for intractable ethnopolitical conflicts requires, as Pearce and Littlejohn write, a new form of eloquence. To be ‘eloquent’ is to achieve a respected form of expression within the cultural values of a community. Eloquent discourse elicits respect and attention. Groups in conflict may speak eloquently according to the judgments of their own community, but their discourse engenders hate, frustration, anger, and violence between communities. The details are not our concern in this article but a new eloquence for intractable conflicts will be transcendent and a form of communication capable of closing gaps and bridging identities in conflicting communities. Future studies must explore the details of these new forms of communication.

See also: Clan and Tribal Conflict; Class Conflict in Capitalist Society; Conflict Theory; Cultural Anthropology Studies of Conflict; Ethnic Conflicts and Cooperation; Ethnicity and Identity Politics; Linguistic Constructions of Violence, Peace, and Conflict

Further Reading Avruch, K. (1998). Culture and conflict resolution. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press. Bar-Tal, D. (2000). From intractable conflict through conflict resolution to reconciliation: Psychological analysis. Political Psychology 21, 761–770.

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Bar-On, D. (2008). The ‘others’ within us: Constructing Jewish–Israeli identity. New York: Cambridge University Press. Bazerman, M. and Neale, M. (1993). Negotiating rationally. New York: Free Press. Bronfenbrenner, U. (1961). The mirror image in Soviet–American relations: A social psychologist’s report. Journal of Social Issues 17(3), 45–56. Burton, J. (1990). Conflict: Resolution and prevention. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Coleman, P. T. (2003). Characteristics of protracted, intractable conflict: Toward the development of a metaframework – I. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology 9, 1–37. Crabb, P. B. (1989). When aggression seems justified: Judging intergroup conflict from a distance. Aggressive Behavior 15, 345–352. Deutsch, M. (1973). The resolution of conflict: Constructive and destructive processes. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Ellis, D. G. (2005). Intercultural communication in intractable ethnopolitical conflicts. In Starosta, W. J. and Chen, G. (eds.) International and intercultural communication annual, pp. 45–69. Washington, DC: National Communication Association. Ellis, D. G. and Maoz, I. (2002). Cross-cultural argument interactions between Israeli-Jews and Palestinians. Journal of Applied Communication Research 30, 181–194. Feghali, E. (1997). Arab cultural communication patterns. International Journal of Intercultural Relations 21, 345–378. Haque, A. and Lawson, E. (1980). The mirror image in the context of the Arab–Israeli conflict. International Journal of Intercultural Relations 4, 107–115. Hastrof, A. and Cantrill, H. (1954). They saw a game: A case study. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 49, 129–134. Hatim, B. (1991). The pragmatics of argumentation in Arabic: The rise and fall of a text type. Text 11, 189–199. Heradstveit, D. (1974). Arab and Israeli elite perceptions. Oslo: Oslo University Press and Humanities Press. Hirshberg, M. (1993). The self-perpetuating national self-image: Cognitive biases in perceptions of international interventions. Political Psychology 14(1), 77–97. Johnstone, B. (1986). Arguments with Khomeini: Rhetorical situation and persuasive style in cross-cultural perspective. Text 6, 171–187. Katriel, T. (1986). Talking straight: Dugri speech in Israeli sabra culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kelman, H. (1999). Transforming the relationship between former enemies: A social–psychological analysis. In Rothstein, R. (ed.) After the peace: Resistance and reconciliation, pp. 193–205. London: Lynne Rienner. Keltner, D. and Robinson, R. (1993). Imagined ideological differences in conflict escalation and resolution. International Journal of Conflict Management 4, 249–262. Kriesberg, L. (1998). Intractable conflicts. In Weiner, E. (ed.) The handbook of interethnic coexistence, pp 332–342. New York: Continuum. Lord, C., Ross, L., and Lepper, M. (1979). Biased assimilation and attitude polarization: The effects of prior theories on subsequently considered evidence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 37, 2098–2109. Maoz, I. (2000). An experiment in peace: Processes and effects in reconciliation aimed workshops of Israeli and Palestinian youth. Journal of Peace Research 37(6), 721–736. Maoz, I. (2004). Social-cognitive aspects in reconciliation. In Bar-SimanTov, Y. (ed.) From conflict to reconciliation, pp 225–238. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Maoz, I. and Ellis, D. G. (2001). Going to ground: Argument between Israeli-Jews and Palestinians. Research on Language and Social Interaction 4, 399–419. Oskamp, S. (1965). Attitudes toward US and Russian actions: A double standard. Psychological Reports 16, 43–46. Pearce, W. B. and Littlejohn, S. W. (1997). Moral conflict: When social worlds collide. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Rosenberg, S. and Wolfsfeld, G. (1977). International conflict and the problem of attribution. Journal of Conflict Resolution 21, 75–103. Ross, M. (1995). Psychocultural interpretation theory and peacemaking in ethnic conflicts. Political Psychology 16(3), 523–543.

776 Evil, Concept of Ross, L. and Ward, A. (1996). Naive realism in everyday life: Implications for social conflict and misunderstanding. In Brown, T., Reed, E., and Turiel, E. (eds.) Values and knowledge, pp 103–135. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Rouhana, N. N. and Bar-Tal, D. (1998). Psychological dynamics of intractable ethnonational conflicts: The Israeli–Palestinian case. American Psychologist 53, 761–770. Rubin, J., Pruitt, D., and Kim, S. (1994). Social conflict: Escalation, stalemate and settlement. New York: McGraw-Hill. Staub, E. (2000). Genocide and mass killing: Origins, prevention, healing, and reconciliation. Political Psychology 21, 367–382. Thompson, L. and Hastie, R. (1990). Social perception in negotiation. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 47, 98–123.

Tidwell, A. C. (1998). Conflict resolution: A critical assessment of conflict resolution. London: Continuum. Tversky, A. and Kahneman, D. (1981). The framing of decisions and the psychology of choice. Science 59, 250–278. Vallone, R., Ross, L., and Lepper, M. (1985). The hostile media phenomenon: Biased perception and perceptions of media bias in coverage of the Beirut massacre. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 49, 577–585. Wessells, M. G. (1998). Children, armed conflict, and peace: The Grac¸a Machel/UN study and its psychosocial implications. Journal of Peace Research 35, 635–646. White, R. (1984). Fearful warriors: A psychological profile of US–Soviet relations. New York: Free Press.

European Union See Transnational Organizations

Evil, Concept of David Loye, Center for Partnership Studies, Carmel, CA, USA ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Evil: A Scientific View Evil: A Religious View Evil: A Philosophical View

Violence as Evil and What to Do about It Further Reading

As the twenty-first century gets underway, the question of what is evil has become uncomfortably meaningful in new and evermore violent ways. A new wave of terrorism and war surges out of both East and West as it becomes popular for political as well as religious leaders to label everyone who disagrees with them as ‘evil’. With the world in effect still sitting on the tinderbox of thousands of nuclear missiles, the question of what really ‘is’ evil becomes ever more pressing. If we go back into history and what we know of human evolution, it seems likely that ever since the first humans began to abstract concepts out of, perhaps, the experience of unjustified or unnatural death, the problem of evil has been centrally troublesome. One stream of Christianity has defined evil as what happens when one goes against or falls away from ‘God’, attributing everything of this sort to ‘Satan’. A stream of Hinduism defines evil as an illusion, only ‘Maya’. Philosophers have further tried to define evil in various ways on which they often widely disagree. We will further pursue these traditions in which a far richer heritage of thought exists about what evil is than in science. But we open here with science because evil is so seldom addressed from the scientific perspective, yet it is this perspective that we must above all now understand

if we are to more effectively solve the problems – particularly those of violence and the consequences of violence in an age of still only very tenuously controlled nuclear proliferation – that give rise to the concept of evil.

Evil: A Scientific View A working definition from a scientific viewpoint is that evil includes the opposite of what we consider to be ‘good’ in life, or what is ‘bad’. It also includes what we consider to be ‘wrong’ rather than ‘right’. But it involves far more than just the ‘bad’, the ‘wrong’, or peace versus war as a matter of scale, persistence, and intensity. That is, it is a term used to describe the bad, the wrong, or the violent at their sustained, or persistent, or systemsstructural ‘extreme’. Other than in religious contexts people seldom use the word ‘evil’ any more. Yet the realities that originally gave rise to the concept are still with us. Indeed, in specifics such as our species’ new-found potential via the ultimate violence of nuclear or environmental devastation to make this Earth uninhabitable, what used to be called evil presses upon us even more than ever before.

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To understand evil we need to see it within the perspective of at least three great bodies of knowledge: that of modern science, both social and natural science, and ranging from past into the present, that of religion and theology, and of philosophy. We will consider the scientific perspective first, then the theological, the philosophical, and last focus all three perspectives on the latest views of how violence as an aspect of evil is rooted in the culture prevailing globally for humanity at this point in the evolution of our species. One advantage of the scientific perspective is that, in comparison to religion and philosophy, it offers a simpler, direct way of grounding ourselves in the ‘database’ of evil. Another advantage is that of its powerful methodology for obtaining the kind of consensus on what something is and is not that is extremely difficult for either religion or philosophy to achieve. Still another advantage is the multidisciplinary problem-solving orientation that further differentiates science historically from religion and philosophy. What is evil? How, beyond the brief working definition that opens this article, do we define it? As we will see in our consideration of the religious and philosophical background, many answers have been offered. Another advance that science has brought to this area of concern has been its reduction of the global or wholesale use of the word ‘evil’, thereby forcing us to differentiate between kinds and circumstances and levels of specific ills. In reasonably enlightened settings, this advancement has helped prevent the use of the word evil as no more than a self- or group-defined term for defiling whoever one decides, for whatever reasons, is one’s enemy. At the same time, however, the need remains for a term for the opposite or lack of good. There are also people and situations where anything short of labeling them evil seems a dangerous diminishment of meaning, as for example in the case of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi impact on Germany. The basic scientific approach to defining anything is to identify it in what are called empirical or operational terms – that is, in terms of what gives rise to it and how it affects us, what variables or factors and dynamics are involved, or more directly, what it looks like, what seems to cause it, and what can be done about it. What science has ascertained as of the end of the twentieth and the beginning of the twenty-first century indicates that what has in the past been classified as evil seems to have at least five sources: cultural, physiological, biological, evolutionary, and existential.

that evil is culturally caused, or an adverse function of social system arrangements. This belief became a basis both for the American revolution and experiment in democracy and the first two large cohesive attempts at a social scientific rationale for putting this idea to use in large-scale human problem-solving. First came the economics of Adam Smith’s rationale for the development of capitalism. Then came the economics and political science of Marx and Engels’ rationale for communism. In other words, before the Enlightenment movement of the eighteenth century, out of which science arose, the idea prevailed in the West that we are, each of us, innately evil and must be ruled by the supposedly divine ordination of kings. But with the triumph of the Enlightenment, the prevailing idea became that evil resides in the political, economic, or more general cultural system – that we are basically good, made evil by the system, which can be changed. This idea underlies the bulk of work in social science today directed toward improvement of the human situation. Keying to the pioneering of Emile Durkheim and Max Weber in sociology, John Stuart Mill and Thorstein Veblen in economics, Sigmund Freud and Kurt Lewin in psychology, and many others in all the fields of social science, the various social sciences have focused on racism, sexism, poverty, militarism, crime, and a wide range of other problems – including violence, to which we will return – that in the past were seen as bearing on the question of evil. As this brief list indicates, the focus has been on the specifics that give rise to rather than on the abstraction of evil. A continuing use, however, of the abstracting of evil is the labeling of other people as evil for ‘social constructionist’ purposes. Enemies are labeled evil to help promote wars, people of other faiths or no faith are labeled evil to promote religious conquest, and social deviants of all types are labeled evil to consolidate the power of ruling castes, classes, or elites. The evidence by now available to us through social science indicates that in the overwhelming majority of cases, cultural factors are the primary source of what we could classify as evil. This evidence supports the conclusion guiding progressive modern social policy that the great payoff in reducing the impact of this factor in our lives lies in cultural, social, and educational improvement. Science, however, has identified other factors which interact with culture to produce the problems of our concern. Physiological Sources of Evil

Cultural Sources of Evil This is the dominant heritage of thought both for science and for modern times. Most notably first articulated by the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, this is the view

To those convinced that cultural factors determine all social and individual pathology, the idea that we might be born evil in the sense of lacking, or be made evil through damage to, the mental equipment for a

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conscience has been anathema. In criminology, for example, Lombroso, who developed a famous and shoddy system of criminal types, is held up as an example of Dark Ages psychology. Recent brain research, however, is beginning to reveal what the police, lawyers, and others who deal regularly with criminals have long suspected. There simply are people, from the so-called best as well as the worst of backgrounds, who either lack or have suffered damage to some facet of the brain structures involved in the existence and functioning of what we call the conscience, or the capacity for differentiating right from wrong. Many more others, as the work of both anthropologist Ashley Montagu in Touching in 1986 and psychiatrist A. N. Shore in 1994 makes evident, are born intact but maimed not only psychologically but physiologically by the lack of love and caring, by brutality and abuse, or other forms of parental mishandling. Shore, for example, documents specific patterns of basic brain damage to children born fully functional that can be linked, on the one hand, to a later incapacity for caring for others and/or tendencies to violence and, on the other, to the child’s treatment by parents who either physically batter them or who may pride themselves on ‘never laying a hand on them’, but who were home-grown specialists in psychological damage. These two kinds of brutalized people used to be among the numbers of those called psychopaths. Now they are called sociopaths – which can be misleading, as for the reasons given here not all the sources of the kinds of crimes that reach the levels that invite the label of evil are social or cultural. Here, too, we find a factor that can be diminished with attention to cultural and educational change. A useful analogy would be the case of someone who has suffered a stroke, and thereby damage to the brain, who can only walk or talk with great difficulty, but who can, with a sizeable investment of money and much work, be rehabilitated. In the case of those who lack or have suffered damage to our primarily frontal brain equipment for a conscience, however, it is evident that for the protection of others they must be rigorously controlled, while an effort is made to retrain them. To prevent misinterpretation of this information by those seeking to discount cultural factors – who, for example, think that public funding should overwhelmingly go to prisons rather than to schools – it is important to stress two aspects of this information. The first is that those with physiological deficits that may lead to the levels of pathology that could be called evil represent only a small fraction in comparison with those with cultural deficits. Second, a preponderance of findings indicates that even in these cases pathology emerges out of an interaction of both cultural and physiological factors.

Biological and Evolutionary Sources of Evil For several decades a debate has raged within the fields of biology, sociology, anthropology, and psychology over claims of those establishing the new field of sociobiology that fundamentally bear on the question of the origin of evil. In general, it is the contention of biologists such as E. O. Wilson, Robert Trivers, and Richard Dawkins that the evolution of our species out of earlier organisms, for example, reptiles and earlier mammals, reveals how human behavior is basically driven by selfishness rather than altruism, indeed even by ‘selfish genes’. Others not as widely respected add to this the idea that we are basically driven by ‘killer instincts’ also implanted within us by our evolutionary origins, thus in effect making evil rather than good a primary motivation as well as a primary direction for our species. More recently, the battleground has shifted to the field of primatology. A recent book, for example, Demonic Males, finds that contrary to the impression that only at the human level do we find organized warfare this has now been found among roving bands of male chimpanzees. To counter the position of the sociobiologists, anthropologists such as Ashley Montagu, biologists such as Richard Lewontin, and psychologists such as Leon Kamin make three primary points. One is that to extrapolate from the prehuman to the human level is a far more complicated process than the sociobiologists assert, that at the prehuman level one actually finds a preponderance of what might be called prosocial rather than antisocial behavior, and that at the human level again culture rather than biology becomes the overwhelming factor determining behavior. In primatology, the debate tends to center around the differences between two kinds of chimpanzees, the common chimp and a more evolved bonobo or ‘pygmy’ chimpanzee. In contrast to the greater potential for violence and other forms of antisocial behavior among the common chimps, the bonobo is not only much more peaceful but in many other regards seems to be far closer to what we mean when we speak of humanity as a prosocial characteristic of humans. The message of books such as Goodnatured (1996) by primatologist Franz de Waal, as well as Sacred pleasure (1995) by cultural evolutionary theorist Riane Eisler, is that at the prehuman level in evolution there exists a wide range of behavioral potentials, from which at the human level ‘culture’ selects which behaviors to favor and which to discourage.

Existential Sources of Evil Beyond consideration of cultural, physiological, biological, and evolutionary sources of evil lies the existential fact of the kind of disasters of life that religions and philosophers have wrestled with for thousands of years,

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but which science has mainly avoided other than to consider, via the field of psychotherapy, what may be done to help comfort the victims. This is the realm of horror that opens before us with the death of a beloved child, with all that otherwise could have been its life before it. Or the case of the great achiever and the great achievement that might have enormously benefited humanity cutoff midstream, or when barely underway. Or the triumph of the most despicable and least worthy of humans and the defeat and subjugation of the good. Some would say that because this factor is structurally inbuilt into existence, that it simply happens, it cannot be called evil, it just is what is. Such a belief, however, has not been acceptable to many of those motivated to better the human condition as scientists, as religious leaders or theologians, or as philosophers.

Evil: A Religious View Though science has begun to demystify or cut the age-old problem of evil down to size, there remains much about evil that science cannot adequately express or probe. It cannot, for example, capture the eerie sense of evil that a great writer such as Joseph Conrad can in Heart of darkness (1947). Nor can it – or for that matter anything else – do justice to the monumental horror of how Germany, as one of the most advanced nations of the world, could shift so quickly from having the most outstanding scientists and symphony orchestras of its time to the torturing and gassing of millions, the fiendish death camp experiments of Joseph Mengele, and the manufacturing of lampshades out of human skin. It was the routine prevalence of such brutality in earlier times that over thousands of years drove religious visionaries and theologians to try to account for what to them was the incontrovertible fact of evil in our world. As indicated earlier, one route taken by ancient Hindu thought was to deny the existence of evil, to assert that it was only an illusion born of the limits of human mind. This was in keeping with a general tendency among Eastern religions to accept evil as a fact of life to be lived with or otherwise accommodated. In the Hindu system of deities one had Brahma the creator, Vishnu the preserver, and Shiva and his consort goddess Kali as destroyers. To further work evil into the natural cycle of life, one had a system of reincarnation interlocked with Karma that offered compensations for evil. Bad things that happen in a life are not only lessons for us to learn from, but can also be offset with better things or compensation in one’s later lives on Earth through reincarnation. Buddhism accepted suffering as our central challenge to overcome through the ‘eightfold path’ designed to overcome selfish craving. Confucianism identified social

ills and abuse of power as evils to likewise transcend by overcoming egoism – as well as the ‘‘parochialism, ethnocentrism, and chauvinistic nationalism’’ (Smith, p. 117) ironically characteristic of modern China. With Islam evil has chiefly been seen as disobeying the edicts of Allah. This unfortunately has been widely used for the deified justification of violence that historically has been the black mark against almost all religions. Of Eastern beliefs regarding evil, possibly the one of most enduring interest here is the Hindu belief that the evolution of humanity involves cycles of great long spans of time called the Yugas. According to this belief, a peaceful golden age of goodness called the Krita Yuga was followed by two Yugas of lesser peace and goodness, and finally with the Kali Yuga – a time of evil and much violence in which humanity has been stuck now for thousands of years. Indian holy men and holy women today aver the Kali Yuga is ending, that we are again entering the Krita Yuga. Indeed one, Dadaji, predicted the shift would come in 1989, when in later fact the Cold War between the Soviet East and the West came to an end. In contrast to the more passive attitude of the Eastern religions toward evil has been the more active stance of Western religion (as well as Islam, which in part derives from both Judaism and Christianity). Here evil has been seen as something to be much more actively questioned, and if possible eradicated. Ironically, one of the most influential strains in this regard comes from a technically Eastern religion, the Zoroastrianism of ancient Persia, as well as the later ancient Middle Eastern sect known as Manichaeism. For the Zoroastrian evil was caused by the fiendish spirit Angra Mainyu, with whom the supreme being, Ahura Mazda, is engaged in a vast, cosmic struggle. This became the basis for the later Christian belief in Satan or the Devil as the evil within and all around us to, by struggle, be overcome. Thus, out of the earlier beliefs, for Western religions that posited the existence of an overriding supreme being, arose the problem that theology has wrestled with ever since. Whether it was fact, illusion, or a Devil, how could one reconcile the devastation of evil with a belief in the goodness of an all-powerful and all-wise God? One solution for the problem was proposed by the ancient Hebrews in the Book of Job. After suffering practically every bad thing one can think of, Job asks God why this is being done to him. God’s answer out of a whirlwind became another tenet of belief for religion over hundreds of years thereafter: that these things happen and one can only submit, for God’s purposes are above and beyond human understanding. Among those sharply questioning this view have been feminist theologians from Elizabeth Cady Stanton at the end of nineteenth century to Mary Daly, Rosemary Radford Reuther, and Elizabeth Dodson-Gray in our time. In their view, a primary source of the ills of the

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world, therefore evil, has been the psychological and social consequences of the positing of an exclusively male God at the heart of the violence of a globally male-ruled system of ‘patriarchy’. Over the centuries, this contention has been as widely rejected as mystifying extremism as another view has been widely favored in religion and society more generally. During the early development of Christianity the problems with all of the early answers to the question of how God relates to the fact of evil gave rise to the conflict, often bloody and at times incredibly violent, of the advocates of one or another position. At the end of the fourth century, out of a profligate youth that left him riddled with the guilt that led to his famous Confessions, there emerged the solution – or theodicy – of St.Augustine. (Theodicy is the term for religious beliefs regarding suffering and evil.) God’s creation, according to Augustine, was all good, therefore evil had not been created by God. It was the ‘absence’ of good, as darkness is the absence of light. But how then did evil enter the world? Goodness could be diminished by the weakness and the corruption that entered into God’s creation through the existence of free will in the human allowing the human to defy the will of God. Augustine further asserted that what at first may appear to be evil can in the long run turn out to be good within the context of eternity. Today we think that because such thoughts were first expressed around 1600 years ago, they have little to do with our lives today. But Augustine’s solutions were not only to rule the minds of many theologians, Protestant as well as Catholic, but also millions of Christians over hundreds of years thereafter. Certain aspects of his thinking persist even today, and not only in fundamentalist faiths but also in surprising and seemingly wholly different contexts. Via the writings of Carl Jung and Aldous Huxley, for example, the belief that what may appear to be evil may in the long run turn out to be good has re-entered and spread within what is known today as New Age spirituality. But it is Augustine’s powerful formulation of the doctrine of ‘original sin’ and theological reaction to it that seems to be mirrored in the more surprising, and seemingly far removed, area of scientific debate today. The problem of evil began with Adam in the Garden of Eden, Augustine reasoned. Having been given free will by God as an experiment, Adam then foolishly chose to listen to Eve, who in turn was advised by the serpent of evil. Though strictly forbidden by God to do so, Adam ate the apple, thus going against the will of God. Thereafter this original sin has corrupted all of us, his descendants, for Adam’s guilt and its penalty pass on to us. All of us are born in sin; because of Adam’s original sin we are naturally driven to pursue evil, and only through the Church can we find redemption. Though this belief was used by

the Church of the Middle Ages to hold much of Western humanity in subjugation, even with the Protestant Reformation what is basically a belief that humans are driven to err through innate evil was picked up and again advanced by Martin Luther and John Calvin. In Augustine’s time another cleric, Pelagius, disputed this charge. Many other theologians and progressive faiths have since emphasized free will and vigorously denied the doctrines of innate evil and original sin. Indeed, embodied in the thinking of both the philosophers and religious thinkers of the seventeenth and eighteenth century such as William Penn and Roger Williams, the counterposition not only helped shape the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution establishing the United States of America. A belief in our inherent goodness, rather than innate evil, has also similarly animated the emergence of democracies elsewhere throughout the world. Yet even in science today the ancient dispute persists. It has been diluted and made a matter more of an honest difference of opinion than a matter of life or death according to which position one might take, as against the earlier. But behind the sociobiologists’ doctrine of an embedded selfishness and of the belief of others in our natural propensity for violence lurks the old doctrine of innate evil. And in the countering positions of the scientific advocates of culture as a primary source of what may be considered evil can be seen as an updating of Pelagius.

Evil: A Philosophical View By far the greatest attention to the problem of evil has come from philosophers ranging from the ancient Greeks, through the years leading to and through the Enlightenment, and thereafter swelling and then dwindling into modern times. Though not the first to deal with the problem, the Greek philosopher Epicurus most neatly set forth a central dilemma that both theologians and philosophers were to wrestle with afterward. If there is an all-wise, allpowerful, and all-good God, how can his existence be reconciled with the fact of evil? If he is all-powerful then he could prevent evil, but as he does not he cannot be all-good. Likewise, if he is all-good he would be forced to try to prevent evil, but as he cannot prevent it he therefore cannot be all-powerful. Another long-term influential idea was offered by Socrates. He felt that virtue lies in knowledge and that people will be virtuous if they know what virtue is; therefore, the cause of vice – or evil – is ignorance. Historically, this has been a powerful underlying rationale for the activist rise and spread of universal education. Socrates’ pupil Plato believed that evil does not in itself exist, but is an imperfect reflection of the real, which is good – an idea

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that much later George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne and founder of modern idealist philosophy, was to further develop. ‘‘The very blemishes and defects of nature are not without their use,’’ Berkeley maintained. ‘‘They make an agreeable variety and augment the beauty of the rest of creation, as shadows in a picture serve to set off the brighter parts’’ (Castell, p. 139). Many other positions were taken by the Greeks, but perhaps of most interest to the modern problem-solving mind are the generally neglected views of Aristotle. In contrast to the abstractions of Plato and other Greeks – notably the Cynics, the Cyrenaics, the Megarians, and the Platonists – Aristotle was the world’s first, most wideranging, empiricist. ‘Let us look carefully at what exists before we speculate’ was his basic position. What he saw in looking at the problem of evil seems at first ridiculously simplistic. There are virtues and there are vices, and there are the two kinds of people, the good and the bad, he observed. But to Aristotle what made the difference was not so much the fact of evil, but what one did about it. What made the difference was a matter of character. The virtuous were distinguished by using the virtues of courage, temperance, and what he called ‘‘greatness of soul’’ to apply the power of ‘‘perception, intellect, and desire’’ to action to better our world. The others merely wallowed in ‘‘spite, shamelessness, and envy and such actions as adultery, theft, and murder,’’ all of which are ‘‘evil in themselves’’ (Aristotle, p. 310). The ‘‘just man is formed by doing just acts, the temperate man by doing temperate acts: without doing them, no one would even be likely to become good,’’ he wrote (Ibid, p. 307). Then in a slap at his teacher, a host of philosophers to follow him, and indeed most of us, Aristotle noted that ‘‘the great majority do not act on this principle. Instead, they take refuge in argument, thinking that they are being philosophers and will become morally good in that way. They are like invalids who listen attentively to their doctor, but carry out none of his instructions. These will never be made fit by that sort of regime; nor will people become healthy in soul by philosophizing like that.’’ (Ibid). Some 2000 years later, in the early stages of the development of the thinking that flowered during the Enlightenment, applying geometry to a demonstration of ethics, the Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza tried to advance our understanding of ethics by deriving principles from geometry. This led to his assertion that everything in the universe is morally neutral prior to the assignment to it by the human being of the labels of good or evil, or right or wrong. He also presents the question of evil as a rather trivial concern within the perspective of eternity, finding evil to be only ‘‘in reality a lesser good’’ (Spinoza, p. 231). Another mathematician and philosopher Leibniz further advanced this view, asserting that evil was a

necessary ingredient in this ‘‘best of all possible universes.’’ This was to enrage the most accomplished polemical philosopher of his age, the great Voltaire. Not only did he immortalize Leibniz as the foolish Dr. Pangloss of his novella Candide but he proceeded to impale Spinoza as well as Leibniz in a poem detailing what he found to be the inescapable ‘nontriviality’ of evil rampant in this world, in which ‘‘every member groans, all born for torment and for mutual death.’’ ‘‘And o’er this ghastly chaos you would say the ills of each make up the good of the all!’’ Voltaire thundered. ‘‘What blessedness! And as, with quaking voice, mortal and pitiful ye cry, ‘All’s well,’ the universe belies you, and your heart refutes a hundred times your mind’s conceit.’’ (Durant, p. 226)

The obdurate British philosopher Thomas Hobbes picked up this theme to maintain that not only is the world filled with evil but human nature is basically evil. Apart from the veneer that civilization might give us, human life is ‘‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short,’’ involving a ‘‘war of all against all’’ (Castell, p. 396). As was before and since then has been a firm conviction for most conservatives, for Hobbes the only solution to the implacable problem of evil embedded within all of us is massive control through the power of a strong monarch or state. Among many other British philosophers who disagreed were David Hume and Adam Smith. Both felt that we are morally linked to one another by sympathy, which raises us out of the Hobbesian brutishness. As for evil, Hume felt this, along with the question of the existence of God, was a matter beyond the reach of human reason. Smith, however, felt that evil could be diminished. We could move away from the brutishness of the feudal monarchy, as well as the brutishness of the privileged as well as unprivileged classes of his time, toward the greater freedom and equality offered by the early stages of capitalism. For Rousseau, as noted earlier, the source of evil was the lack of freedom and the prevalence of inequality imbedded in society rather than anything inherent in the human being. ‘‘Man is born free, and is everywhere in chains,’’ he wrote (Castell, p. 407). But behind this figure celebrated in most textbooks as the champion of the idea of the innate goodness of ‘man’ lay the much more complicated reality of a man who was himself, by any reasonable definition, not a good person. Not only did he abandon his many illegitimate children to die in orphanages, but his sexism became legendary. Taking up the challenge for feminist philosophy in his time, Mary Wollstonecraft detailed how Rousseau’s book Emile ‘‘degrades one half the human species.’’ Evil to her was the enforcement of ignorance and sexual slavery upon the female by the male of the species. Man, she

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railed in A Vindication of the rights of woman, ‘‘from the remotest antiquity, [has] found it convenient to exert his strength to subjugate his companion, and his invention to show that she ought to have her neck bent under the yoke, because the whole creation was only created for his convenience or pleasure’’ (Schneir, p. 9). The situation of woman, she charged, was to ‘‘grovel contentedly, scarcely raised by her employments above the animal kingdom’’ (Ibid, p. 11). Another contradictory figure was the man considered one of the greatest philosophers of all time, Immanuel Kant. He felt that the origin of evil was a matter beyond human comprehension. But emblematic of the contradictions in philosophy that accelerated the rise of science as a way of resolving this confusion were Kant’s further thoughts about evil. In relation to ethics, Kant is most famous for his Categorical Imperative, a modern updating of the ancient Golden Rule to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. This Categorical Imperative, Kant states, is the universal grounding law for all human beings – from which one would infer that Kant believed that we humans, being governed by this law, are inherently good. But elsewhere in his work he states that we are not only evil, but in fact ‘radically’ evil by nature! Moreover, this radical evil within us ‘‘is a natural propensity, ‘inextirpable’ by human powers’’ (Kant, p. 32). Yet within five pages of this assertion he is telling us that our original direction involves ‘‘a predisposition to good,’’ and that ‘‘despite a corrupted heart’’ we ‘‘yet possess a good will,’’ therefore ‘‘there remains hope of a return to the good from which [we have] strayed’’ (Ibid, pp. 38, 39). Kant was the watershed philosopher between earlier and modern times. Of the many strains of philosophy thereafter touching at times on the problem of evil, much of it emerged in reaction to the long-time attempt by Christianity, and what at the time was a present-day attempt by Marx and Engels and other ‘utopians’, to eradicate the ills once classified as evil through the activist power of social movements. Nietzsche and Schopenhauer were similar in taking a very jaundiced view both of humanity and of any prospect for improvement through social movements or any other means. To Nietzsche – paving the way for the Nazis – a source of what he would classify as evil was what he called the ‘‘slave morality’’ of Christianity as opposed to the ‘‘master morality’’ of the ‘‘free spirit’’ and the Superman. ‘‘The hardier human traits, such as egotism, cruelty, arrogance, retaliation, and approbation, are given ascendancy over the softer virtues, such as sympathy, charity, forgiveness, loyalty, and humility, and are pronounced necessary constituents in the moral code of a natural aristocracy,’’ one admiring commentator writes of Nietzsche’s views (Nietzsche, p. 376). As for Schopenhauer, life was evil because we are driven to never be satisfied, because pain

is our basic reality with pleasure only temporary, because the more advanced and sensitive we are the more we suffer, because if we find satisfaction it is only to thereafter become bored, and because life is war – everything trying to eat or outdo each other in a situation where ‘‘man is a wolf to man’’ (Durant, p. 325). Out of this mid-nineteenth-century time, via the gloomy Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, also arose the existential philosophy that was to carry the problem of evil on into recent times. To Kierkegaard, ‘‘the human race is sick, and, speaking spiritually, sick unto death’’ (Loewith, p. 112). Our ‘‘peculiar immorality’’ is ‘‘an extravagant disregard for the individual’’ (Ibid, p. 110). In other words, in a view shared with Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, one of the worst things about modern life for Kierkegaard were the social movements, such as Marxism or any other, that in attempting large-scale improvement in the human situation reduced the individual to being meaningless unless one could be labeled an advocate of some larger cause. For one of the best-known existentialists for the twentieth century, Jean Paul Satre, this became the view of ‘‘man’’ as isolated in a lonely world, with our only basic reference point or source of standards being ourselves, as individuals. Rather than being in any way fixed ‘‘essences,’’ good or evil were again, as for Spinoza, only labels we assign to what happens according to our own perceptions out of our own isolated ‘‘existences.’’ Satre, however, whose thought, along with that of his lifetime companion Simone de Bouvier, was shaped by resistance to the evil embodied in the Nazi occupation of France during World War II, shared with Aristotle and Marx and Engels the conviction of the necessity for moral action. ‘‘I ask myself, ‘Will socialization, as such, ever come about?’ I know nothing about it,’’ he wrote. ‘‘All I know is that I’m going to do everything in my power to bring it about. Beyond that, I can’t count on anything . . . The doctrine I am presenting is the very opposite of quietism, since it declares, ‘‘There is no reality except in action.’’ Moreover, it goes further, since it adds, ‘Man is nothing else than his plan; he exists only to the extent that he fulfills himself; he is therefore nothing else than the ensemble of his acts, nothing else than his life’’ (Satre, pp. 31, 32). Gradually thereafter in France existentialism gave way to related philosophies, still embedded in the English and art departments of many universities worldwide, variously known as deconstructionism, postmodernism, post-structuralism, and other terms. Though originally representing an advance in destroying many old paradigms binding modern thought and visual expression, over time these ‘schools’ of thought have driven philosophy into what their critics feel is a cul-de-sac of irrelevance. Within the context of the problem of evil, central to this failure seems to be the way the

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deconstructionists, etc., pushed to the extreme the idea we have been following that good or evil are only labels we assign to things for which there are no universals, no basis for consensus, no basis for the arousal and binding of ourselves together into a community of feeling or solidarity, or for concerted action. In contrast to the earlier emphasis on ‘deconstruction’, throughout the fields of art, literature, and philosophy as well as the social sciences affected by these philosophies the move is now toward ‘reconstruction’. Also in stark contrast stands the view of American philosopher and psychologist John Dewey, which over 70 years ago now expressed what has long been the rationale for both activist education and activist social science. ‘‘The problem of evil ceases to be a theological and metaphysical one, and is perceived to be the practical problem of reducing, alleviating, as far as may be removing, the evils of life,’’ Dewey wrote in 1920. ‘‘Philosophy is no longer under obligation to find ingenious methods of proving that evils are only apparent, not real, or to elaborate schemes for explaining them away or, worse yet, for justifying them. It assumes another obligation: – That of contributing in however humble a way to methods that will assist us in discovering the causes of humanity’s ills’’ (Dewey, pp. 141, 142).

Violence as Evil and What to Do about It A recurring theme over thousands of years of religion and hundreds of years of philosophy is the identification of violence as evil. While evil is a word one seldom finds used in science, it is also significant that by a variety of criteria, over a number of fields, scientific studies find violence associated with much of what in religion and philosophy has been labeled evil – that is, that violence breeds more violence and is potentially destructive to the stability and well-being of persons, families, and neighborhoods, as well as nations. The Hindu Bhagavad-Gita identifies self-restraint, harmlessness, absence of wrath, peacefulness, and forgiveness as among the ‘‘divine properties’’ that are ‘‘deemed to be for liberation.’’ By contrast, it identifies wrath, harshness, and ‘‘unwisdom’’ as properties of the ‘‘demonical for bondage’’ (Bible of the World, p. 99). ‘‘Him I call indeed a Brahmana who without hurting any creatures, whether feeble or strong, does not kill nor cause slaughter. Him I call indeed a Brahmana who is tolerant with the intolerant, and mild with the violent,’’ counsels the Dhammapada of Buddhism (Bible of the World, p. 303). ‘‘So far as arms are concerned, they are implements of ill-omen,’’ offers Taoism. ‘‘Where armies have been quartered brambles and thorns grow’’ (Bible of the World, p. 484).

‘‘Now beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace,’’ proclaims Isaiah in the Old Testament of the Jews and Christians, foreshadowing Jesus’ ‘‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.’’ (Dartmouth Bible, pp. 679, 883). As for the philosophers, with the exception of firebrands like Nietzsche, who looms now as a truly aberrant being not only in his legitimation of the philosophy of the Nazis but also for his literal worship of violence, most of the rest were mild men to whom it was obvious that violence threatened everything they valued. Moreover, in keeping with Aristotle’s dictum of praxis, or moral action, some tried to do something about it. Repelled by the violence of his age, Kant made the case for organizing what eventually became the League of Nations and then the United Nations. Repelled by the violence of his age, and mindful of the global interest in sports, William James detailed a plan for a game that might provide a ‘‘moral equivalent’’ for war. Repelled by the violence of their ages, over 100 years feminist philosophers such as Margaret Fuller, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Simone de Bouvier steadily laid the intellectual groundwork for a notably peace-oriented global women’s movement. Currently, philosopher Ervin Laszlo has launched a Club of Budapest to be an equivalent for the industrial Club of Rome in focusing the creativity of artists, musicians, writers, and religious leaders as well as scientists on the reduction of global violence and the stabilization of peace. A powerful countering factor bearing on the question of violence and what to do about it, however, has been the influence of certain aspects of the philosophies of two twentieth-century figures known chiefly as psychologists, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. These views are of interest here for two reasons. One is that, although purportedly scientific, neither of their views in this instance scientific, both being matters of unsubstantiated personal philosophy. The other reason is that, generally unperceived, both views have widely and persistently served to perpetuate the idea of evil being innate in humans, which again and again has discouraged people from trying to do something about violence, as it seems inevitable, as well as being used to justify authoritarian control. For Freud the evil in us is innate aggression – that we are cosmically driven by the death instinct he called Thanatos, as well as by the primal depravity of the id within our unconscious, to aggress against others, and to kill if need be. For Jung evil was the dark mystery residing in what he called the Shadow, an archetypicallyembedded and therefore innate and eternally threatening source of the potential for violence and all other depravities. Within the context of both the religion and the philosophy we have examined here it can be seen how

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again we are looking at what are in essence modern updatings of Augustine’s doctrine of original sin – and indeed Jung recognized this connection in one of his papers. Countering the persistence of this idea of innate evil are not only the views and studies identified earlier but much new work. In closing, we will examine examples bearing on the question of violence as evil from theology, cultural evolution studies and theory, and again the interface between brain and culture. Being mainly irreligious themselves, having outgrown such prejudices they might feel, social scientists looking for the causes of the ills of this world – or the source of evil in the earlier terminology – tend to overlook one very large fact. This is that religion is still exceptionally meaningful to the overwhelming majority of the people on this planet. Moreover, these religions are – for better or for worse – primarily motivational. Both how we are driven to violence and to nonviolence has been examined in a monumental recent study of the problem of evil from the theological viewpoint in a trilogy of books by Walter Wink. ‘‘Evil is not our essence,’’ theologian Wink concludes in Engaging the Powers (p. 72). Rather, the problem is the ‘‘myth of redemptive violence’’ which has become the linchpin for the ‘‘Domination System.’’ ‘‘Paradoxically, those in the grip of the cultural trance woven over us by the Domination System are usually unaware of the full depth of their soul-sickness,’’ Wink writes. ‘‘It is only after we experience liberation from primary socialization to the world-system that we realize how terribly we have violated our authentic personhood – and how violated we have been’’ (Ibid, p. 73). Another monumental recent work searching for the cause of violence are the cumulating books and papers of systems scientist and cultural evolutionary theorist Riane Eisler. Driven herself to the question of the origin and nature of evil by the fact of being Jewish and a refugee from the devastation of the Nazis in Europe, Eisler’s work culminates the feminist critique we have briefly touched on here. The problem is not violence or evil inherent in the ‘male’ per se, Eisler stresses – a misconception which has driven women as well as men to reject the feminist critique. Rather, as she outlines in The chalice and the blade and Sacred pleasure, the problem is violence as a foundational aspect, along with male domination, and authoritarianism, of the ‘dominator’ model or paradigm of social organization that has prevailed over the past 5000 years of human cultural evolution. This Eisler contrasts with the ‘partnership’ model of social organization, based on nonviolence, gender as well as more general equality, and more democratic governance, originally advanced by Jesus among others and furthered by the Enlightenment and many modern social movements. In its probe of violence against women, against children, against men, against races and creeds and nations,

Eisler’s indictment ranges, era by era, over hundreds of years of our history. Yet out of it all arises the hopefulness of her observation that ‘‘this kind of system is not the only possibility for our species. Indeed, despite all the insensitivity and pain considered normal in much of recorded history . . . women and men have still somehow managed to relate to one another in sensitive and pleasurable ways. Even in the midst of hate, cruelty, and violence, we have again and again managed to instead give and receive love and to find joy not only in sexual passion but in the simplest of human gestures, in the touch of someone’s hand, a kiss, a friendly smile’’ (Eisler, 1995, p. 242). And what might account for this difference between whether we are to sadistically bully, brutalize, exploit, and kill, or to love one another? A particularly dramatic recent finding of brain researchers reaffirms the findings of many other brain researchers, child development specialists, and psychologists over at least the past 50 years. In 1994 psychologists Adrian Raine, Patricia Brennan, and Sarnoff Mednick reported the result of a study of 4269 men born in Denmark in the years 1959–61. They had looked for connections between birth complications, rejection by their mothers, and later violent crime. What they found was no significant correlation between either birth complications and later violent crime, or between rejection by their mothers and later violent crime. But the picture greatly changed when they looked at the 3.9% of their sample who had suffered ‘both’ birth complications and later rejection by their mothers. For they found that this 3.9% had committed 22% of all the later violent crimes. What does this tell us? If we carefully consider this finding it seems to be a scientific mini-metaphor for the relation of culture to biology, or of nurture to nature, that runs throughout this question we have repeatedly encountered of the origin of evil, and of whether we are innately evil, innately violent, or inherently otherwise. For here, pinned down by the most exacting of scientific approaches, the message would seem to be relatively clear. It is then understood that what determines our violence is not in our genes, or otherwise in us at birth, or even – as some contend – the trauma we may suffer in being born. It mainly depends on what happens to us afterward. It seems to depend on whether we are born into a family in which the parents have been maimed by cultural systems orienting to domination, violence, and gender and other forms of inequality, or into a family in which the parents have themselves been nurtured by cultural systems orienting more to the encouragement of equality, love, and caring. A new work that makes this point with scientific precision is The measuring of evolution. This is a volume that has written in a cycle of books celebrating the 200th

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anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin. Based on new discoveries of Darwin’s long-ignored emphasis on love and moral sensitivity rather than ‘‘survival of the fittest,’’ half a century of measurement research, and two decades of advanced evolution research, The measuring of evolution reports the development of the new Global Sounding measure of general and moral evolution to more precisely differentiate right from wrong, and good from evil, in terms of human and planetary evolution. See also: Alliance Systems; Critiques of Violence; Enemy, Concept and Identity of; Ethical Studies, Overview (Western); Ethical and Religious Traditions, Eastern; Ethical and Religious Traditions, Western; Human Nature, Views of; Justifications for Violence; Prevention of Violent Conflict by Structural Accommodation

Further Reading Bambrough, R. (ed.) (1963). The philosophy of Aristotle (trans. Creed, J. J. and Wardman, A. E.). New York: New American Library. Ballou, R. O. (ed.) (1939). The Bible of the world. New York: Viking. Brain/Mind Bulletin (1994). Volume 19 (No. 6, March). Butt, J. (trans.) (1947). Voltaire: Candide, or optimism. London: Penguin Classics. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Candide (accessed on Feb. 2008). Castell, A. (1946). An introduction to modern philosophy. New York: Macmillan. Conrad, J. (1999). Heart of darkness. New York: Columbia University Press. de Waal, F. (1996). Goodnatured. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Dewey, J. (1950). Reconstruction in philosophy. New York: New American Library.

Durant, W. (1961). The story of philosophy. New York: Simon & Schuster. Eisler, R. (1987). The chalice and the blade: Our history, our future. San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row. Eisler, R. (1995). Sacred pleasure: Sex, myth, and the politics of the body. San Francisco, CA: HarperSanFrancisco. Kant, I. (1960). Religion within the limits of reason alone. New York: Harper & Row. Lewontin, R. C., Rose, S., and Kamin, L. (1984). Not in our genes. New York: Pantheon. Loewith, K. (1967). From Hegel to Nietzsche. New York: Doubleday Anchor. Loye, D. (1993). Moral sensitivity and the evolution of higher mind. In Laszlo, E., Masulli, I., Artigiani, R., and Csa´nyi, V. (eds.) The evolution of cognitive maps: New paradigms for the twenty-first century, pp. 151–168. Philadelphia, PA: Gordon and Breach. Loye, D. (2006). The measuring of evolution: A guide to the health and wealth of nations. Carmel: Benjamin Franklin Press. Montagu, A. (1986). Touching: The human significance of skin. New York: Harper & Row. Nietzsche, F. (1927). The philosophy of Nietzsche. New York: Modern Library. Rousseau and Jacques, J. (1762). The social contract. http:// www.constitution.org/jjr/socon.htm (accessed on Feb. 2008). Satre, J. (1957). Existentialism and human emotions. New York: Philosophical Library. Schneir, M. (ed.) (1972). Feminism: The essential historical writings. New York: Vintage. Shore, A. N. (1994). Affect regulation and the origin of self: The neurobiology of emotional development. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlebaum. Smith, H. (1994). The illustrated world religions. San Francisco, CA: HarperSanFrancisco. Spinoza, B. (1951). The chief works of Benedict de Spinoza. New York: Dover. The Dartmouth Bible (1950). Boston: Houghton-Mifflin. Wink, W. (1992). Engaging the powers: Discernment and resistance in a world of domination. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. Wollstonecraft, M. (1798). A vindication of the rights of women. (Synvana, T. (ed.), 1995). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wrangham, R. W. (1996). Demonic males. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Evolution of Violence Jukka-Pekka Takala, National Council of Crime Prevention, Helsinki, Finland ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Evolutionary Point of View Adaptations to Violence and Conflict Conflicts with Kin and Nonkin Conflicts over Resources for Survival and Reproduction

Glossary Adaptation A process of natural selection operating upon heritable variation by which an organism becomes fitted to its environment; any of the evolved fitnessenhancing characteristics that are functional in solving specific problems. Allele Any alternative form of a gene.

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Evolution of Sexual Violence Conclusion Further Reading

Altruism In everyday language, altruism means selfless concern for the welfare of others. In evolutionary theory altruism strictly defined denotes increasing the fitness of another individual at the expense of the actor’s fitness. By-Products Side consequences of evolutionary adaptations. For instance, male nipples may be

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nonadaptive by-products of the design that produced female nipples that clearly have adaptive value. Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness (EEA) The environment in which a species evolved to solve the recurring problems posed by that environment. When the environment changes, existing adaptations may no longer be adaptive. Evolutionary Psychology Study of the mind in the light of evolutionary theory and current knowledge about the processes that created the mind. Used also more narrowly to designate an approach emphasizing the study of adaptations and problem-solving modules. Fitness The success of an organism’s genes relative to their alleles within a population. Gene Usually defined as a section of DNA that codes for one protein, but other definitions have been suggested also. Inclusive Fitness Total of an individual’s personal reproductive success and its influence on the fitness of relatives, the latter adijusted by the degree of their relatedness. Kin Selection A concept referring to the fact that natural selection works on inclusive fitness (qv). An individual may help to propagate the frequency of a trait in a population even if this reduces the individual’s personal fitness, provided the reduction is outweighed by increase in the fitness of individuals related to the actor. Kin selection explains why apparent altruism and self-sacrifice may be adaptive.

The Evolutionary Point of View Introduction This article presents ideas and findings on the evolution of violence. First, the evolutionary point of view is sketched emphasizing natural selection and mentioning circumstances that might favor the evolution of a capacity to use aggression. It is neither claimed that the evolutionary view is the only relevant approach in explaining and understanding violence nor that violence is the only relevant aspect of human behavior that the evolutionary approach can illuminate. It is claimed, however, that in many cases evolutionary theory could be a fruitful part of the approach of looking at violence, particularly when looking for comprehensive and accurate explanations for the patterns of aggression. The article then reviews attempts at evolutionary explanations of some aspects of violence and aggression, as well as some empirical findings that have been inspired by evolutionary theorizing. The section, ‘Conflicts with kin and nonkin’, discusses how the fact that close relatives

Parental Investment Anything a parent does to increase an offspring’s reproductive success at a cost to the parent’s capacity to invest in other offspring. Parent–Offspring Conflict Conflict based on the fact that the genomes of parents and offspring are not identical; typically, it is in the parents’ genetic interest to invest more or sooner in other progeny than the focal offspring’s genetic interest would dictate. Paternity Confidence, Paternal Certainty The degree to which a male is confident that he is the father of a child. Reciprocal Altruism A pattern of behavior in which an individual provides benefits to another without immediate payment and the recipient reciprocates with benefits to the donor when a chance arises. Both increase their fitness when benefits are given at a time when they cost little to the provider and may be very valuable to the recipient and the needs and resources of the individuals vary. Reproductive Success (RS) Passing of genes to next generation. A quantitative estimate of success is often expressed as the number of one’s surviving offspring that are able to reproduce. Sexual Selection Intrasexual competition for access to the opposite sex and intersexual mate choice. Darwin held sexual selection to be a form different from natural selection but today it is usually considered to be a type of natural selection.

share, on average, a much greater part of their genetic heritance seems to be linked to the patterns of the selection of victims and allies of violent acts. The next main section looks at the possibility of seeing conflicts over resources for survival reproduction as an ultimate source of many kinds of fairly common types of violence. The section also includes discussion of gender differences in aggression that seem to be linked to sex differences in reproduction. The final section before conclusion looks more closely at possibilities of understanding and explaining aspects of sexual violence by using evolutionary theory. The article necessarily touches upon many controversies (and often heated) over specific theories and hypotheses regarding violence. Many of the quarrels seem to spring from an overall rejection of the relevance of evolutionary theory to explanation and understanding of human behavior. However, controversies are found also among those researchers who basically welcome the evolutionary framework. Some of the concerns regarding the possible moral and legal implications will be discussed in the concluding section of this article. The evolutionary approach has by no

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means resulted in a homogeneous field, but is one where several somewhat different approaches compete with each other, sometimes to the extent that one can discern different ‘schools’. The debates are many and often too long in technical detail to be dwelt upon in length here. The references to some sources of the debates might help those who wish to learn more of the issues involved. Evolution by Natural Selection Evolution by natural selection, as first described by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace in 1858, is a result of a few simple processes. First, living beings tend to produce more offspring than the environment can carry. This means that there is competition for resources – be it overt or covert. Violence is one means of resolving conflicts over resources that have a bearing on survival and reproduction. Second, individuals of a population show variability in traits that are at least partly heritable. Traits that have to do with violence are heritable in many species. Third, the survival and reproductive success (RS) of different heritable variants is not random; some properties systematically enhance their bearers’ ability to survive and reproduce. For instance, if a species lives in an environment where competition for critical resources is part of everyday life, and it is possible to exclude competitors by force from resources, it is unlikely that a variant that is unable to defend resources would thrive. Finally, in the course of many generations, differential reproduction leads to an increase of the successful variants and a decrease or elimination of the less successful ones. Natural selection has no goal or purpose, but it will produce organisms that seem purposefully crafted to their environments. A variant that can better utilize a resource of the environment or better defend a resource against competitors emerges by chance, but once it has appeared, its chances of survival and reproduction are better than those of other variants. Hence, it can be expected that adaptations that emerge in the process of natural selection will help in competition. Competition can be indirect. For instance, one individual or group may be able to secure resources without others even noticing this fact (and only suffering from more limited options). However, competition can also be direct and open, so that more than one party confront each other at a time and place where the distribution of the limited resources is decided. Again, such a situation may proceed without the use of violence (or even its threat). In some cases, the situation may turn out to be even a cooperative win-win situation. However, some circumstances have tenaciously a zero-sum game character. The use or threat of violence is one possibility to decide the outcome of direct conflicts in many cases. Evolutionary theory views the evolution of violence in the context of its costs and benefits measured ultimately

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in terms of RS. It is, however, not about a single individual but about the average success of certain design features. An adaptation for aggression can be advantageous to the survival of copies of the genes that lie on its basis even if some individuals perish because of it. Evolutionary theory is also different from the outdated idea that selection would optimize the good of the species. The 1960s discovery of kin selection, the fact that selection operates on the combined or ‘inclusive’ fitness of the focal individual and its relatives, has led to new hypotheses and findings of the patterns of conflict, competition, violence, peace, and altruism. When these insights are applied to humans, many patterns of violence turn out to be consistent with the assumption that humans have evolved to be effective competitors and kin benefactors or ‘nepotists’. The potential rewards of violence include achieving (or preventing loss of) resources such as food, a favored nesting site, or access to a mate, but this comes with potential cost, such as increased risk of injury or death – often because of counterviolence. Hence, evolutionary variants that would aggress indiscriminately, without paying heed to the costs of aggression, would be less likely to succeed than those capable of calibrating their responses and aggressing only when benefits are likely to be higher than costs. Thus, we should expect that psychological decision mechanisms would have evolved that are sensitive to the prospects of success and the size of risks involved in different behavioral options. The basic options are often attack (or counterattack), submission, or flight. An oft-posed question about all evolutionary analyses of adaptation is: Are they testable? Is it not tautological to argue that particular traits of behavior or morphology are an ‘adaptation’ molded by natural and sexual selection to help its carrier to better survive and reproduce if the purpose of that ‘adaptation’ is inferred from the very features in question? The problem is real enough but can be largely avoided by deriving testable predictions from adaptation hypotheses. The adaptationist framework helps researchers to ‘predict’ missing pieces of a puzzle and to test assumed finds. Very often the design or even the existence of a proposed adaptive mechanism is unknown prior to investigation. For instance, inclusive fitness theory suggests that, other things being equal, people should use violence less readily against close genetic relatives than against nonrelatives. This theoretically derived hypothesis has led to surprising empirical findings that in many ways have supported the prediction (if also raised new questions). When a theory leads to the discovery of a fact that was unknown until it was predicted by the theory, it is not a tautological post hoc explanation. Another direction is to search for a function for a known mechanism, similar to how William Harvey discovered the circulation of blood after having started to wonder why there were one-way valves in the veins.

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Complementary Levels of Explanation for Behavior Explanations for a behavior, such as aggression, can be sought at different levels. First, one can look for immediate or proximate factors at play in situations that lead to aggression. They may be emotional (e.g., frustration), chemical (e.g., the status of hormones or neurotransmitters), or relate to aspects in the immediate social situation. Second, one can look at ontogeny, the development of individuals during their lives and try to find experiences – such as the behavior and example of parents or the gender roles proffered by the prevailing culture – that might influence the individuals’ aggressive and peaceful inclinations in adulthood. Third, one can delineate the evolutionary history of a behavioral trait to arrive at a phylogenetic explanation. Finally, and this is the focus of evolutionary adaptationist analysis, one can look at behaviors such as aggression as expressions of a set of propensities that have been selected by evolution because they served the individual’s ancestors’ (inclusive) fitness. These types of explanations are called ultimate or distal explanations. Rather than contradictory, these four approaches are aspects of a potentially unified, comprehensive explanation, in principle at least. For example, one essential part of the proximate explanation for why red deer stags go to their regular mating grounds and prepare for fighting is an increased level of the male hormone testosterone. This is known because red deer stags given testosterone in experiments behave like that; they also lose the velvet covering on their antlers in preparation for territorial battles, even in the absence of females. However, from the evolutionary point of view, there is no point for red deer stags to head for their mating grounds and prepare for fighting just because of a surge of testosterone. The ultimate selectional causation of a trait is an account of how it helps to solve a (recurrent) problem related to survival and reproduction. The red deer stag is programmed, as it were, to head to the mating grounds at the time of the year when the hinds in estrus also gather there to select their mates. Once this breeding system was in place, any stag that failed to go there and fight may have preserved his life and limb longer but had fewer chances of passing on his genes.

Gene-Based Evolutionary Theory and Inclusive Fitness As mentioned above, modern evolutionary theory has abandoned the idea that natural selection is for the ‘good of the species’ or a social group as a whole. It has also importantly tempered the notion of individual fitness. Thus, using expressions such as ‘selfish genes’ or the ‘gene’s perspective’, evolutionary theorists stress that

selection ultimately acts not on the group nor on one individual, but on the alleles that are passed on to future generations. In a sexually reproducing species, individual genotypes are unique – apart from monozygotic offspring and artificial clones – and they cannot be passed on to future genotypes. However, alleles can be passed on, and near kin can also be helpful in this process. In humans (and other vertebrates), on average one-half of an individual’s genes are identical by descent with those of a full sibling or with his or her child. Grandparents and their grandchildren share one quarter, the same as an individual with a full sibling’s child. This number is called the coefficient of relatedness. For the reproduction of these genes, it does not matter whether they are passed on to the next generation via self or a relative. Reasoning like this is summarized in the notion ‘inclusive fitness’, which is defined as the total of an individual’s individual fitness (direct descendants) plus its contribution to the fitness of its relatives discounted by the coefficient of relatedness. Inclusive fitness explains how traits that help relatives at the expense of self can be selected. It also suggests that – other things being equal – an individual is less likely to behave aggressively toward its relatives than toward other conspecifics, because hostility toward relatives lowers one component of its inclusive fitness. Cooperation and Conflict Since Darwin published his work on the origin of species, there has been an ongoing – if partly unilluminating – discussion on whether natural selection and evolution ‘really’ mean struggle and conflict or whether the role of cooperation, harmony, and symbiosis have been underestimated. However, it seems that both struggle and cooperation are integral parts of life. Both exist and both can be fitness enhancing. William Hamilton’s kin selection theory gave a plausible account of why closely related organisms should help each other and cooperate. Robert Trivers’ theory of the evolution of reciprocal altruism between nonkin, and related theories on reciprocal relations, have interesting things to say about conflict, violence, and peace. Trivers’ model implied that selection, under some circumstances, discriminates against those who fail to reciprocate, the ‘cheaters’. This happens if cheating has later adverse affects on the cheater’s life that outweigh the benefit of not reciprocating. ‘‘This may happen if the altruist responds to the cheating by curtailing all future possible altruistic gestures to this individual.’’ Game-theoretical work by Robert Axelrod and others has shown that a reciprocating strategy is evolutionarily stable in the sense that it can be preserved by natural selection. In a computer simulation modeling a competition of various behavioral strategies in a series of

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recurring situations to choose either ‘cooperation’ or ‘defection’, a strategy called ‘tit for tat’ was the most successful, measured by the RS over generations. The strategy is simple: ‘Cooperate the first time and then match your opponent’s last move’. Later work has shown that a mild element of ‘forgiveness’ makes the strategy even more robust. However, it does not obviate the need to ‘punish’ a cheater. Rather, indiscriminate ‘forgiveness’, or all-out altruism, promotes cheaters. If reciprocal altruism develops, also strategies that take advantage of altruists develop easily, unless altruists develop counterstrategies, cheater detection, and punishment of nonreciprocators. Trivers termed such punishment ‘‘moralistic aggression’’ and assumed that it was selected to counteract cheating. ‘‘Much of human aggression has moral overtones,’’ Trivers observed. ‘‘Injustice, unfairness, and lack of reciprocity often motivate human aggression and indignation.’’ He added that moralistic aggression ‘‘often seems out of all proportion to the offenses committed . . . . But since small inequities repeated many times over a lifetime may exact a heavy toll in relative fitness, selection may favor a strong show of aggression when the cheating tendency is discovered.’’ Sociologist Donald Black has reviewed convincing evidence that even a great proportion of crimes are moralistic: many crimes are reprisals for an experienced wrongdoing, often cheating.

Adaptations to Violence and Conflict It is improbable that random aggressiveness and violence in general would be adaptive. However, there are many recurrent situations in the life course of different animals where measured violence (or threat thereof) is most likely adaptive. Many animals exhibit complex species-typical morphological and behavioral traits that look very much like adaptations for violence. The stag’s antlers serve in competition over access to females, the male stickleback violently defends his young. Individuals that appear timid in other contexts aggressively defend their vital reproductive resources – such as food, territory, and offspring against threat of usurpation or harm. Some animals are quick to grab any resources that they have a chance to hold. Furthermore, they fight over access to mates. Aggression easily occurs where resources are scarce – or potentially scarce – so that some groups or individuals can deny others access to them by claiming ownership of them. Humans, for instance, have fought bitterly over ownership of cattle and arable land but far less over access to oxygen. Ecology has thus great potential influence on the level of aggressiveness. Many animals do kill conspesifics. When observation times are long enough, these instances are observed. Compared to humans, many apes and monkeys are

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violent. Nevertheless, one can say that animals (and people) often settle fights in a ‘ritualized’ way, or at least without all-out violence. It is the contestants’ own interest to settle the fight with as little cost as possible. This implies that the ability to assess the relative fighting power of the adversary would have been favored by selection. Actual fights carry big risks for the weaker party, but they are risky for the stronger as well. Even if an individual wins, a wound may have reduced his fitness.

Conflicts with Kin and Nonkin A central idea of applying modern gene-based evolutionary theory to the study of violence is to think of whose genetic interests may be served and whose interests harmed by a violent act. For instance, modern genebased evolutionary theory predicts that – other things being equal – conflicts will be the more prevalent and intense the more the reproductive interests of different individuals, and groups differ. The closer genetic relatives two individuals are, the less intense conflict there should be, on average. Martin Daly and Margo Wilson and others have tested this idea in a series of studies since early 1980s and have found that it holds remarkably well. Relatives harm and sometimes kill each other. However, they also have many chances to do so, and once you control opportunity – say, look only at people who share a home – the picture changes. One of Daly and Wilson’s studies looked at the relative risk of homicide by relationship in co-residing people in a US city. Co-residing persons who were not genetic relatives experienced a homicide rate 11 times greater than relatives living together. Relatives are more likely to be conspirators in murder than targets. The coefficient of relatedness for victim–offender pairs is lower than it is for co-offending partners in many societies and historical periods. Even an analysis of kinship in Icelandic sagas revealed that murderers were seldom genetic relatives of their victims; and when they were, the stakes tended to be high. The notion of inclusive fitness, of course, does not say that it would never enhance one’s fitness to harm or kill a relative; it only says that the fitness gain from such an act ought to be greater than the relative’s fitness loss multiplied by the coefficient of relatedness. More fitness is lost than gained by killing a brother for a hazelnut, but killing for an autocratic kingdom with ensuing access to numerous wives might be a different matter. A woman and a man who have shared offspring, such as a married or cohabiting couple with one or more children, are not (usually) related to each other. However, they both have a genetic interest in their offspring that carries both of their genes. This is a basis (an ultimate basis, if you will) for their cooperation and

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mutual support. It is a sort of a common venture setup for the good of both of their genes that are carried forward by their shared offspring. Nevertheless, from this ultimate genes’ point of view, their relationship is much more dependent on the success or failure of their cooperation than is the case with genetic relatives who always share a considerable proportion of genes with each other whether they get along with each other or not. As Heikki Sarmaja has noted, humans do not abandon their own child so as to be able to adopt a more beautiful or gifted child from next door, even if the new child would be more beautiful and gifted, while many have found a new spouse next door. Breakups of married couples tend to be more dramatic and more irreversible than those between genetic relatives. During the relationship, both partner A and B may be tempted to try to make the other partner expend more resources in raising the children than they themselves are willing to. Likewise, it is possible that partner A tries to set up and advance other reproductive projects with a third partner C and in those projects invest resources that could have been used in A and B’s joint project. The Cinderella Effect and Conflicts of Reproduction As an example of evolutionary findings and discussions, the question of maltreatment by stepparents or the socalled Cinderella effect will be taken up here. According to a now-famous study by Daly and Wilson, Canadian children who lived with a natural parent and a stepparent had 40 times higher abuse rates than children living with both natural parents. The risk of newborns to 2-year-olds of being killed differed even more, 70-fold. Results supporting the assumption that stepfamilies posit a greater risk of violent victimization to children than do families of two genetic parents have received support in many studies in various places. For instance, an Australian study found that 36% of the offenders in child-abuse deaths were nongenetic fathers, while only 3.8% of dependent children live with a male stepparent. However, some other studies do suggest nonsignificant or at least smaller excess risk to stepchildren. Temrin and co-workers found that in Sweden the risk of children to be killed in stepfamilies was indeed greater than in families with two biological parents, but some of the victims were in fact killed not by the stepparent but by the biological parent. Once those cases were removed, the excess risk from stepparents did not reach statistical significance. Of course, also the finding that the risk of being killed by the biological parent is higher in a stepfamily than in an intact family is consistent with evolutionary predictions. Similar to conditions that tend to accompany infanticides, the biological parent may be lacking social support for the raising of the child. Furthermore, the finding that the youngest children seem to have the highest excess

risk of maltreatment in stepfamilies is in line with predictions from parental investment theory. The younger the child, the longer the time over which it requires care. Note that it is not only that the very youngest children are at a higher risk of being killed than somewhat older ones irrespective of the family type, but that even taking that into account, the additional relative risk in stepfamilies is greatest at the very early ages. Temrin’s results show that the excess risk to children from stepparents can vary considerably from country to country. Comparing the low excess-risk Sweden with US and other countries where the difference is greater, one might hypothesize that the difference may at least partly have to do with the societal support policies for families and children and how they might prevent or ease tensions in stepfamilies. Recently, in a noted book and related articles, David Buller has questioned Daly and Wilson’s theory and findings on stepchildren’s relatively higher abuse risks. One of Buller’s claims is that the image of overrepresentation of stepparents among perpetrators of abuse and murder is based on biased reporting. Daly and Wilson have responded. Based on the exchange, it seems to the present author that while it is possible that there is bias that increases reporting of stepparents as suspects, it is not plausible that the bias would be large enough to explain the results, particularly in the case of Canadian homicides against children. Buller also repeats another criticism of the evolutionary explanation for the high risk of stepchildren. This asks why adoptive children do not seem to suffer similarly high abuse rates. After all, they also have no genetic relation to their adoptive parents. However, Daly and Wilson did not predict that adopted children would be at greater risks, and they had good reasons not to. For one, while stepfamilies and adoptions by relatives have presumably been recurrent phenomena in our ancestral environments, adoption by unrelated persons most likely has been very rare. In modern societies adoptions are a result of a positive desire to raise the child, adoptive parents are screened, couples are usually financially stable, and the child can be returned if the arrangements do not work out. Furthermore, as the child is unrelated to either parent the promotion of one partner’s genetic interest does not exploit the efforts of the other, as may happen in a stepfamily. Also, to get a more complete picture one should look at those children who are put in foster homes or institutional settings. While those institutions are also screened and overseen in developed societies, there are reports that abuse of children is sometimes frequent. Again, there is the confounder that some children were put in these settings because they had some problems, but one cannot ignore the fact that they are taken care of by adults who are neither genetic relatives nor their adoptive parents.

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Parent–Offspring and Mother–Infant Conflicts An interesting projection from the gene-based evolutionary theory is the concept of parent–offspring conflict, suggested by Robert Trivers. When a parent nurtures its child, its own inclusive fitness is raised as long as the cost is not too high. Alternatively, both the child and the parent may gain in fitness if the parent produces another child. However, they would time a new child differently. To maximize the parent’s inclusive fitness, it should invest in a new child as soon as the new child’s fitness gain is greater than that of the extant child. From the point of view of the extant child’s fitness, however, a new full sibling should appear only when its fitness gain is twice that of the extant child because it must be discounted by one-half (and a half-sibling should wait even longer). Hence, extant mammal offspring tends to be ‘programmed’ to resist weaning and other expressions of diminished parental investment in itself. Trivers’ theory has shed light not only on sibling rivalry or the weaning conflict but also on complications of pregnancy, or the so-called mother–fetus conflict. However, the variables of parental offspring can also be seen in the patterns of very lethal conflicts between mothers and their infants. Killing one’s own child seems to fly in the face of evolutionary theory, because it seems to prevent rather than help the parent get his or her genes into the next generation. This seems particularly true of mothers killing their babies – not only because of our cultural image of mothers as caring for their babies above everything else, but also because of the evolutionary-informed observation that unlike putative fathers, women giving birth can (or could in our evolutionary environment) always be sure that they are the mother of the baby. However, maternal infanticide is universally found in preindustrial societies and is a part of human motherhood. Since caring for a new child makes it more difficult for the woman to invest in other children (extant or future), in terms of her RS, a woman in the environment of evolutionary adaptedness (EEA) was better off abandoning a nonviable infant as soon as possible. The situations in which women commit infanticide – and in which cases it is sometimes even condoned by cultural norms in various societies – agree with evolutionary reasoning. Daly and Wilson noticed that in many cultures the following reasons are given for infanticide: deformity or perinatal illness in the child, birth too soon after previous child or twins (when food is scarce, trying to raise both twins may lead to both of them dying while abandoning one and concentrating efforts on the other one of the twins may give a higher survival rate on average). Absence of male support is another factor that increases the likelihood of infanticide, particularly when other social support is also poor or absent. The rates of infanticide decline with the

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mother’s age: this fits the evolutionary observation that older mothers have fewer chances to try and reproduce at a more suitable time in the future. Compared with historical rates of infanticide, killing of babies is now very rare in advanced industrial societies. Better economic conditions and the lesser stigma for unwed mothers and birth control are cited as some of the reasons for the decline, but another reason certainly is abortion that has resulted in lower rates of unwanted babies. However, one can note that abortions are most common in situations similar in which infanticides were usually found: very young mother, lack of support from the father or other social network, uncertainty of the child’s father, and, indications of the poor health of the fetus.

Conflicts over Resources for Survival and Reproduction Competition is not only about food and other such resources that enable individuals to grow and survive. Very importantly, there is also intense competition for other kinds of opportunities and resources to reproduce. In sexually reproducing species, reproduction requires successful mating. This opens up a competition over mating opportunities and high-quality mates. Traits that help in this competition become potential targets of evolution. If the capacity to use violence helps in this competition it may be selected for. Sex Differences in Reproductive Opportunities In sexually reproducing species, the contexts and targets of competition for reproductive opportunities tend to be somewhat different for the different sexes. Both males and females would be helped by joining their gametes with the best available gametes of the other sex. In many respects, however, their situations differ. Particularly in mammals, the use of female reproductive resources is very costly. Individual eggs are huge compared to sperms but, more importantly, pregnancy and lactation greatly increase the parental investment that is required at a minimum to produce offspring. The minimum obligatory male investment can be as little as a single ejaculation. During pregnancy, the female cannot invest in producing other offspring of her own. Mating with many partners does not have much impact on the number of a female mammal’s offspring (although in some cases it may bring other benefits), while a male, whose body is not tied up in gestation or suckling, can theoretically multiply the number of his offspring by mating with many partners. Another asymmetry is that a mammal female can always ‘know’ for sure that the offspring she gives birth to are hers, while the male’s degree of confidence that a child is his can vary a great deal and depends on many circumstances.

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Thus, when males and females best promote their own RS in differing ways, they face different selection pressures, affecting their approaches to mate selection and parental investment, including the use of violence. It should be noted that while there are controversies over how these principles are applied, the main idea of differential parental investment is widely accepted. For instance, Stephen J. Gould, a well-known evolutionist very critical of what he considered ultra-adaptationism in evolutionary psychology, agreed that ‘‘this principle of differential ‘parental investment’ makes Darwinian sense and probably does underlie some different, and broadly general, emotional propensities of human males and females.’’ Similarly, another critical biology professor, Anne Fausto-Sterling, accepts ‘‘that males and females are likely to have evolved different approaches to courting, mating and infant care. Furthermore, those approaches may come into direct conflict.’’ Humans are a mildly polygynous species, meaning that although most people reproduce in monogamous marriages, the variance of male RS is greater than that of females – there are more childless men than women and there are more men with very high numbers of offspring than women. In effectively polygynous species males are usually bigger than females (effectively polyandrous species tend to exhibit the reverse). The more polygynous the species, the larger the size difference between the sexes tends to be. Human sexual size dimorphism is mild, lower than in the polygynous gorilla but higher than in the monogamous gibbon. Gender differences in traits that are relevant for fighting are larger than the average size difference. Men have almost twice as much strength in their shoulders, arms, and hands as females and have longer arms. Men are usually also more skillful in fighting, throwing objects, and using weapons. The relative importance of genes and differential upbringing of girls and boys in bringing about this difference is controversial. Nevertheless, there is some evidence that males are also more spontaneously interested in learning to fight. To the extent that skill in use of violence is a trait that enhances a male’s fitness and if the development of the trait partially depends on childhood practice, then selection would favor males who have a robust appetite for such activities since childhood. This does of course not exclude other male strategies: for instance, peaceful, caring males with good story-telling abilities can also be favored by selection. A capacity to assess the social situation of one’s formative years and choose the best strategy regarding violent behavior would thus also be favored by selection. Females whose obligatory parental investment is large, such as mammal females, tend to be on average more peaceful and violence avoidant than males. In humans, the level of violence varies highly between different

societies, but in every particular society males are more violent than the females of the same society, even if those females may be more violent than males elsewhere. Their offspring survival and success is presumably best helped when the mothers stay alive and healthy thus having better chances of carrying them to term, lactating, and giving them whatever shelter and nurture they require to grow into maturity. Males, on the other hand, may more often be in a position where they must face heavy competition from other males for the opportunity to mate in the first place. In this competition, violence is often used. For males, properties that predict success in sexual selection may simultaneously make life more risky in other respects. While in all human cultures females do most of the child care, humans are atypical mammals in that men contribute considerably to the care of children. This typically biparental care may create or exacerbate conflicts that are rare or nonexistent in other mammals. In principle, either parent can try to make the other spouse take an unfairly large share of this responsibility – and maybe allocate more of their own resources to serve competing reproductive projects, perhaps with another partner. Furthermore, unlike those mammal males that contribute nothing but sperm to their offspring, human males can end up being cuckolded, that is, contributing heavily, either knowingly or unknowingly, to the care and raising of children that are fathered by someone else. This is a role that cannot be favored by natural selection (unless caring for another man’s children somehow also raised the number or quality of his own biological children). On the contrary, based on selectionist and adaptationist reasoning, one would expect that males would have evolved to be vigilant against this possibility. This constellation is the basis for some typical conflicts over RS in which violence is often used. Types of Violence Linked to Conflicts over Reproduction Gendered parental investment seems to be part of the ultimate explanation for some types of violence, most conspicuously rape and intimate partner violence. Rape is overwhelmingly committed by men against women (and disproportionately against women of reproductive age). Furthermore, despite the controversy over the gender distribution of victimization to intimate partner violence (whether physical violence against intimate partners, all forms and degrees considered, is gender symmetric or asymmetric) most experts on all sides agree that women are much more likely to be victims of partner violence with the most serious consequences. A commonly cited motive for much domestic violence is jealousy. In most cases of jealous violence, the context is consistent with an interpretation of a conflict over

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reproduction. Typically, the man suspects, accurately or inaccurately, his wife or girlfriend of sexual infidelity or of planning to abandon him – all scenarios that probably would threaten to lower his RS. Also typically, some women use violence against their male partners when they suspect them of having extra-pair affairs – something that, would threaten the females’ fitness, for instance, by decreasing support to her offspring. In addition to male–female rape and intimate partner violence between the spouses, also much of male–male violence can be seen as ultimately based in reproductive conflicts: it may be fairly direct competition over women or it may be fight over material resources or social status, for example, reputation, that are important criteria in mate selection. The use or threat of violence may discourage other men from competition. There is anecdotal evidence that some women are attracted to men with a violent reputation; for instance, many convicted murderers get surprising amounts of romantic letters from women. Skillful use of violence may also boost a man’s status in the social hierarchy and through this enhance his success in competition for women. In societies condoning polygyny, successful males may have a large number of wives and other female sexual partners resulting in huge numbers of children, while many men father no children. Female–female physical violence is much less frequent than male–female and male–male violence – particularly when looking at serious bodily harm – but it also happens and can often be seen as an element in female–female competition over desirable male partners, or as competition for success of the women’s respective children. Male–Male Competition The different reproductive opportunities of males and females seem to be part of the ultimate, evolutionary explanation of some stable patterns in distribution of violence. Men are in most respects physically more aggressive than females, as are males of other effectively polygynous species. Human males do not fight each other as conspicuously over females as stags on traditional mating grounds or like black grouse males at a lek, but much of human intermale violence seems to relate either directly or indirectly to competition over women. High status could be gained by prowess in various skills, including fighting, and that in turn could be turned into RS. High-ranking men have more wives, more concubines, and more access to other men’s wives than men of low social rank. Young, low-status men often have no other means of challenging higher-status men than violence. Furthermore, many observations suggest that in many kinds of societies strength and skill in fighting have contributed to men’s reputation and their success – RS included. The data, however, are fragmentary and the issue is somewhat controversial.

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Females compete with other females over access to desirable males, but the payoffs, in terms of fitness, vary far more in intermale competition than in interfemale competition. Thus, intermale competition is expected to be fiercer. Greater variation selects for readiness to take greater risks. The male/female differences in reproductive options during human evolution seem to be an important part of the ultimate explanation for the universal overrepresentation of males in perpetrators of violent and predatory crimes. In virtually all jurisdictions from which there are data, males commit far more crimes of violence and serious theft than do females. Male representation is greater, the more serious the crime. For instance, males typically commit 90% or more of robberies and burglaries, while their share of shoplifting is much smaller. Daly and Wilson suggest that ‘‘the chronic competitive situation among [human] males is ultimately responsible for that sex’s greater felt need for surplus resources with which to quell rivals and attract mates.’’ The Yanomamo¨ Killers One oft-cited piece of data of a link between violence and RS is that reported by Napoleon Chagnon of the Yanomamo¨ people of the Amazon and Orinoco area. The Yanomamo¨ accord a special title for men who have participated in killing a human being: they are unokais. According to Chagnon’s data, unokais had significantly more children than other men in all four age groups of his data. Ignoring those under 25 years of age, few of whom were unokais or had children, the unokais had 1.2–1.8 times more children than other men. (The often made claim that unokais had three times more children is misleading since it refers to the total numbers irrespective of the men’s age and thus overlooks the fact that older men have had more time to have become both fathers and unokais.) On the face of it, this would seem like good evidence that in one society killers have more children than nonkillers. However, there are further problems in the data. The report includes no data on the mortality of the unokais and nonunokais; yet, if the unokais’ mortality were higher, their reproductive edge would go down or disappear. Furthermore, Chagnon’s age control of the fertility rates is not very strong; his age groups are wide and, as Douglas Fry has pointed out, the unokais likely have higher mean age than other men also within the age categories. Taking this into account will make the unokais’ reproductive advantage narrower, but (based on the present author’s calculation) does not seem to make it disappear. According to Chagnon ‘‘the higher reproductive success of unokais is mainly due to their greater success in finding mates, either by appropriating them forcibly from others, or by customary marriage alliance arrangements in which they seem to be more attractive as mates than

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nonunokais.’’ The unokais are also more often headmen than nonunokais are, and in many societies high status is known to help men find wives. If their violent capability helped them become headmen then it also indirectly may have contributed to their RS. The Yanomamo¨ are horticulturalists and are thus not very representative of the human hunter-gatherer EEA. Nevertheless, this study and other information from various societies suggests that at least some readiness for and ability in aggression may often have promoted men’s RS. Quite likely, in most human societies, high-ranking men have had more children and their children have survived better than those of low rank. If controlled aggression has helped these men to gain and retain their status, it seems that aggression has helped men to have more offspring in many kinds of societies, be they foraging, pastoral, horticultural, or state societies. Why Are Women On Average More Risk Averse? One might think that women’s lesser violence does not need a special ultimate explanation once the ultimate causes that drive men’s greater tendency to violence have been elucidated. Nevertheless, Anne Campbell has argued that females are more violence averse than males (also) for good reasons of their own. It is not just the absence of masculine inclination to risk-taking violence but is a part of a positive female adaptation that goes back to, in Campbell’s words, ‘‘the critical importance of the mother’s survival for her own reproductive success.’’ Mother is more important than father for the survival of children. Among the Ache of Paraguay, mother’s death increases age-specific child mortality rate by a factor of five compared to a threefold increase when the father died. If the mother died when the child was under 1 year, the child always died. There are similar findings from other societies as well. ‘‘If a mother wants her children to survive, then she must be equally concerned with her own survival.’’ Similarly, the mother’s injuries and illnesses might be great risks to her children. Detlef Fetchenhauer and Bram Buunk’s evolutionary argument for why women are more fearful of crime than men while they are less-often victimized supports Campbell’s views. In their study of Dutch high-school students and their parents, female respondents were consistently more fearful than males regarding a variety of events, both criminal and noncriminal, that involved the risk of physical injury, such as robbery, assault, and car accident. Women also judged every single event to be more harmful. The findings suggest that women are in general more fearful of all kinds of events that might imply a physical injury. They concluded that the observed gender differences may be the result of sexual selection that favored risk taking and status fights among males, and being cautious and protecting one’s offspring among females.

Evolution of Sexual Violence Human sexual violence, particularly penile–vaginal rape, seems like a prime candidate for an evolutionary analysis looking at conflicts over RS, because rape is obviously closely related to the possibility of pregnancy. There are observations from many species, ranging from orangutans and dolphins to mallard ducks and scorpion flies, of cases that can reasonably be described as coerced sex. Forced intercourse appears to be the only way that very small orangutan males can breed. However, in general fairly little is known of the reproductive economics of coerced sex in any species, humans included. And the species from which rape has been reported are relatively few and often only remotely related. A human rape victim who becomes pregnant will have a large amount of her reproductive resources tied up in a project that has been forced on her. This would at least postpone and often also otherwise complicate her chances of getting children with a partner or partners of her own choosing. Furthermore, in human societies where the father and his family often support the child in an important way, a child conceived in rape would have lower chances of getting support. Thus, a rape victim’s RS would likely decrease. This could be an important part of the ultimate explanation of the great pain and suffering of rape victims, particularly the finding that victims of sexual coercion seem to sustain worse trauma than victims of other types of physical assaults when controlling for the degree of physical severity of the assaults. Rape would also hurt the inclusive fitness of the victim’s relatives and that of the victim’s spouse, which would help to explain the vindictive rage that the victim’s husband and kin often feel. For the rapist, on the other hand, sexual coercion may bring an increase of RS in a situation where nonviolence would not lead to this result. Of course, the effect on the rapist’s RS depends not only on whether the victim gets pregnant but also on his ability to escape retaliation which might drastically reduce his RS. Since rape seems so costly to human females in terms of RS it seems worth asking whether women have evolved mechanisms that increase their possibilities of choosing their mates and avoiding sexual coercion. In Neil Malamuth and others’ view, the evolution of antirape adaptations in women seems more probable than the evolution of specific rape-enabling mechanisms in men. Malamuth also remarks that even societies that are reported to have very low rape frequency have various mechanisms counteracting male tendencies for sexual aggression, suggesting that there may be a universal risk for such behavior. However, there is little convincing evidence that women’s rape-avoidance tactics would be specific adaptations rather than expressions of their more

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general sexual strategies, general risk avoidance, and learning. One proposed candidate for a specific antirape adaptation is that women would tend to avoid risky situations when ovulating (i.e., when conception is possible). However, studies reporting rapes as less frequent during ovulation have been criticized as unreliable. Furthermore, using a large survey dataset Jonathan and Tiffani Gottschall found that rapes of fertile-aged women lead to pregnancies more often than consensual intercourse (6.4% vs. 3.1%), which would also cast doubt on this mechanism, at least its effectiveness. Most of the evolutionary discussion and research on sexual violence, however, has centered on the male. A visible topic in the discussion has been whether human rape is at least partly based on rape-specific adaptations in human males. This question seems to be undecided as the necessary data are scarce – and there seem to be slightly different views about the criteria that an adaptation must meet. A baseline finding consistent with the idea that rape may relate to conflicts over reproduction is that fertileage women are remarkably overrepresented among the victims. True, this overrepresentation is also consistent with a nonevolutionary routine-activity hypothesis: young women are more likely to be out alone at night or alone with men in dating situations, which means more rape opportunities. Richard Felson and Marvin Krohn used a US National Crime Survey dataset and looked at female robbery victims with the idea that an opportunity for robbery is often also an opportunity for rape. Those robbery victims who were also raped were 28 years old on average, significantly younger than those who were only robbed, whose mean age was 35. Thus, it appears that robbery offenders are more likely to rape a victim if she is young. Opportunity alone is not sufficient to explain the rape victims’ age patterns. It is clear that men prefer consensual sex, and no one has suggested that an inflexible use of sexual coercion would have brought ancestral men a better RS than seeking consensual sex. The interesting possibility – and a likely one in many researchers’ opinion – is that at least for some males in some situations during human evolutionary history it was reproductively more advantageous to use sexual coercion than not to use it. Behind sometimes heated debates, there are several plausible suggestions about the role of evolution and adaptations in the ultimate causation of sexual coercion. One suggestion is that using sexual coercion had no recurring fitness consequences and therefore the human males have no psychological mechanisms that are relevant to sexual coercion. This alternative would mean that the ultimate causes of committing sexual coercion are unrelated to the fitness consequences of these acts; rape might be a totally unrelated by-product of adaptations to

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other problems or maybe caused by some random events in ontogeny, pathologies, or cultural norms. Another possibility is that rape would be a byproduct of evolved male–female differences in sexual desire that promoted male RS in contexts other than rape. Males seem to have evolved to be ready to short-time sexual relations with much less discrimination than women, who are more selective. Add the fact that men are on average stronger than women and may be able to use physical aggression to achieve several kinds of goals and you get a situation where men sometimes resort to violence to achieve sex with unwilling women. This view can be silent on whether rapes as such increased or decreased the man’s fitness, but sees rape as a by-product of adaptations that in themselves probably did advance the RS of those male (and female) individuals who possessed them. Eric Alden Smith and others note that ‘‘males have a strong desire for sex and that they also have the ability to recognize when coercion can be used to obtain a desired goal’’ and they suggest that this is a more plausible explanation for many rapes than a specific male adaptation to rape. One can also think that sexual coercion had fitness consequences, so that males who could use violence in a discriminating way in sexual contexts (with a sense to the risks and possibilities of the situation) did increase their fitness, but there were no unique adaptive problems to using coercion in this context. Finally, there might have been unique adaptive problems associated with the use of violence in the sexual context such that specialized psychological mechanisms may have evolved as an adaptation. Malamuth points out that rape is different from most other uses of violence in that it requires the perpetrator to maintain an erection while coercing a victim who is unwilling and often fighting back. (Sexual arousal is not only unneeded but probably even counterproductive in most situations of nonsexual violence.) There are also several studies suggesting that human males show great variability in the extent to which they are sexually aroused by possibilities of coercive sex. Thus, sexual arousal specific to forced sex in males may be an adaptation that has helped some men to increase their RS. Smith and others provide a model for calculating the costs and benefits for the perpetrator of rape in the currency of RS. Their model and hypothetical data suggest that, in a traditional society, raping does not pay as the perpetrator’s losses (in terms of RS) are an order of magnitude greater than benefits. However, the result relies critically on the assumption that most rapes were reported or detected, which is necessary for the costs to be realized. Many of the same factors that prevent most rape victims in today’s industrial societies from reporting their rape (a typical reporting rate, based on victim surveys, is

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around one out of 20) would probably have applied to ancestral women as well: social stigma, the difficulty to prove the case, and possibility of being punished or abandoned by one’s consensual mate or family. Furthermore, if the rapist was a powerful man and the victim a woman from a poor and weak family (or had no family) he may have had little reprisals to fear. And raping outgroup women during wars or raids may have carried little risk of retaliation (additional to the otherwise great risks of violent group conflict). Also men who have little chances of enhancing their RS through consensual sexual relations or by helping their own kin might accept high risks of detection and retaliation, because they have little to lose. This may be one reason why low-status men tend to be overrepresented among convicted rapists. Discussion of sexual assault in terms of evolutionary theory has been very controversial since the early stages of modern sociobiology in the 1970s. A new round in the controversy followed the publication of A natural history of rape by Randy Thornhill and Graig Palmer in 2000. A collection of criticism and the authors’ rejoinder give a taste of the heated debate. Malamuth and others and Lalumie`re and others include evolutionary informed and cautious reviews of what is known of sexual assault in terms relevant to the evolutionary approach.

Conclusion Evolutionary approaches to violence today focus on various issues. Some researchers, for instance, many of those identified with evolutionary psychology, attend to hypothesized behavioral and psychological adaptations for peaceful and violent interactions that are thought to be fairly universal or panhuman. Others, such as behavioral geneticists, look more specifically at individual differences in violent behavior and the possible contribution of genes to these differences. Twin and adoption studies show that there is indeed such heritable variation in humans that partly explains variation in violence and criminality. Simultaneously there is general agreement that some great variations in levels of aggression cannot be explained by genetic variation – the most dramatic being swift changes in the level of violence within single societies. However, even a universal evolved psychology will produce variable behavior in different conditions such that the outcome cannot be well understood without a description of the ‘mechanism’ that operates in these various environments. Still other researchers focus on the influence of individual development on the propensity of violence later in life, one idea being that early experiences of, say, the use of violence and the risks of violent injuries or death in one’s social environment might ‘calibrate’ the individual’s

own response mechanism regarding the use of violence. For instance, perhaps a violent childhood and adolescent environment sets the individual’s threshold for violent action lower than a peaceful environment. It ought to be mentioned also that the theory of genetical evolution is also fruitfully used as an analogy or heuristic model for examining competition for limited resources through sociocultural evolution. For instance, the development of many forms of crime and crime prevention measures can be conceptualized as a coevolutionary process analogous to the coevolution in nature of predator and prey. Adaptations, Law, and Morality Evolutionary approaches to violence are often controversial – even more so than evolutionary approach to human behavior in general. However, the partial explanation of violence by reference to evolved adaptations does not imply that violence should be condoned. Something is not moral just because it has evolved as an adaptation. ‘‘If you tell the judge that your genes made you do it, she can tell you that her genes are making her throw you in jail,’’ as Edward Hagen wrote. Behaviors that are partially determined by evolutionary factors are not impossible to prevent because of that causation. It may have been adaptive for stepparents to abuse their stepchildren, for men to deceive or force women into sex, or for women sometimes to kill their newborns, but that does not mean that it is moral or should be approved. If males have evolved to feel possessive about females, it does not make it right that they act violently as an expression of that feeling. If the male ancestors of humans enhanced their RS by rape under some circumstances, this does not make rape morally any less objectionable. It neither justifies nor makes it inevitable. The condemnation of rape seems also evolved: rape may greatly diminish a female’s RS by committing her investment for a lengthy period to an offspring whose father she did not choose, by risking to estrange her partner, and so on. One issue that often adds to the confusion about the meaning of evolutionary explanations of behavioral traits is that many people still understand adaptation as optimizing the good of the species. However, few scientists conclude that the group level has decisive influence under most circumstances. Controlled violence often is useful for a whole group in its competition against other groups, but this is best seen as an effect of natural selection operating on lower levels. Heritable traits underlying such behavior cannot have evolved if they have not contributed to the relative success in competition against other traits within the population of those very genes responsible for that heritability.

Evolution, Violence and Novel Environmental Factors See also: Evolution, Violence and Novel Environmental Factors; Evolutionary Theory; Moral Judgments and Values; Sexual Assault; Sexual Minorities, Violence Against

Further Reading Buller, D. J. (2005). Adapting minds: Evolutionary psychology and the persistent quest for human nature. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Campbell, A. (1999). Staying alive: Evolution, culture and women’s intrasexual aggression. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 22, 203–252. Campbell, A. (2005). Aggression. In Buss, D. (ed.) The handbook of evolutionary psychology, pp. 628–652. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Daly, M. and Wilson, M. (1983). Sex, evolution, and behavior, 2nd edn. Boston: Willard Grant. Daly, M. and Wilson, M. (1988). Homicide. New York: Aldine de Gruyter. Daly, M. and Wilson, M. (1997). Crime and conflict: Homicide in evolutionary psychological perspective. In Tonry, M. (ed.) Crime & justice: A review of research, vol. 22, pp. 51–100. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Daly, M. and Wilson, M. (2005). Reply to David Buller by Martin Daly & Margo Wilson. http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/buller/ reply%20to%20david%20buller.pdf (accessed on February 2008). de Waal, F. B. M. (1996). Good natured: The origins of right and wrong in humans and other animals. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Ellis, L. and Walsh, A. (1997). Gene-based evolutionary theories in criminology. Criminology 35(2), 229–276. Felson, R. B. and Krohn, M. (1990). Motives for rape. The Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 27(3), 222–242. Fessler, D. M. (2003). Rape is not less frequent during the ovulatory phase of the menstrual cycle. Pscyhology, Evolution & Gender 5(3), 127–147. Fetchenhauer, D. and Buunk, B. P. (2005). How to explain gender differences in fear of crime: Towards an evolutionary approach. Sexualities, Evolution & Gender 7(2), 95–113. Fry, D. P. (2005). The human potential for peace: An anthropological challenge to assumptions about war and violence. New York: Oxford University Press.

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Gottschall, J. A. and Gottschall, T. A. (2003). Are per-incident rapepregnancy rates higher than per-incident consensual pregnancy rates? Human Nature 14(1), 1–20. Groebel, J. and Hinde, R. A. (eds.) (1989). Aggression and war: Their biological and social bases. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hrdy, S. B. (1999). Mother nature: A history of mothers, infants, and natural selection. New York: Pantheon. Lalumiere, M. L., Harris, G. T., Quinsey, V. L., and Rice, M. E. (2005). The causes of rape: Understanding individual differences in male propensity for sexual aggression. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Malamuth, N., Huppin, M., and Paul, B. (2005). Sexual coercion. In Buss, D. (ed.) The handbook of evolutionary psychology, pp. 394–418. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Smith, E. A., Borgerhof, M. M., and Hill, K. (2001). Controversies in the evolutionary social sciences: A guide for the perplexed. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 16(3), 128–135. Temrin, H., Nordlund, J., and Sterner, H. (2004). Are step children overrepresented as victims of lethal parental violence in Sweden? Proceedings of the Royal Society of London 271 (supplement B), S124–S126. Thornhill, R. and Palmer, G. (2000). A natural history of rape. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Thornhill, R. and Palmer, G. (2003). A posse of good citizens brings outlaw evolutionists to justice. A response to Evolution, Gender and Rape (2003, ed. by Travis, C. B., MIT Press, Cambridge, MA). Evolutionary Psychology 1, 10–27. Travis, C. B. (ed.) (2003). Evolution, gender, and rape. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Trivers, R. (1985). Social evolution. Menlo Park, CA: Benjamin/Cummings. Trivers, R. (2002). Natural selection and social theory: Selected papers of Robert Trivers. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wrangham, R. and Peterson, D. (1996). Demonic males: Apes and the origins of human violence. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin.

Relevant Website http://www.hbes.com – Human Behavior and Evolution Society.

Evolution, Violence and Novel Environmental Factors Iver Mysterud, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway Dag V Poleszynski, Mat&Helse, Jar, Norway ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction An Evolutionary View of Violence Evolution, Malnutrition, and Violence Nutrition and Mental Health Reactive Hypoglycemia Can Trigger Violence Allergy and Food Intolerance

Glossary Glycemic Index (GI) of Food GI is a measure of how fast and how much foods, particularly carbohydrates, increase the blood sugar and insulin secretion. It is

Cholesterol, Serotonin, and Violence Fatty Acids Heavy-Metal Poisonings and Violence Interaction between Environmental Factors The Way Forward Further Reading

defined by the Food and Agricultural Organization and World Health Organization as ‘‘the glycemic response triggered by one serving containing 50 g of carbohydrates for a given food expressed as the relative

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percentage of the glycemic response from ingesting one serving containing 50 g of carbohydrate of a standard food.’’ With pure glucose used as a standard, 50 g is dissolved in water and ingested after having measured the fasting blood sugar concentration. Blood sugar levels are then measured every 15 minutes for 1 hour and then every 30 minutes for a total of 2 hours, and the incremental area under the curve above the fasting level is calculated. The glycemic indices for other foods are similarly calculated after the ingestion of the same amount of sugar in each food and the index set at the percentage of the area each food is calculated at. The standard food has by convention been glucose or white bread. If glucose is used as standard and the glycemic response is set at 100, the GI for all other foods becomes lower than if one uses white flour, since the average GI for white flour in 11 studies using glucose as standard, gives an index 140. Heavy Metals A group of elements between copper and bismuth in the periodic table of elements with specific gravities greater than 4.0. A number of heavy metals influence brain function by interfering with key enzymes or having direct toxic effects on the brain. Lead, cadmium, manganese, and copper are linked with

Introduction We are all interested in violence, whether for personal or professional reasons. There are as many approaches to understanding violence as there are theoretical approaches to behavior. What is needed is synthesis. How can we get increased insight into an important social problem such as violence? This topic is too important for disagreement among researchers to prevent synthesis and real progress in understanding. Evolutionary science may be seen as the unifying discipline among various approaches to behavior, including violence. This means that evolutionary science may be seen as an all-encompassing paradigm that, in principle, may be used as a tool for improving behavioral models. Behavioral theories based on evolutionary thinking are becoming ever more powerful. They consist of several approaches, of which evolutionary psychology currently attracts the most attention, especially from social scientists, the media, and the general public. Even though the roots of evolutionary psychology can be traced back to Charles Darwin, the modern version rose to prominence only after an important amount of work was done during the 1980s and 1990s. The evolutionary literature on psychological approaches to human behavior has grown tremendously, and evolutionary approaches by scholars with other backgrounds have expanded the knowledge

violence; lead and manganese influence impulse control due to lowering of dopamine and serotonin, respectively. Lead – the most extensively studied heavy metal in relation to violence – has been used in paint and as a gasoline additive. Novel Environmental Factors Environmental factors that are relatively new in human evolutionary history, indicating that our species (or most individuals) may not have had time to become genetically adapted to exposure to them. The article discusses mainly diet and pollution. Reactive Hypoglycemia When blood sugar first rises quickly and then declines to below the fasting level after a meal. This may happen quickly or even after several hours. Glucose tolerance tests (GTT) normally consist of measuring blood glucose on an empty stomach and then drinking water with 50 g glucose with subsequent measurements after 15, 30, 45, and 60 minutes and then every 30 minutes for at least 2–3 hours. Some therapists recommend measuring blood glucose levels as long as 6 hours after ingestion of glucose because some hypoglycemic patients will not react with an immediate drop in blood sugar.

base still further. Even so, we are still just at the beginning of a new era in the study of human behavior in an evolutionary context. Evolutionary psychology is important for the social sciences in general and for psychology in particular. We are in the process of finding better explanations for (known) existing phenomena and mapping theoretically predicted new phenomena. The understanding of human nature and how it was designed is progressing and improving. However, many scientists are growing dissatisfied with the main evolutionary psychological model, and evolutionary psychology has been criticized by a number of researchers both from within and outside the evolutionary paradigm. Of the arguments raised against evolutionary psychology, we will mention but one: There is still no good integration of evolutionary psychology with ‘behavioral genetics’, although work has been initiated. The extent to which human behavior is adaptive, genetic, or facultative, is a crucial question urgently awaiting an answer. With its basic model of a universal human nature, evolutionary psychology has focused mainly on invariant patterns between individuals, societies, and cultures. Differences in behavior are explained by individuals who are identical in basic design (except for sex/gender differences) but encounter different psycho-socio-cultural environments. This untested assumption is criticized by

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those who emphasize the need to integrate evolutionary psychology and behavioral genetics. Such debates are of benefit to a young science, as they may push it towards improved models of human nature. They are, of course, also relevant to the theoretical approach one may use in order to understand a complex phenomenon like violence. Below, we will focus on some environmental factors which evolutionary psychology (and behavioral genetics) needs to take into consideration in order to achieve a better model of human nature and human behavior in novel environments. We will attempt to delineate a model for the roots of violence and aggressive behavior. These topics are of central interest to evolutionary psychologists, who have made important contributions to the understanding of violence and aggression during the last two decades. We will start by tracing some of the history of evolutionary approaches.

An Evolutionary View of Violence From an evolutionary perspective, violence and aggression can be appropriate in a number of situations. A large literature discusses the usefulness of such behavior for animals, including our own species, Homo sapiens sapiens. Use of violence and aggression to achieve benefits can be traced to life forms far older than our own species. Such behavior is also well documented in our own past and seems to have followed humans through time. Violence and aggressive behavior is also widespread in the rest of the animal kingdom. For a long time, evolution-minded researchers have discussed possible implications of human and animal predisposition to violence and aggressive behavior. This focus has sometimes led us astray. For example, in the 1960s, evolutionary research focused on aggression as an ‘aggressive instinct’ both in humans and in other animals. The instinct was thought of as a ‘drive’ that sought outlet in some way. If redirected, the outcome could be harmless, but if it was suppressed, it would sooner or later break through with explosive force. Consequently, aggression would occur spontaneously unless the instinct was redirected into a less ‘bloodthirsty’ substitute (e.g., sports for humans). The idea that aggression arises spontaneously and seeks a release was later strongly opposed. There are many events that occur during an individual’s development which influence his/her behavior. Evolutionary researchers like Konrad Lorenz did not present sufficient evidence supporting the view that aggression would continue to grow and break out in the absence of the external factors that normally release it. While Lorenz’ models predicted that an instinctive pressure will build up and possibly break out with

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explosive force if it is not let out in other ways, other evolutionary researchers argued to the contrary that aggression can be self-reinforcing both for spectators and the perpetrator. It was further pointed out that getting aggression ‘out of the system’ makes subsequent violence more likely and not less, as the theory suggests. The hypothesis that humans and other animals have an ‘aggressive instinct’ has therefore been consigned to the garbage heap of the history of ideas. Still, this research emphasized the important point that violence and aggressive behavior can be appropriate for survival and reproduction. In the 1960s, evolutionary researchers argued that the function of aggression was to distribute individuals (or pairs or groups) over their available home range so as to secure the most beneficial utilization of a region and its nutrients. The postulated aggressive instinct that built up and broke out with explosive force as aggressive behavior was aimed at other individuals. The effect of this on survival and reproduction was a better utilization of an area’s resources to the benefit of individuals and species alike. Such a functional view of aggression, in which the whole group or population benefits from it, was discredited in the 1960s. Today, there is a consensus that neither humans nor other animals are equipped with such an ‘aggressive instinct’ and that it is the survival and reproduction of individuals – not whole groups – that is at the center of the evolutionary process (with certain human behaviors as possible exceptions). At present, the discussion is not focused on any one single function of violence and aggressive behavior, but on many different functions. The important point is that such behavior is thought of as being context dependent. Use of violence and aggression can be appropriate for survival and reproduction in a number of situations. For instance, a mother of any species would benefit from aggression in defending her own young if other individuals threaten them. Infanticide is a widespread phenomenon in a number of species. A mother who did not have the inclination to defend her young would, through the evolutionary process, have had less probability of passing on ‘her family genes’. Aggressive behavior could also be appropriate in defending oneself either against hostile animals of other species (carnivores), against other humans bent on raping, mutilating or killing, or against other humans who threaten one’s status in a social hierarchy (e.g., in order not to ‘lose face’). In other words, aggression is an important defense reaction that can be activated in a number of different situations. On the other hand, it could also be appropriate to use aggression in a number of other contexts. Aggression could enable one to gain control over resources, inflict costs on sexual rivals, increase status in a social hierarchy, deter rivals from future aggression, or prevent one’s partner from engaging in sexual infidelity.

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Accordingly, from an evolutionary perspective, one can imagine a number of contexts in which use of violence and aggression, in the past, would have been useful for survival and reproduction. Individuals who, through the evolutionary process, were not equipped with purposeful ways to react in specific situations would, over time gradually, have failed to leave descendants. Contemporary humans are descendants who were equipped with such abilities. Certain parts of the brain are specialized in the regulation of aggressive behavior. The brain activates various parts of the physiology to prepare us to cope with aggressive encounters. This involves the activation and triggering of a number of hormones, neurotransmitters, emotions (feelings), and released energy to meet the challenge. Research in evolutionary psychology has documented humans’ tendency to react with violence and aggressive behavior in the kind of situations we have just mentioned. Jealousy is a relevant example, since this central emotion has been observed in all surveyed cultures and is the main cause of the abuse and killing of partners throughout the world. Another example concerns defense of status, reputation, and honor among peers and friends. This is a key motive when men kill men. Police archives often classify such homicides as ‘trivial quarrels’. A typical example is a quarrel in a bar, which escalates and gets out of hand. The opponents are sometimes not able to withdraw without being humiliated in the eyes of their peers, and they break a bottle, or pull a knife or a gun. US police chronicles often emphasize that seemingly trivial arguments can trigger homicide. Aggressive behavior is, therefore, not activated randomly in relation to the situations in which people find themselves. Humans seem more prone to react with aggressive behavior in certain situations. This is true for both sexes, but some of the situations will have a tendency to be different for the two sexes. In addition, men – like males of the majority of bird and mammal species – will have a lower threshold of violence to achieve social benefits. Several researchers have discussed the evolutionary reasons for this tendency of men and other males to be more aggressive than women and other females. Aggressive behavior could have had a number of useful functions for the survival and reproduction of our ancestors, and perhaps, this is also the case today among modern humans. However, there are a number of conditions/factors in the modern environment of humans that can either lower the threshold for aggression or trigger such behavior in other circumstances than would have been beneficial throughout our evolutionary history. The rest of this article will focus on factors in the novel human environment which may contribute to triggering seemingly irrational, and in many instances, relatively unprovoked violence. These environmental factors have often been overlooked or downplayed by the majority of researchers on violence and aggression, whether

they take an (explicit) evolutionary approach or a more traditional one focusing on proximate factors and causes. Evolutionary psychology, in particular, needs to incorporate such factors if it is to achieve a more realistic understanding of human behavior in general, and violence in particular, in novel environments. We will focus on important causes of biochemical imbalance that afflict a large proportion of the population. Predisposing factors for violence may be nutritionally depleted foods, reactive hypoglycemia caused by habitual intake of foods with a high GI, food allergies/intolerances, and exposure to new environmental toxins (heavy metals, synthetic poisons). These conditions are relatively novel from an evolutionary perspective. As a general rule, we will argue that all environmental changes which influence our brain biochemistry and, at the same time, happen faster than we have been able to adapt to, genetically, may be relevant if one wants to understand the roots of violence in modern societies.

Evolution, Malnutrition, and Violence In the last decade, evolutionary or Darwinian medicine has begun to provide interesting hypotheses about and explanations for a number of somatic and mental diseases of our time. One of the most striking alterations since humans abandoned a hunter–gatherer lifestyle and became sedentary dwellers has been in our nutrition. Human biochemistry and physiology is the result of several million of years of evolution. Our diet has gradually changed from having been based primarily on plants several million years ago to – in the last several hundred thousand years or more – being dominated by animal protein and fats. Long before the agricultural revolution started 10 000 years ago, humans consumed significantly more energy than modern humans do. The food had higher nutritional density, including a much higher content of antioxidants, and carbohydrate-dense foods with high GIs (like grains and potatoes) were not on the menu, not to mention refined sugar, flour, ice cream, or other processed ‘foods’. GI is a measure of how fast food, particularly carbohydrates, influence the blood sugar. From an evolutionary perspective, it is evident that many of the dietary practices of the present day are not in accordance with the foods we have evolved to eat during millions of years. It is not a new thesis that food influences our physical health in both the short and the long run; that chronic diseases like rheumatism, cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and other autoimmune diseases are due, to a large extent, to malnutrition. Humans are not designed to eat large quantities of food with a higher GI than is found in fruit, that is, maximally approximately 80 (ripe banana ¼ 82, white bread ¼ 100). Hunters and gatherers have, from time to time, found honey, which in refined

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condition has an index of 104, corresponding to white bread and other wheat products. But unprocessed, wild honey has a considerably lower index. Refined foods are characterized not only by having a far higher GI than natural foods – for example, ‘instant’ potato has an index of 118 and puffed rice 123; refined foods also, generally, have low nutrient density and contain little fiber, both factors being connected to a number of diseases. An example of the relevance of such connections is that white sugar is devoid of chromium, a necessary factor for normal glucose tolerance. Research has shown that chromium supplements can improve the glucose tolerance in diabetics and ameliorate reactive hypoglycemia.

Nutrition and Mental Health It is well-known that nutrient deficiencies give rise to specific somatic diseases. Less acknowledged is the fact that nutrient deficiencies can also trigger serious mental imbalance. As early as in the 1950s, Canadian researchers Hoffer and Osmond showed that schizophrenic patients had a far better prognosis (a 70–75% cure rate was repeatedly achieved, at least 50% higher than the best current treatment until then, which consisted of ‘loving, tender care, good nutrition, fresh air and exercise’) when given large doses of niacin, vitamin C, and zinc. The theoretical basis for the contribution of concentrated nutrients in the treatment of mental diseases was later expounded by the double Nobel laureate Linus Pauling. In the US, a number of scientific studies support the hypothesis that there is a connection between nutrient status and antisocial behavior. In a number of studies of juvenile delinquents, Steven Schoenthaler has shown that a diet containing too much sugar, refined foods, and synthetic food additives may trigger aggression, hyperactivity, and crime. Allergic reactions to common foods can trigger so-called brain allergies that can lead to irrational or violent behavior, as can the ingestion of heavy metals like lead, cadmium, and copper. In the 1980s, a number of studies in US juvenile detention centers and other institutions showed that antisocial behavior like violence, theft, and vandalism can be significantly reduced by improving the inmates’ diets – cutting down on refined sugar, snacks, and processed foods. The largest of these studies included a sample of 3000 young delinquents. A 1991 survey by a research team from California State University of 813 federal juvenile detention centers demonstrated that the transition to ‘‘nutrientdense diets’’ ‘‘. . . significantly improved conduct, intelligence and/or academic performance.’’ A British research project from the middle of the 1990s examined the diet of 100 young delinquents and compared it with a matched, equally large group of nondelinquents. The purpose was to uncover connections

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between antisocial behavior, like hyperactivity, and food allergies, food intolerance, and other nutrient problems. The researchers found no significant differences between the nutrient intakes of the two groups, but among the delinquents the frequency of behaviorally adverse reactions to food was estimated at 75%, compared with 18% for the nondelinquents. This indicates that adverse behavior does not have to be linked to a particularly nutrientpoor diet, but that some persons can react with behavioral disturbance while eating ordinary food to which others do not react. In 2002, the results of a randomized, placebocontrolled trial from Great Britain on adult prisoners using nutritional supplements was published. Antisocial behavior, including violence, was significantly reduced only in the group supplemented with vitamins, minerals, and essential fatty acids. This study is, together with another US study from 2000, the first ‘experimental’ confirmation of what was first found out two decades ago, that is, that nutrient status in fact does influence human antisocial behavior.

Reactive Hypoglycemia Can Trigger Violence Highly processed foods are generally poor in nutrients. For example, sugar refining removes all the B vitamins and minerals found in sugar cane and beets, and only traces of chromium are left. Conversely, white flour with an extraction rate of 70% has less than half the nutrient density of whole grains. Chromium is, among other things, necessary for metabolizing sugar. Without chromium the efficiency of insulin is reduced, increasing the level of blood glucose to too high levels. A high sugar intake, combined with a deficiency of chromium and other nutrients can lead to ‘reactive hypoglycemia’, that is, blood sugar first rises quickly and then declines to below the fasting level after a meal. If this happens, the brain will temporarily get too little glucose, which can trigger aggressive behavior. This may also happen in normally nonviolent, healthy persons, as has been shown in experiments in which their blood glucose level is manipulated by administering either glucose or insulin. Because of the controversy concerning the importance of reactive hypoglycemia in triggering violence, several experiments with mice have been carried out which demonstrated changed behavior under conditions of hypoglycemia. As a young researcher, US anthropologist Ralph Bolton (1984) wanted to study the so-called hypoglycemia– aggression hypothesis more closely. His investigations led him to the Qolla tribe, which lived 3800 m above sea level by Lake Titicaca, in the border area between Bolivia and Peru. The tribe has in anthropological literature been

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described as ‘the meanest and most unlikable people on earth’ because of their antisocial behavior. Homicide, rape, arson, and theft were common occurrences and, in one particular village, more than half of all family heads had been involved directly or indirectly in homicide. Six independent researchers who characterized ‘the personality’ of a group of Qolla Indians, used expressions like hostile, cruel, intense hatred, argumentative, and vindictive. When Bolton tested the glucose tolerance in a group of adults, several of them experienced such strong symptoms of hypoglycemia (sweating, headache, dizziness) that the test was terminated after 4 hours instead of the planned 6. Statistical analyses showed that slightly more than 55% reacted with reactive hypoglycemia, and that there was a clear connection between ranked level of aggression and hypoglycemia during the test. Before he visited the Qolla tribe, Bolton had already analyzed the connection between homicide and a number of variables in 34 African tribes and found that the most probable factor in triggering homicide was the degree of hypoglycemia due to lack of protein-rich foods. This work fit well with his findings among the Qolla tribe, where the diet was dominated by high glycemic, carbohydrate-rich foods like potatoes, supplemented by beans, peas, barley, oat, sweet potatoes, and quinoa. US studies have shown that the occurrence of hypoglycemia among violent criminals can be as high as 80– 85%. Many criminals have a diet dominated by high-GI foods, including a high intake of sugar. Sugar may act as a sedative and lead to fatigue and depression, as well as inducing sleep, but it can also trigger violence. This may explain why hypoglycemia is linked with, among others, suicide, anxiety and panic attacks, nightmares, hyperactivity, and alcoholism, which in turn can lead to depletion of important nutrients like zinc and thiamin (vitamin B1). Because the brain needs thiamin to function normally, a deficiency of this vitamin can, in turn, trigger aggressiveness, impulsive behavior, and increase sensitivity to criticism. A number of controlled studies among children at hospitals have shown a close connection between deviant behavior and a nutrient-poor diet. Too much coffee or alcohol may also trigger aggression, since such substances increase the secretion of several minerals. Drug dependency is often linked with poor nutrient status. A Norwegian study from 1995 showed that children who were given a lot of sweets and sweetened, carbonated drinks at home, later developed a higher propensity for using alcohol and tobacco than other children. A nutrient-deficient diet can in turn predispose to drug abuse, violence, and criminal behavior; drug abusers are responsible for a substantial part of the violence, serious robberies, and thefts that occur in many modern industrial societies today. Human studies are supported by animal studies, which have clearly shown that lack of nutrients like zinc and thiamin can trigger craving for alcohol and

lead to aggressive behavior. Independently of psychosocial factors, the evidence therefore seems to support a clear link between malnutrition, alcoholism, mental disorders, and affective violence.

Allergy and Food Intolerance Adolescents who are either violent or intentionally destroy property, not only often suffer from reactive hypoglycemia, they can also have allergies or intolerances (enzymatic, pharmacological or nonspecific food reactions) toward particular foods. Allergies involve immune reactions to proteins after being absorbed into the bloodstream. They are usually measured by the occurrence of specific antibodies like IgE (a marker for ‘immediate allergy’), which play the main role in airborne allergies. Less common is measurement of IgG1–IgG4 (delayed allergy), which, according to some researchers, may constitute up to 90% of all allergic reactions. Of interest in this connection is the fact that particular foods can trigger not only bodily reactions like nasal congestion, sneezing, itching, or rashes, but also psychological symptoms like anxiety, panic attacks, depression, aggressive behavior, irritability, hyperactivity, and certain forms of autism and schizophrenia. A study of the food habits of delinquents found that the food most often correlated with antisocial behavior was cow’s milk. From an evolutionary perspective, it is not surprising that a large part of the world’s population does not tolerate cow’s milk and reacts both somatically and mentally to regular intake, since cow’s milk is a relatively new environmental factor in human evolution. Already in 1916, Dr. Hoobler reported on children who reacted allergically to proteins in food. During the 1970s, Alexander G. Schauss worked as a young probation officer and had extensive contact with criminals, whom he also studied extensively. He found that allergies and food intolerances may be important causal factors in explaining hyperactivity, nervousness, learning disorders, depression, aggressive behavior, hostility, confusion, and irritability. During the 1970s, US researchers studied a sample of 133 psychiatric patients and found that 74% of them suffered from reactive hypoglycemia. It has subsequently been demonstrated that approximately 70% of all schizophrenics may suffer from low blood sugar. Frequently, allergies to common foods are involved. A 1980 study found that, among a group of neurotic patients who were not helped by regular psychiatric treatment, 88% were allergic to wheat, 60% to cow’s milk, and 50% to corn. Studying 30 delinquents, Schauss found that they drank on the average more than twice as much cow’s milk as a control group of law-abiding youth. Several studies have found a link between nutrition and hyperactivity. The Norwegian researcher Karl-Ludvig

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Reichelt has shown that serious behavioral problems may be caused by the accumulation of brain peptides which are absorbed from the gut. His hypothesis is that this may be caused by a deficiency in peptidase activity. Other studies show that allergies may trigger hyperactivity. Several other nutritional and toxicological factors may play a role in the development of hyperactivity (attention deficit disorder – ADD/attention deficit hyperactiviy disorder – ADHD): deficiencies of essential nutrients (essential fatty acids, especially omega-3 fatty acids, zinc, iron, vitamins B3 and C, vitamin B6 in cases of low brain serotonin levels, calcium, folic acid, and general malnutrition), the presence of environmental toxins and pesticides, the so-called candida syndrome (or fungal overgrowth disease), and sugar intolerance. Prospective studies show that approximately one quarter of all hyperactive children go on to commit at least one criminal offense as juveniles and to abuse drugs and/or exhibit antisocial behavior as adults. It is not unreasonable to presume that some of this antisocial behavior involves violence and aggressive behavior.

Cholesterol, Serotonin, and Violence From an evolutionary perspective, it is interesting to note that low blood cholesterol seems to make people prone to violence. The mediating factor seems to be the brain serotonin concentration. Serotonin is an important neurotransmitter which influences impulse control. We will here bring up two factors of importance in this connection: cholesterol and the heavy metal, manganese (see section titled ‘Fatty acids’). In terms of evolution, low blood cholesterol may in itself not be new, but the contemporary one-sided focus on possible detrimental consequences of ingesting cholesterol and of having a high total-cholesterol concentration in the blood is definitely a new phenomenon. Before we discuss the so-called cholesterol–aggression hypothesis, we will present some studies which indicate that there may be a connection between violence and the important brain neurotransmitter, serotonin. Extensive research has documented what seems to be a link between a low level of serotonin in the cerebrospinal fluid and impulsive violence (as well as impulsive suicides and arsons) – the ‘low serotonin syndrome’. The topic is summed up in a comprehensive consensus article on neurobiological factors and violence as: ‘‘Although the evidence is not entirely consistent, most (but not all) studies increasingly support the association of lowered central serotonin levels and impulsive violence.’’ That low serum cholesterol levels can lead to low levels of serotonin in the cerebrospinal fluid, and with this an increased propensity to violence (as well as impulsive suicides) as a result, is often denoted as ‘the

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cholesterol–serotonin hypothesis’ (for violence and aggression). It is extensively discussed in the literature. The hypothesis is supported by experimental studies of monkeys of which the fat and cholesterol content in the diet has been manipulated. Even though the association between cholesterol and behavior is not yet documented with experimental data from humans, new research gives clear support for the cholesterol–serotonin hypothesis. The cholesterol–serotonin hypothesis illustrates the importance of having an evolutionary perspective in medicine. A reduced intake of cholesterol-rich foods and a subsequent lowered cholesterol level may have been a recurrent phenomenon in our past for some individuals (but not others). In periods of little food, it might have been beneficial to have a lowered threshold for aggression. To the extent that the concentration of blood cholesterol fluctuates with environmental changes, an increased disposition for aggression may be thought to follow. This increased aggressiveness is mediated by the influence on the serotonin level. The cholesterol– serotonin hypothesis, therefore, consists of three parts: (1) Reduced intake of fatty foods may lower the blood cholesterol level. (2) This can in turn reduce the serotonin level in the central nervous system, which (3) in turn can lead to increased inclination to aggressiveness. The level of blood cholesterol may, historically, have been a reliable internal marker for the availability of high-quality food. It is not difficult to imagine that an aggressive reaction pattern may have been adaptive in our evolutionary past during times of food scarcity or in periods of abject hunger. When populations of modern Western countries reduce the cholesterol level in the blood by drugs (dieting has relatively little effect), this could possibly trigger a latent inclination to impulsiveness and risky and aggressive behavior. This old mechanism could, therefore, explain the increased death rate from violent causes which have been observed in studies where the blood cholesterol level has been reduced by the use of drugs.

Fatty Acids Another factor which could influence the levels of serotonin is the level of polyunsaturated fatty acids in the body (too much omega-6, too little omega-3). This is actually presented as a competing hypothesis to the hypothesis that there is a causal link between cholesterol and serotonin levels in the brain. During evolution humans ingested almost equal amounts of omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids, while the ratio is heavily skewed towards omega-6 in the modern Western diet. This imbalance in essential fatty acids is linked to a number of physical illnesses like heart disease, multiple sclerosis, and inflammation in general, mental problems like

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depression, biopolar disorder, and cognitive decline, and behavioral problems like ADHD, dyslexia, and dyspraxia. To this list several researchers have added violence, erratic, impulsive behavior, and suicide. The supplements in the mentioned randomized, placebo-controlled trial from Great Britain on adult prisoners contained fatty acids. Joseph R. Hibbeln and co-workers have, in several studies, particularly focused on the link between violence and fatty acids. Elevated levels of corticotrophin-releasing hormone in the cortico-hippocampal-amygdala pathway increase fear and anxiety, which are components of defensive and violent behaviors. Prostaglandins E2 and F2, which are formed from linoleic acid, increase corticotrophin-releasing hormone RNA expression in this pathway. These eicosanoids may be reduced by increased dietary intakes of omega-3 fatty acids. In a small study of 21 perpetrators of domestic violence, it was found that low levels of one omega-3 fatty acid (docosahexaenoic acid – DHA) correlated with higher cerebrospinal fluid corticotrophin-releasing hormone levels. Increasing dietary intakes of long-chain omega-3 fatty acids (DHA, EPA) or reductions in the intake of the omega-6 fatty acid linoleic acid may reduce aggressive and violent behaviors. Therefore, a study examined whether greater omega-6 consumption across time, as indicated by national food disappearance data (1961– 2000), and space (Argentina, Australia, Canada, UK, and USA) could be linked to homicide mortality rates. It was found that greater apparent consumption of linoleic acid correlated with higher rates of deaths from homicide with a 20-fold range (0.51–10.2/100 000) across countries and time in an exponential growth regression model. Within each country, correlations between greater linoleic acid disappearance and decreasing homicide mortality over time were significant in linear regression models. A recent review article emphasizes that ensuring optimal intakes of omega-3 fatty acids during early development and adulthood shows considerable promise in preventing aggression and hostility.

Heavy-Metal Poisonings and Violence US researchers have carried out a number of studies on the diets of murderers, rapists, and other violent criminals. A common denominator, in addition to poor nutrition, is that many of the perpetrators have been exposed to poisoning with heavy metals. From an evolutionary perspective, metals like lead are a new environmental factor which, even in low concentrations, can induce detrimental neurophysiological effects – whether they are caused by pollutants in the external environment or by endogenous pollutants like mercury from dental amalgam fillings.

In order to test the hypothesis that there exists a systematic connection between violence and heavymetal exposure, in 1989 a group at the University of Texas carried out a study of trace elements in hair from a sample of 80 prison inmates. Based solely on this marker, the researchers were able to identify 86% of the violent and 78% of the nonviolent inmates. Later studies have demonstrated that hair analyses of murderers and other violent offenders often show conspicuously high levels of heavy metals like lead, manganese, and cadmium, and very low levels of zinc and lithium (copper values have been found to be either very high or very low). The amount of hair manganese has turned out to be a good indicator of violent behavior. Lead and manganese have, respectively, turned out to be able to lower the levels of dopamine and serotonin in the brain – neurotransmitters which influence impulse control (see section titled ‘Cholesterol, serotonin, and violence, for the discussion of serotonin). Investigations carried out in four US prisons identified the level of manganese in hair samples of inmates. The cut-off point was set at 0.7 ppm (parts per million), a level which was superseded for 66% of the prisoners in two big-city prisons, 78% of the inmates in a federal prison, and 63% in a county jail, compared with 4%, 3%, and 3%, respectively, among the controls. Hair analyses of several of the most-known mass murderers in the US have revealed increased levels of lead, cadmium, and copper. Since psychosocial factors were not found to play any role, heavy-metal poisoning was judged to be the main explanation for their acts of violence. Herbert Needleman and several co-workers have, for almost three decades, focused on the influence of lead on human behavior and health. Already in 1979, he analyzed shed teeth in the US and found that subjects who had the highest lead levels, but did not have any external signs of lead poisoning, had a lower IQ score, shorter attention span, and poorer language performance than those with low lead levels. In 1996, he showed that a sample of 301 boys from public schools were more prone to antisocial behavior if they had more lead in their bones (tibia). Needleman subsequently examined 216 delinquents and 201 pupils from high schools in Pittsburgh and found that the delinquents had significantly more lead in their bones than the controls. A study from 2001 including all counties in the 48 contiguous United States found clear associations between the homicide rate and the lead content in the air, and a British study of a group of children found an association between blood lead levels and behavioral and/or developmental problems, which could not be explained by differences in age, sex, or socioeconomic status. The conclusions drawn from the examples above are supported by a research group using hair analyses to establish the concentration of six toxic trace elements and 14 other minerals in a sample of 31 mentally

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disturbed boys, 21 violent youths, and 99 controls. The researchers found a statistically significant association between violent behavior and an increased content of cadmium, lead, copper, manganese, iron, nickel, and cadmium, and a reduced level of phosphorous. In another study of children’s hair, the same research group found that proneness to violent behavior was associated with an increased level of lead, cadmium, copper, iron, and silicon, and a reduced lithium level. They also found that mentally disturbed children had increased lead and cadmium levels, and reduced levels of phosphorous. These results indicate that there may exist biochemical differences between normal, mentally disturbed, and violenceprone children. Several other studies have found associations between heavy-metal exposure and violent behavior. In conclusion, several studies using hair analysis of mass murderers indicate that heavy metals like lead, cadmium, and manganese can be involved in violent behavior, and such findings are supported by various case–control and correlation studies (analyses of heavy metal content in hair, bones, and air) as well as by prospective studies. Even if there is no scientific consensus at the moment, it is highly probable that these associations are causal. One decisive factor which allows us to draw this conclusion is that heavy metals may reduce the levels of neurotransmitters which are linked to impulse control. Extensive research has been initiated to clarify these mechanisms in more detail. However this task may prove to be so difficult that definitive scientific ‘proof’ cannot be expected in the foreseeable future. In the meantime, this should not prevent us from acting on the information already at hand.

Interaction between Environmental Factors Interactions between environmental factors may aggravate the effects of toxic metals. For instance, a suboptimal intake of essential nutrients (in particular, minerals like calcium, magnesium, and zinc) can lead to increased uptake of lead, manganese, and other toxic metals from drinking water or food, with the subsequent passage of such neurotoxic substances into the brain. There are indications, too, that in some areas, fluoridated drinking water may be linked to increased violence. This phenomenon may be explained by the fact that two easily soluble silicofluorides – fluosilicic acid (H2SiF6) and sodium silicofluoride (Na2SiF6) – may increase the uptake of lead from environmental sources. More than 90% of the water fluoridated in the US today is made with these two easily available and cheap fluoride compounds. Controlled studies have shown that laboratory animals do not absorb significant amounts of manganese from the

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diet, except if the food is deficient in calcium. In humans, such effects can be linked to social class/stratification. People who are low on the social ladder often have less healthy diets than those higher up. Data indicate that US minority children with a low calcium intake have an increased risk of absorbing lead. Since women from lower socioeconomic strata have a tendency to a lower nursing frequency or to nurse for a shorter length of time than those from higher social strata, children from lower social strata may absorb far more manganese. It is found that children who are given formula milk absorb five times more manganese than those who are nursed. In addition, low-status families have a higher probability of living in an environment contaminated with toxic substances, since they often live in the vicinity of polluting industrial plants, in the inner cities, get their drinking water from old, lead-coated water pipes, and live in houses decorated with leaded paint. Finally, one should keep in mind genetic variation. Americans of African origin may be more susceptible to lead uptake than some of European descent for genetic reasons, and they seem to have lower levels of monoamine oxidase than people of European descent for genetic and/or other reasons. The fact that alcohol (ethanol) ingestion often is linked to violent behavior is uncontroversial. However, it is less known that rats given a combination of cadmium and alcohol have a higher uptake and accumulation of cadmium in all examined tissues, compared with controls that were given only cadmium. If this study is representative and can be transferred to humans, a somber perspective on the – not uncommon – coingestion of alcohol and cigarette smoking emerges. In addition to a number of other metals, cigarette smoke is a significant source of cadmium. Actually, a prospective Danish study of a representative sample of women and their sons has found that smoking during pregnancy increases the risk of the child being arrested for crime later in life. An interesting mineral often connected to behavioral disturbances and violence is lithium. In a double blind study, a sample of 66 prisoners with a past characterized by chronic, impulsive, and aggressive violence was divided into two groups – one of which was given lithium (n ¼ 34) and the other a placebo (n ¼ 32) for a maximum period of 3 months. Those who received lithium showed significantly less aggressive behavior than those who received the placebo. Another study from 27 municipalities in Texas during the period 1978–87 found a higher occurrence of suicide, homicide, and rape where the drinking water contained little or no lithium compared to those areas where the water contained a certain amount. Interestingly, similar results were also found for robberies, burglaries, and thefts. This indicates that lithium in low dosages generally acts as a sedative, something which may be due to its functions as an essential

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trace element. The link between low lithium levels and violent behavior is also found in a third study. Hair analyses can be an effective method for evaluating lithium status and uptake. Research has shown that lithium supplements improve lithium status, but at the same time reduce the uptake of other minerals such as aluminum, vanadium, lead, arsenic, and manganese. Lithium also increases the transport and distribution of vitamin B12, a vitamin of primary importance to brain function. The possibility that exposure to poisons, poor nutrition, and substance abuse may have synergistic effects on brain function and social behavior has been discussed for many years. To the extent that such factors are structurally forced on a large part of the population, it is not surprising that industrialized societies experience waves of unprovoked violence. Changed brain chemistry can alter behavior, and changed behavior can alter brain chemistry; thus behavior, cognition, social interactions, and other expressions of brain function are subject not only to the social environment but also to certain aspects of the chemical environment. Studies have found that nuclear reactors and aboveground nuclear test explosions emit radioactive pollution that may directly (via air) or indirectly (via the food chain) afflict large parts of the population. Such radioactive substances not only contribute to increased cancer rates, low birth weight, and impaired immunity; radioactive isotopes like iodine-131 also influence the brain negatively and act synergistically with other toxins. US overseas above-ground nuclear test explosions, led to massive emissions during the 1950s and 1960s. Fall-out of iodine-131 is absorbed via the food chain (milk and milk products), and, if ingested by pregnant women, radioactive iodine may be transferred to the fetus. Once ingested, radioactive iodine may retard the development of the child’s thyroid gland and thus the hormones produced (T3 and T4), hampering the development of its brain and affecting energy levels in all tissues having mitochondria. The US physicist Ernest J. Sternglass and co-workers found a negative correlation between the amount of radioactive fall-out during first months of pregnancy and test results of the children having been exposed in utero as adolescents later in high school. The psychologist Robert Pellegrini later found a clear statistical association between radioactive fall-out and violent crimes in the US.

The Way Forward Among the main body of researchers with a background in psychosocial models for violence, bio- and neurochemical explanatory factors, and the importance of environmental pollution have long been neglected. Actually, among criminologists during nearly the whole

of the twentieth century, there has been a near taboo on any arguments linking biochemistry, genetics, and/or neurophysiology to criminal behavior. Textbooks reflect the spirit of the time in the individual disciplines, and the coverage or lack of biological arguments in criminology textbooks indicates a total domination of the traditional social science approach to violence. However, this is in the process of changing. Even though the evolutionary psychological model rejects the divide between social and ‘biological’ as unnatural, until recently, evolution-minded researchers have not been sufficiently cognizant of the ways a number of evolutionary novel environmental factors (changed diets, sharply increased pollution) may influence brain chemistry and trigger or increase the probability of violent behavior. However, this is now on the verge of changing, even though – to our knowledge – no evolutionary psychologists, so far, have devoted serious attention to this. The present emphasis on certain neglected factors which may influence human bio- or neurochemistry does not mean that we think these are sufficient proximate causes or triggers to explain ‘all’ violent episodes. Quite the contrary, a number of other ‘biological’ factors are also documented as contributing to violence. These, too, need to be incorporated into an expanded evolutionary psychological model – for instance, genetic and neuroanatomical factors (like brain damage), other neurochemical substances than the ones we have emphasized (like noradrenalin), brain infections, neuropsychological deficits, and so-called mental illness (like schizophrenia) (‘biological’ is stressed because it is unnatural to use social factors as opposed to the biological). An evolutionary model of crime would also have to include the given psychosocial and cultural context, so that a ‘comprehensive model’ would integrate a wider spectrum of factors. Even though we have focused on, among others, heavy metals as a factor in explaining violent behavior, a large number of other chemical substances could, in theory, influence the human inclination to be violent – and these avenues of evolutionary psychology should not be ignored. Environmental medical research takes time, while new substances are continually entering the market (as a rule, without long-term testing and without studies of combinations of several substances that act synergistically). Concerning our physical environment and its relation to violence, we have mentioned one controversial example (radioactivity), but there are a number of other, less controversial, conditions which may influence crime, for instance, seasonal variations in violent behavior caused by changes in light intensity. We are fully aware that simply considering the physical, chemical, nutritional, and other ‘biological’ factors alone is insufficient to explain violence and other deviant behavior. We argue that a synthesis of the causes of such behavioral abnormalities should use an evolutionary

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understanding of human design as a point of departure. This includes a focus on inclinations and reaction patterns which exist because they were beneficial in the past, combined with an analysis of the ways the new environmental factors can be thought to influence these. In principle, this should be an easy match for evolutionary psychologists, who insist that our mind is adapted to past (psycho-socio-cultural) environmental conditions. By adding a comparison of physical, chemical, nutritional, and other ‘biological’ factors in the old and new environments, we obtain a far more realistic model, which, at the same time, integrates other relevant disciplines on the way to a more unified Science. Our emphasis on certain factors which influence human bio- and neurochemistry does not mean that psychosocial factors do not play a role in explaining violent behavior on a general level. However, we contend that physical, chemical, nutritional, and other ‘biological’ factors have been neglected for too long by most researchers and therapists due to a psychosocial explanatory hegemony in both mainstream social science and evolutionary psychology. To the extent that ‘biological’ factors have been included in such analyses at all, the types of explanatory models and factors that we have emphasized in this article are conspicuous, primarily, by their absence. Psycho-socio-cultural explanatory models in mainstream social science could be likened to using a fishing net with too large a mesh in the search for the causes of violence. No one can deny that factors like unemployment, low social status, lack of tender loving care in childhood/adolescence, or social relationships later in life may correlate with violence. From a causal viewpoint, it is just as interesting to clarify why one person having had, for example, a difficult childhood/adolescence develops violent behavior, while others do not. By using a ‘finer-mesh net’ in the search for the causes of violence, for instance, by including exposure to heavy metals and/ or poor nutritional status, it is probable that the analyses of violent behavior can be taken farther. This argument is also relevant for evolutionary psychology. Evolutionary researchers have found several contexts which increase the probability of evoking violence and aggressive behavior. For example, over the last 20 years, Martin Daly and Margo Wilson have made an impressive contribution by documenting that the context of ‘step-parent presence’ (mainly stepfather) is a risk factor for abuse and homicide of infants. This is, actually, the best epidemiological predictor of such problems. But, as we all know, most instances of step-parent presence do not lead to abuse or homicide. Thus, such a context is not enough to explain such aberrant behavior. What distinguishes step-parents who abuse and kill from the rest of step-parents? Here we anticipate that a focus on the physical, chemical, nutritional, and other ‘biological’ factors that we have emphasized in this article could be of

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great relevance. Such factors could alter brain chemistry, reduce impulse control, and therefore, lower the threshold for violence, leading to an increased risk of such behavior. ‘Jealousy’ is another example in which evolutionary psychologists have contributed to improved understanding, although the approach is criticized. There is a clear evolutionary rationale for why both sexes should have jealousy as a defense mechanism. But why do people react so differently to unfaithfulness? In a moment of sober reflection, the evolutionary psychologists David Buss and Todd Shackelford actually mention this as a limitation of evolutionary psychological approaches to violence. They admit that the current perspective cannot account for some variability in behavior where different people are confronted with the same adaptive problem. For example, why should three men confronted with a wife’s infidelity resort to beating in one case, homicide in the second case, and getting drunk in the third case? Here is where evolutionary psychology needs to focus on factors that alter brain chemistry. Buss and Shackelford also admit that evolutionary psychology cannot account for the fact that some cultures, such as the Yanomamo¨, seem to require male violence to attain a position of status, whereas in other cultures, aggression leads to irreparable damage to one’s reputation. Environmental factors that alter brain chemistry could also be imagined to give an insight into this explanatory challenge, for instance, by focusing on the main foods eaten or on general exposure to certain external environmental factors that would make a certain cultural development more likely than other (cf. the diet of the Qolla tribe). Another example could be the ‘culture of honor’ that is documented in the US South. Perhaps, a general exposure to a pollutant like lead or manganese may have made the cultural development of this extremely status-focused culture more probable. This must not be read as a reduction of complex sociocultural dynamics to physical, chemical, nutritional, and ‘biological’ factors (this is exactly the kind of dichotomy we argue against), but as a plea for considering both sets of factors in complex and more realistic models. Such connections between diet and exposure to physical–chemical environmental factors and individual behavior and cultural norms are, of course, speculative at the moment (as is typically the case when new approaches challenge old paradigms), but the important point is that such problems are ‘testable’. It is becoming increasingly clear that a focus on the brain and its chemistry is crucial for understanding human behavior. We live in an environment that is different physically, chemically, and nutritionally from that at any point in human history and prehistory. Evolutionary psychology needs to expand its focus to other parts of the environment than the psycho-sociocultural. Novel physical, chemical, and nutritional

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proximate factors may throw numerous monkey wrenches into adaptive studies of behavior as well as into behavioral genetic studies. The more common a factor is in our physical–chemical environment, the easier it is to overlook. By not taking these novel proximate factors seriously, a better understanding of human behavior and physiology will be delayed, and society will loose an opportunity to fight major social problems in new and promising ways. See also: Biochemical Factors in Aggression and Violence; Evolution of Violence; Evolutionary Theory

Further Reading Barkow, J. H., Cosmides, L., and Tooby, J. (eds.) (1992). The adapted mind: Evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture. New York: Oxford University Press. Bolton, R. (1984). The hypoglycemia–aggression hypothesis: Debate versus research. Current Anthropology 25, 1–53. Buss, D. M. and Shackelford, T. K. (1997). Human aggression in evolutionary psychological perspective. Clinical Psychology Review 17, 605–619. Daly, M. and Wilson, M. (1988). Homicide. New York: Aldine de Gruyter. Erickson, M. T. (1997). Lowered serum cholesterol, famine, and aggression: A Darwinian hypothesis. Social Science Information 36, 211–222. Gesch, C. B., Hammond, S. M., Hampson, S. E., Aves, A., and Crowder, M. J. (2002). Influence of supplementary vitamins, minerals and essential fatty acids on the antisocial behaviour of young adult

prisoners: Randomized, placebo-controlled trial. British Journal of Psychiatry 181, 22–28. Hibbeln, J. R., Ferguson, T. A., and Blasbalg, T. L. (2006). Omega-3 fatty acid deficiencies in neurodevelopment, aggression and autonomic dysregulation: Opportunities for intervention. International Review of Psychiatry 18, 107–118. Kaplan, J. R., Klein, K. P., and Manuck, S. B. (1997). Cholesterol meets Darwin: Public health and evolutionary implications of the cholesterol–serotonin hypothesis. Evolutionary Anthropology 6, 28–37. Masters, R. D., Hone, B., and Doshi, A. (1998). Environmental pollution, neurotoxicity, and criminal violence. In Rose, J. (ed.) Environmental toxicology: Current developments, pp. 13–48. Amsterdam: Gordon and Breach Science Publishers. Mysterud, I. and Poleszynski, D. V. (2003). Expanding evolutionary psychology: Toward a better understanding of violence and aggression. Social Science Information 23, 5–50. Schauss, A. (1981). Diet, crime and delinquency. Berkeley, CA: Parker House. Schoenthaler, S. J. and Bier, I. D. (2000). The effect of vitamin-mineral supplementation on juvenile delinquency among American schoolchildren: A randomized, double-blind placebo-controlled trial. Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine 6, 7–17. Schoenthaler, S. J. and Bier, I. D. (2002). Food addiction and criminal behaviour. In Brostoff, J. and Challacombe, S. J. (eds.) Food allergy and intolerance, pp. 731–745. London: Saunders. Stretesky, P. B. and Lynch, M. J. (2001). The relationship between lead exposure and homicide. Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine 155, 579–582. Werbach, M. (1999). Nutritional influences on mental illness. A sourcebook of clinical research. Tarzana, CA: Third Line Press.

Relevant Website www.hbes.com

Evolutionary Theory Paul L Farber, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Evolution and Ethics: Darwin and Spencer Followers and Critics of Evolutionary Ethics Evolutionary Ethics and the Modern Synthesis

Glossary Altruism Actions that result in a benefit to the recipient at a cost to the actor. Ethology The study of animal behavior. Fitness The extent to which an animal passes on its genes to the next generation. Genotype The genetic makeup of an organism.

This article is reproduced from the previous edition, volume 1, pp 801–805, Ó 1999, Elsevier Inc.

Sociobiology and Evolutionary Ethics Further Reading

Group Selection A form of natural selection that operates at the group rather than individual level. Inclusive Fitness The extent to which an individual passes on its genes to the next generation plus those passed on by relatives due to the individual’s behavior toward those relatives. Sociobiology The study of the biological basis of social behavior.

Evolutionary Theory

Evolution and Ethics: Darwin and Spencer Since the middle of the nineteenth-century students of human culture have attempted to understand ethics from an evolutionary perspective. In large part, this attempt stemmed from the serious consideration of evolution as an explanation for human origins. Evolution was seen by many as a possible replacement for religious explanations that had been accepted for centuries but that were called into question in the second half of the nineteenth century. Influenced by the rise of science, the social consequences of the industrial revolution, and the creation in Germany of a scientific Biblical criticism, literal interpretations of Scripture were undermined, and by the 1870s the entire framework of Christianity, with its associated morality, came under close scrutiny by intellectuals, social reformers, and educated clergy on both sides of the Atlantic. Evolution, which claimed to account for human origins, was thought by many to hold the key to understanding morality as well as to providing guidance for human behavior. Of central importance in this tradition were Charles Darwin, the principal founder of the theory of evolution, and Herbert Spencer, the premier evolutionary philosopher of the nineteenth century. Darwin, early on in his studies, recognized that an account of human behavior was necessary to any theory of animal and plant evolution. He believed that he could explain the physical evolution of humans, but that if he could not adequately deal with the defining characteristic of humans, that is, a moral sense, his ideas would be rejected. In his Descent of Man (1871), Darwin provided an extended discussion of the origins of the moral sense. His basic approach was one he used to explain other perplexing characteristics in natural history: portraying the feature as part of a continuum rather than as a unique development. In explaining the evolution of the mammalian eye, for example, Darwin had treated it as the end product of a long line of smaller changes that began with light-sensitive cells and continued through primitive eyes to finally result in the complex structures that are so amazing. By surveying the animal kingdom he could identify living representatives of different stages of advancement in environmental perception, and by showing how they constituted a continuum he made his evolutionary scenario plausible. In an analogous fashion, Darwin claimed that our moral sense was a natural development of the intellectual faculties of social animals. It was his belief that any social animal would develop some sort of moral sense once it advanced to the level of intelligence that compared with humans. He came to this position by reference to the literature in psychology and ethnography. From the psychology of his day, he accepted the notion that moral habits were produced by a ‘sympathy’

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that humans had for other individuals combined with an internalization of society’s disapproval and punishment of deviant behavior. Darwin added to this commonly held nineteenth-century British view the concept of natural selection, which he held was the main force of change and progress in the organic realm. From contemporary ethnography Darwin took the view that there existed a set of universal ethical norms. Moreover, he agreed with the views of British anthropologists that one could rank cultures from crude barbarism to high civilizations. This hierarchy of cultures came into being historically: early human society was primitive and in time advanced to the present high level of industrial states. The hierarchy of cultures also existed spatially, for travelers and ethnographers had documented a wide range of human groups, from primitive to advanced. But under all the diversity a single set of general ethical norms could be discerned. Darwin argued in the Descent of Man that with increased intelligence early humans developed the capability of possessing certain sentiments such as sympathy, fidelity, and courage. These sentiments helped the society be cohesive and gave advantages to it over groups that did not have similar individuals. In time these sentiments developed into a highly structured moral sense that promoted harmony within groups but could lead to violence between groups. Darwin was also confident that future research would show that the universal norms ethnographers were discovering would be shown to be adaptive. Natural history would in a meaningful sense, then, explain the origin of moral values. Darwin did not attempt to use his understanding of origins to justify the moral values of society. In contrast, Herbert Spencer, Darwin’s contemporary, attempted to explain the origin of ethics and provide an evolutionary foundation from which to defend them. His multivolume system of philosophy, A System of Synthetic Philosophy, grounded his ethics in biology and psychology. He traced the adaptation of organisms to their environment by showing how animals sought pleasure and avoided pain. To this he added the idea that humans developed a ‘sympathy’ as a consequence of witnessing pleasure and pain in others. Spencer held that each individual should pursue what gives him pleasure so long as it does not infringe on the freedom of others. In time, he was convinced that humans would evolve into social beings who in pursuing their own interests would benefit the general population. Social actions that promoted that future state of greatest individual liberty and social cooperation could serve as guides to proper behavior. He used his philosophy to advocate maximizing individual liberty and criticizing encroachments on that liberty by government. Natural competition among societies would lead in time to the evolution of highly

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sophisticated cultures in the desirable geographical locations of the globe and ‘inferior’ ones in less desirable environments.

Followers and Critics of Evolutionary Ethics Darwin and Spencer’s evolutionary ethics inspired a number of followers. Most prominent were the English intellectual Leslie Stephen and the American historian and essayist John Fiske. Leslie Stephen was one of the most prominent agnostics of the nineteenth century, and the chief reason he was attracted to Darwin’s evolutionary explanation of ethics was that he believed it provided a naturalistic account of morality free from ties to religion or abstract transcendental philosophy. Stephen’s The Science of Ethics (1882) elaborated a middle-class Victorian set of values that claimed to be based on evolutionary principles. For him morality was the sum of the preservative instincts of a society. John Fiske developed a quite different evolutionary ethics, the inspiration for which came from the writings of Herbert Spencer. Unlike Stephen, or Spencer, Fiske believed that evolution pointed the way to a reborn Christianity. Our moral sense had an evolutionary origin, but ethical intuition nonetheless still came from God because God was immanent in the world. Fiske’s evolutionary philosophy received wide public attention in the United States through his public lectures and many popular publications. Not all supporters of the theory of organic evolution, however, were convinced by the extension of evolution to ethics. Alfred Russel Wallace, the cofounder of the theory of evolution, rejected Darwin’s and Spencer’s accounts, and Thomas Henry Huxley, Darwin’s ‘bulldog’, was also critical. Huxley, in his famous Romanes Lecture of 1893, argued that far from being a guide to action, our evolutionary heritage was something we had to transcend to be fully ethical. Natural selection and the struggle for existence that drove adaptation to the environment has been responsible for our physical natures, but human culture has tamed that wildness and raised human existence to a higher plane, one that avoided competition. Like other higher sentiments, for example, esthetic or intellectual, our moral sense distinguishes us from the animals. If we extended scientific notions of the value of competition from the organic world to the human, we would be making a serious mistake that would brutalize society. More problematic to the acceptance of evolutionary ethics, however, was its rejection by leading philosophers of the second half of the nineteenth century. Of central importance were the writings of the leading moral philosopher at Cambridge University, Henry Sidgwick. In his major philosophical work, Methods of Ethics (1874),

Sidgwick dismissed evolutionary ethics. Singling out Spencer for particular abuse, he elaborated a set of arguments that have been used since then as objections to erecting an ethics on an evolutionary foundation. He noted that justifications of evolutionary ethics were primarily of two types: (1) describing the origin of a set of moral beliefs, or (2) describing some ‘natural state’ (human nature, human society, etc.) and using that as a foundation for ethics. Both failed, according to Sidgwick. The first, he claimed, informs us merely about the history of customs and does not provide any meaningful justification. The second is a confused argument because any observed behavior, tendency, or impulse can be described as ‘natural’ and does not provide a rationale for accepting it as significantly natural. (Murder, for example, may be a natural occurrence, but merely noting that does not provide a reason to accept it as ethical.) Sidgwick’s critique was one of many academic attacks on evolutionary ethics in the second half of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. Philosophers were even more critical after G. E. Moore’s assault on evolutionary ethics in his Principia Ethica (1903), which repeated Sidgwick’s points but in a broader context of dismissing all naturalistic ethical systems. Some popular writers, nonetheless, continued to advocate an evolutionary perspective on ethics. Benjamin Kidd, for example, used evolution as a starting point in his ethical and political writings. His Social Evolution (1894) stressed competition as the central progressive force in nature and society.

Evolutionary Ethics and the Modern Synthesis The second stage in the history of evolutionary ethics is connected to the reformulation of the theory of evolution during the first half of this century. This neo-Darwinian biological theory emphasized Darwin’s original contention that natural selection of small, chance variations was the central driving force of evolution. Several scientists, who were impressed by the power of the explanatory power of the modern theory of evolution and the contemporaneous development of the psychoanalytical movement in psychology, sought to revive interest in evolutionary ethics. Some of these scientists, especially the leading advocate of evolutionary ethics during this period, Julian Huxley, were also reacting to the trauma of World War I and believed that a new scientific humanism was necessary to prevent future global outbreaks of violence. Julian Huxley believed that the evolutionary process was a progressive one which had cosmic, biological, and psycho-social stages. The final and unique stage of evolution was human evolution. Unlike the development of other species, humans had undergone a rapid cultural evolution that was based on cumulative, transmitted

Evolutionary Theory

knowledge. Huxley believed that human evolution was the highest and final phase of the entire evolutionary process, and that humans had the responsibility to ensure its success. The measure of human evolution was based on mental self-control and mental independence. Fundamentally associated with that control and independence was the fulfillment of human possibilities and the formation of human values. Ethics, therefore, was of central concern. Human evolution is not judged on adaptive criteria, but rather an increase in esthetic, spiritual, and intellectual satisfaction is primary. The formation of values for their own sake drove the process. From Huxley’s perspective, personal moral obligation arose in a Freudian manner and was the internalized authority that resulted in the repression of aggression and was the font of our sense of ‘wrong’ behavior and of ‘duty’. Group standards, according to Huxley, should be based on what lead to human fulfillment, that is, what humans judge to be of intrinsic value (not necessarily adaptative value). In numerous essays and books, Huxley elaborated on the values that needed to be stressed in order to promote peace, harmony, and individual fulfillment. These included the respect of individual rights and the promotion of education, responsibility, and the arts and sciences. It was a liberal vision for a democratic society that was structured by rational and scientific knowledge. Julian Huxley was a popular essayist and had a large audience for his writings. In a similar fashion the biologist, C. H. Waddington, attracted attention to his formulation of evolutionary ethics that resembled Julian Huxley’s version. For the most part, however, the life-science community and the larger philosophical community did not embrace Huxley or Waddington’s evolutionary ethics. The embedded concept of progress in their writings made some uncomfortable; others who were sympathetic to an evolutionary perspective held a more relativistic position regarding ethics. Of considerable importance in the lack of acceptance of the ‘new’ evolutionary ethics was the fact that the arguments that had been formulated by Sidgwick and Moore applied equally to them. Philosophers in the post-World War II period up through the 1960s who examined ethical theories or who attempted to clarify moral issues generally ignored evolutionary ethics.

Sociobiology and Evolutionary Ethics Evolutionary ethics reemerged as a serious topic of discussion in the 1970s due to its association with sociobiology, the synthesis of animal behavior, and evolution associated with E. O. Wilson’s 1975 book Sociobiology. Wilson’s classic work pulled together recent research on evolution with population biology and ethology. His basic thesis is that behavior is adaptive and can best be understood from an evolutionary perspective.

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Charles Darwin in his Origin of Species (1859) had suggested that behavior could be understood as one of the means by which organisms adapted to the environment and promoted their survival and leaving of offspring. It was not until the 1970s, however, that the full potential of Darwin’s perspective was developed. As mentioned above, Darwin viewed the origin of the moral sense in evolutionary terms, and contemporary sociobiologists share that opinion. Some sociobiologists, such as Wilson, have gone beyond Darwin, however, in further suggesting that evolution can be a guide for human action. They contend that moral sentiments are a part of our instinctive mental makeup that has to be understood in an evolutionary context. Much of the discussion of the evolutionary significance of ethics has centered on the nature of altruism, that is, unselfish behavior. Altruism has been a particularly fruitful area of research in the study of animal behavior where it is defined as behavior that increases the fitness of another individual at the expense of one’s own fitness. Fitness is defined as the relative genetic contribution of one genotype to the next generation compared to other genotypes. Darwin and other nineteenth-century writers viewed altruism from the perspective of group selection, that is, groups that had individuals who were altruistic and helped one another would have a selective advantage over groups that did not. The concept of group selection in the twentieth century has come under severe attack by biologists, and the research in sociobiology has emphasized instead individual selection. Central to this discussion is the ability of an individual to pass on copies of its genes. The pioneering genetics of William Hamilton is especially important. Hamilton popularized the concept of inclusive fitness, which stresses the value individuals derive from helping relatives with whom they share common genes. An ‘altruistic act’ that enables a close relative (with whom we share many of the same genes) to survive and reproduce, even at the expense of our life or our reproductive capacity, can have the effect of passing on more copies of our genes than if we acted selfishly. For example, if we help a sibling (with whom we share half our genes) at the cost of our life to more than double his/her reproductive rate, copies of our genes in the next generation will be increased. Evolutionary studies on altruism have resolved what had been a puzzle for many years. Natural selection will favor altruism in those cases where copies of genes are enhanced, and therefore what had for a long time appeared as a dilemma can be understood as a normal function of evolution. But what of the ethical implications? Since any discussion of altruism has to be seen in the context of the culture in which it occurs, the subject gets very complicated, and not surprising, socio-biologists disagree considerably on the moral implications of their work. Part of the issue rests on the extent to which sociobiologists believe culture is determined by our genes. E.O. Wilson

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has argued that humans have cultural tendencies and that there has been a coevolution of genes and culture. From such a standpoint, morality has an adaptive function. Philosophers, such as Mary Midgley, have been critical of contemporary evolutionary ethics. They object that ethics is a highly complex field and that an understanding of it based solely on altruism is hopelessly simplistic. Philosophers and numerous biologists have also drawn a distinction between understanding an evolutionary origin for ethical systems and using evolution as a guide to what is morally to be preferred. If ethics is to be a guide to human behavior, it is not clear how evolution can provide a sufficient basis. Concepts such as the replication of genes are too broad to have significant ethical import. Equally disturbing, a careful reading of evolutionary ethics from Spencer to the present reveals a tendency for authors to read their own values into nature and to use evolutionary arguments to justify them. Does evolutionary ethics have a contemporary value? As a guide to behavior it is highly problematic, but as a reminder of our biological origins and as a potential source of knowledge on human nature is suggestive. James Q. Wilson, for example, has argued in The Moral Sense (1993) that humans have an innate moral sense and that social scientists and policy makers need to consider. E. O. Wilson, in his On Human Nature (1978), explores the topic of aggression from an evolutionary standpoint. Michael Ruse, in a number of publications, stresses the importance of remembering our evolutionary origins. Part of the appeal of evolutionary ethics is its incorporation of important moral issues into a broader evolutionary worldview, one increasingly popular at present.

See also: Aggression and Altruism; Animal Behavioral Studies, Non-Primates; Animal Behavioral Studies, Primates; Human Nature, Views of

Further Reading Alexander, R. D. (1979). Darwinism and human affairs. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press. Bloom, R. W. and Nancy, K. D. (2003). Evolutionary psychology and violence: A primer for policymakers and public policy advocates. Westport, CT: Praeger/Greenwood. Cronin, H. (1991). The ant and the peacock: Altruism and sexual selection from Darwin to today. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Farber, P. L. (1994). The temptations of evolutionary ethics. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Fetzer, J. (1996). Ethics and evolution. In Hurd, J. (ed.) Investigating the biological foundations of human morality. pp. 223–242. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press. Fuentes, A. (2004). It’s not all sex and violence: Integrated anthropology and the role of cooperation and social complexity in human evolution. American Anthropologist 106(4), 710–718. Midgley, M. (1985). Evolution as a religion: Strange hopes and stranger fears. London: Thuen. Pedersen, C. A. (2004). Biological aspects of social bonding and the roots of human violence. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1036, 106–127. Richards, R. (1987). Darwin and the emergence of evolutionary theories of mind and behavior. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Ruse, M. (1986). Taking Darwin seriously: A naturalistic approach to philosophy. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Sade, R. M. (2004). Evolution, prevention, and responses to aggressive behavior and violence. The Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics 32(1), 8–17. Schilcher, F. V. and Tennant, N. (1984). Philosophy, evolution and human nature. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Sober, E. and Wilson, D. S. (1998). Unto others: The evolution and psychology of unselfish behavior. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wilson, E. O. (1978). On human nature. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wilson, J. Q. (1993). The moral sense. New York, NY: Free Press.

Extrajudicial Execution See Assassinations, Political

F Family Structure and Family Violence Laura A McCloskey, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, USA Riane Eisler, Center for Partnership Studies, Pacific Grove, CA, USA ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Overview of Family Violence Overview of Family Structure Family Structure and Intimate Partner Violence

Glossary Child Abuse Physical or sexual abuse of children under the age of 18 years. Dominator Model Social organization based primarily on hierarchies of domination enforced by institutions of power to threaten or inflict pain. Family Structure Encompasses the size and family roles of family members. Intimate Partner Violence Physical or sexual abuse against wives or intimate partners. Kinship Relationship by blood or descent. Matrilocal Family units residing near the wife’s or mother’s kin.

Overview of Family Violence The term ‘family violence’ encompasses a wide range of adverse dynamics perpetrated by a range of family members, referring most commonly to abuse or violence between husbands and wives, or parental abuse toward children. Family violence is characterized by a pattern of control and intent to coerce or harm, and takes many forms, from psychological abuse to physical cruelty to sexual exploitation. The study of family violence is a relatively new field, only a few decades old. Even in this short period it has become evident that family violence – more specifically, violence against women and children – is a deeply entrenched and worldwide practice. That work in this area is so recent reflects the fact that for most of recorded history

Family Structure and Child Abuse Conclusions: Cultural Ideology and Family Violence Further Reading

Partnership Model Social organization based primarily on linkings maintained by the exchange of mutual benefits, as well as hierarchies of actualization in which power is informed by empathy and caring. Family structure is egalitarian and the norm for child rearing is nonviolent. Patriarchal Governed by men or fathers. Patrilocal of, or relating to, a housing pattern or custom in which a married couple lives with or near the husband’s parents. Sexual Union The form of sexual partnership, determined in part by culture and law, including unmarried (‘dating’ or coresidential), monogamous marriage, polygamous marriage, polyandrous.

until recent times parental violence against children and men’s violence against their wives were condoned – and out of the realm of discourse about justice and human rights. In the West, the traditions of wife and child abuse have only recently been challenged in law and policies of enforcement. Although women may inflict unilateral violence against their husbands or partners, and children sometimes attack parents, the most widespread form of family violence, imposing the heaviest societal burden, is expressed through the ‘dominator model’, or by the person vested with most power within the family against those less powerful. Such power attributes tend to fall along gender or age-related lines in most families. The notion of hegemony, or power disparities, in family relationships is key to understanding the phenomenon. Many researchers have

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neglected power dynamics in their studies of family violence and their work suffers from a lack of depth or context. This article integrates research findings with theory, as laid out in Riane Eisler’s studies of dominator and partnership models of culture and political economy. Analysis will largely be restricted to the most prevalent forms of family violence: (1) spousal abuse inflicted on wives (or women partners) and (2) parental abuse (either mother or father) against dependents, because the power dynamics typically fall along the lines of men’s power visa`-vis women, or parents’ vis-a`-vis children. Intimate Partner Violence Although intimate partner violence is sometimes presented as a ‘mutual’ problem between men and women, it is clear that both the impact of intimate violence and the prevalence weigh against women in relationships. In a population-based US survey, researchers found that women are nearly ten times more likely to be physically assaulted in an intimate relationship than men. The most significant threat of violence and injury men face is in relation to other men outside of intimate relationships, but for the majority of women reporting violence victimization it is within an intimate partnership and typically with a man. Women who are abused by their partners typically report many different ways that their partners control and threaten them. Such abusive partners impose a policy of ‘patriarchal terrorism’, terrorizing the wives and often keeping them from working and remaining employed, visiting friends or family, and maintaining normal social connections. In addition to physical assault, marital rape, stalking, harassing, and ultimately even the threat of homicide characterize wife abuse. In Bangladesh, for example, uxoricide, or the husband’s murder of his wife, accounts for half of ‘all’ homicides. In the United States, it is estimated that about two in three homicides with women as victims result from partner abuse. In Mumbai, India, one out of every five deaths among women 15–44 years of age was found to be due to ‘accidental burns’ – that is, infamous ‘bride-burnings’ or ‘dowry deaths’. The study of homicide of women is sometimes referred to as ‘femicide’, because women’s gender-restricted roles, their experience of domination by abusive partners, and misogyny account for such a large proportion of women’s risk. Violence against women by men in intimate relationships is not only a major cause of injury to women, but accounts for violent fatalities. Child Abuse Child abuse within the family encompasses physical coercion and excessive use of corporal punishment and battering. Sexual abuse is also a prevalent form of child

abuse in families, with girls targeted more often than boys. Child neglect, especially of infants, accounts for a large proportion of reports and fatalities, although our analysis here is limited to physically or sexually aggressive assaults on children. What comprises abuse by community standards, policy, or the law is sometimes at odds with how psychologists might view harsh or abusive parenting. In general, communities are tolerant of a wide range of coercive tactics and the rights of parents to inflict what might be seen as harmful measures in their child rearing. The age of a child is a significant factor in raising community alarm, however. Physical attacks against young children, under 3 years of age, are more likely to result in injury, and are more likely to receive the attention of law enforcement and child protective services, than when applied to school-aged children. The emotional and psychological damage incurred from repeated or severe physical corporal punishment, however, has been well documented. In addition, children who witness or observe intimate partner violence display psychological problems on par with children who are directly abused. Living in a home in which there is intimate partner violence, therefore, constitutes a form of child maltreatment.

Overview of Family Structure Families provide the universal building blocks of human communities, governing reproduction and child rearing, caregiving across the generations, and economic activities from consumption to division of labor. Family structures may include biologically related or unrelated family members, same-sex or different-sex parents, with further differences in race, religion, and age among partners. Parenting is a key organizing principle of many families, and family structures that account for parenting environments include the (1) nuclear family (with both biological or adoptive parents present); (2) stepfamily (with two parents, one of whom is biologically unrelated or enters a parental role later in the child’s life); (3) reconstituted family, with both parents introducing children from former unions; (4) single-parent-headed household; (5) coresidential extended families; and (6) single-parent families. Family structure varies across cultures and is often indexed by demographic variables, such as the number and ages of children in the home or single- or two-parent families. The definition of family boundaries, identification of people as kin, rituals surrounding family formation and maintenance, and related subjects have occupied generations of cultural anthropologists. Perhaps the only universal feature of families in human communities is that they are identifiable in virtually every long-term community that biologically reproduces. Family structure lays the foundation for how marital power relations are expressed, deriving

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from the social, political, educational, and economic macrostructure underlying the distribution of resources and labor within families. The question we address in this article is how and in what ways variants of family structure across cultures elevate or reduce the risk of family violence. How adult relationships are configured and whether the parents are married may enhance or diminish the risk of intimate partner violence. For example, unmarried women co-residing with partners report more intimate partner violence than married women in some studies; child abuse risk is heightened in single-parent or stepparent families. Yet, quantifiable features of family structure are inadequate to explain the presence or absence of interpersonal physical abuse per se. The response and norms of the broader community and the cultural ideology governing attitudes toward gendered relationships and equality, child-rearing practices, and violence all make central contributions to the expectations shaping sexual and family relationships. In other words, how the family is nested in the surrounding ecosystem, is important to consider. In this article we explore the social conditions and changes in family structure which serve to shield or expose women and children to abuse. A major tenet of this article is that we can better understand what causes wife and child abuse if we juxtapose the study of pacifism and nurturance with the study of violence. The research on family violence focuses on the harm people do to one another rather than the potential support they provide. Families reveal the best and the worst of human social potential, and this article explores how family structure, kinship relations, and the lens of culture shed light on such dynamics. Cooperative and mutually supportive families have been achieved despite ideologies that construct adversarial sexual relations and men’s domination as the chief organizing principle. Close and trusting relationships between the sexes have surfaced in even the most inhospitable social climates; just as relationships between members of different races within a racist society, living side by side, sometimes give way to the humanity of that relationship. Still, if the dominant culture is rooted in a set of beliefs of women’s inferiority, the walls are well mortared against intimacy and communication across strict gender boundaries. Family violence is found in cultures with family structures ranging from single-parent to nuclear to extended families, occurring across affluent and poor countries. Family violence is observed across social classes within a nation’s borders, although risk is concentrated among the poor. The translation of the structure of families into behaviors and dynamics of family members, therefore, is complex. Beliefs about violence, aggression, and privileges of men to dominate women are central to the perpetuation of domestic violence. Since these beliefs have been supported by various institutions, family

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violence or nonviolence is not only related to family structure, but to the large social structure and the prevailing systems of values and beliefs of a particular culture. Specifically, the family embodies and perpetuates broader societal norms and the political economy. Moreover, the family is not only influenced by, but in turn also influences, the larger social structure and culture of which it is a part. In short, what we view between families and culture is best described as a mutual transaction. Anthropologists have attempted comparative studies of wife and child abuse using the Human Relation Area Files (HRAF), a compilation of worldwide ethnographies. Levinson performed the most thorough search for reports of wife or child abuse in the HRAF documents, selecting 46 cultures for review. Among his findings was an apparent weak correspondence between reports of wife abuse and of child abuse within cultures, and few clear cultural indicators of either. Conclusions based on such a database, however, are highly tentative because the data, which span much of the twentieth century, reflect the consciousness and attitudes of the researchers themselves, well before there was a widespread acknowledgment of intimate partner violence or child abuse as serious topics, especially in the academy. The ethnographers, therefore, view gender relations and violence through a lens anchored to their own community or culture of origin. Much of the recent impetus for the cross-cultural study of violence against women has come from organized action by women, launched during the United Nations Decade for Women (1975–85). Anthropologists have become more engaged in studying women’s circumstances within a cultural context, giving rise to more focused studies of abuse and violence in marriage and families. The World Health Organization released a large-scale, population-based cross-national report of research documenting rates of intimate partner violence so we now have international prevalence rates for comparison. The report reveals that there are indeed significant differences in the rates of intimate partner violence across countries and cultures. In comparing national domestic violence rates and indicators of women’s status (e.g., education), Yodanis found that rates of violence could be predicted by the relative status and freedom women enjoyed. The better access to education and employment opportunities, the less intimate partner violence across different countries. Another potential risk factor for intimate partner violence is when gender roles are reversed in marriage or relationships. When women are the ‘breadwinners’, some husbands or partners might chafe at the role reversal, and the underlying threat to their own masculine privileges within the household. Under such circumstances women are targeted for physical abuse as an ‘equalizing’ power tactic.

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Family Structure and Intimate Partner Violence There are multiple, ways in which family structure relates to the risk for intimate partner violence: (1) through the type of sexual union, reflected in marriage, divorce, or cohabitation; and (2) through extended family ties, which may either support or deter intimate partner violence in different cultures. Partner abuse can surface immediately in a new relationship, but it can also emerge after courtship and during marriage. Because of the variability in the timing and expression of domestic violence, it is difficult to determine whether women are more at risk in less-established relationships, or in marriage when men may exercise more freedom under the cloak of commitment. On the one hand, men who lack feelings of investment toward their partner, and few ties to her extended family, might be more inclined to use physical abuse as a tactic of control because (1) the woman still has the freedom to leave and physical coercion might induce her to stay; and (2) the man is uncommitted to the relationship and is unconcerned with the long-term impact of abuse. In such a scenario, the network of financial, social, and reproductive ties is yet to develop; both parties are more likely to end the relationship sooner when conflict and violence surfaces. Yet, marriage can enfold a woman in multiple obligations which make it hard or impossible to separate if abuse occurs. When a woman is responsible for young children, she will find herself in a state of economic and emotional dependency making it difficult to leave, and she might be more likely to tolerate abuse for want of exit options. If the degree and severity of the violence increases, and they fail to receive services, women in the US are likely to stay even longer than women whose partners display lesssevere violent behavior, indicating that threats of homicide or escalated violence are effective in keeping women from ending abusive relationships. Marriage extends the duration of suffering for a battered woman, and especially in those societies worldwide in which divorce is inaccessible or heavily stigmatized, and women are yoked for economic survival to their husbands, beatings and cruelty are endured for a lifetime. Even pregnancy apparently fails to deter intimate partner violence, and researchers find across studies that the rates of intimate partner violence are higher among pregnant women than among women of child-bearing age who are not pregnant. Marriage may offer little protection from battering, but short-term liaisons carry their own risk. Across studies, researchers have found that co-habitating couples (in the US) have a higher risk for intimate partner violence. In one study over the course of a year, 35% of co-habitating American couples reported intimate partner violence in

contrast to 15% of married couples, matched on age and some other demographic variables. According to the National Crime Victimization Survey, 65% of all domestic violence crimes against women were perpetrated by boyfriends (live-in or not) or ex-husbands; only 9% were committed by husbands. The explanations for an increased risk among unmarried couples remain speculative, but it is likely that some self-selection accounts for some of the increased risk because co-habitating couples are also more likely to have drug and alcohol problems, which is a strong reason for the increased rate of divorce among those couples who once lived together before marriage. While the length and level of commitment in sexual relationships, whether during courtship, common law liaisons, brief relationships, or marriage, probably has little bearing on whether a woman will be initially exposed to violent behavior, the social and legal construction of these relations will largely determine whether the woman has the freedom to leave an abusive relationship. Across cultures, as a general rule, women who are unmarried have more ostensible freedom to leave an abusive relationship than women who are married. Freedom is of course relative, since part of the battering involves restriction and in some cases virtual imprisonment by the partner. For instance, some men who control and abuse their wives restrict their access to telephones, keep them homebound and without transportation, and isolate them from friends, family, and the community. Under such circumstances, particularly if there are children, some women might decide to remain with the abusive partner because of their own past extensive commitment of emotional and material resources, as well as time and reproductive investment. There appears to be empirical support for such a decision-making process. Women in longer-term marriages, with more children by the abusive partner, and fewer years of education or employment, tend to remain in violent relationships more often than women with fewer ostensible commitments. In other words, the combination of increased commitments to the partnership, aversive as it is, and a lack of options deters women from leaving. This finding would suggest that in male-dominated societies violence against women in intimate relationships is more enduring after marriage than during premarital phases. A characteristic feature of many battering husbands is that they willfully isolate their wives, often cutting off contact with her family of origin or friends, and discouraging her from employment or activities out of the home. Few studies to date have explicitly tested the role of networks and extended families in protecting women from relationship violence. Although there is little direct evidence indicating that, for instance, matrilocal societies have lower rates of marital violence than patrilocal ones, or that the presence of extended family members inhibits

Family Structure and Family Violence

men’s abusive behavior toward their wives, it is plausible that such a mechanism operates in some cultures. The proximity of extended family, especially of brothers or a father within patriarchal societies, might intimidate violence-prone husbands. We know that among nonhuman primate societies, close female liaisons and coresidential groups offer protection to allied females from male aggression. Among humans, this protection is only available for women when societal proscriptions against wife abuse are established, and their families are both willing and free to enforce them. In some societies, the husband’s family may play a role in deterring marital violence because of economic and social relationships they maintain with the wife’s extended family. This situation would be most typical in a small interconnected village, for instance, as opposed to more anonymous urban settings. India illustrates a notable exception, however, and the husband’s family often defends his right to physically coerce and dominate his wife. Moreover, in India, abuse by mothers-in-law toward their daughters-in-law is widely observed. In China until the beginning of this century, well-to-do ‘first wives’ exercised supreme domestic control, and participated in oppressing subsequent wives in these historically polygynous households. Although family configuration may appear unrelated in any systematic way to violence or nonviolence, there are indications that extended family connections promote cooperative and nonviolent partnerships. Various studies of Mexican immigrant families, for instance, have revealed that newly immigrated men are less likely to be violent toward their wives than second-generation Mexican-American men. One possible explanation of this finding is that when immigrant families come to the United States they typically come en masse, with in-laws and relatives on both sides of the spouses’ families. The experience of poverty and immigration intensifies interdependency, and the marriage itself may serve as a nexus for various close in-law relationships involving employment and work opportunities for men. Close economic interdependency discourages marital conflict and violence in these immigrant cultures.

Family Structure and Child Abuse Like violence against wives, violence against children is often practiced with tacit and even explicit social approval. For instance, as many as 95% of American parents approve of and admit to spanking their children. Although parents are less likely to approve of their child being spanked by someone outside of the family, there remain many communities in the United States in which corporal punishment continues to be used in schools. Most people would not place spanking in the same class of

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behaviors as child abuse, but there is research to indicate that the more corporal punishment is used against a child, the more mental health symptoms and behavior problems that child will display. In addition, it should be kept in mind that escalated forms of physical abuse – for example, beatings resulting in injuries – start with a single slap or spank. When spanking is widely practiced, the gate is left open for more extreme expressions of parental anger. Both fathers and mothers who use corporal punishment believe that it is their responsibility to discipline their children, and they are in most cases well intentioned. However, physical coercion is actually the least effective tactic for socializing children to be cooperative and other oriented. In fact, such coercive tactics often backfire to make children defiant, noncompliant, and aggressive. Straus has campaigned vigorously against corporal punishment of all kinds in American families, pointing out that even ‘common spanking’ results in elevated symptoms of psychopathology among children, in contrast to verbal criticism or other forms of discipline (e.g., ‘time out’). Unfortunately, the large body of evidence that has amassed in child socialization research demonstrating problems with coercive parenting has yet to reach most popular channels or to widely alter parental practices. Violence against children can take many forms, from systematic beatings of children of both sexes to more female-directed forms of abuse such as the foot-binding of girl children in prerevolutionary China or the ongoing infanticide of female children in parts of China, Bangladesh, and India. Once again, the circumstances under which different family configurations elicit nurturant or abusive patterns of behavior toward children can vary extensively. More telling is the society’s system of cultural beliefs and organizational frameworks, especially in relation to matters such as laws or customs abridging or denying female inheritance rights or inheritance for some male children; beliefs that women’s sexuality is male property; beliefs about female inferiority and consequent male preference; lack of access by females to earning or control over property; and legal, economic, religious, and social factors leading to the view that some children are less valuable than others. Birth order, for instance, can be the determining factor for infanticide in cultures with inheritance rules of primogeniture (where only first-born male children inherit property), as in eighteenth-century Austria and other Alpine regions. Still today, the child’s female sex is the basis in some cultures for infanticide or systematic neglect, as in the pattern of allocating resources primarily to male children in some parts of India. Hypergamy, or the custom of arranging marriages for females up the social caste ladder, places higher-caste female children at unique risk, since their marriage prospects will necessarily be dim. Large numbers of children in a family and economic stress also pose a risk for child maltreatment.

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In the United States there has been a virtual revolution in family structure, however, and within this society certain elements of family composition can place children more at risk. Below is a review of these different configurations of family, and the risks and benefits they offer to children. Two-Parent Families Most American families, regardless of family structure, use physical punishment to control children’s behavior. In some families this cultural license to spank escalates to the equivalent of beatings, and also makes frequent slapping and spanking a potential problem when the parents are under stress. When mothers report knowing few other strategies of discipline or control, living in a cultural climate that promotes the use of physical punishment, child abuse can escalate. Again, cultural ideology (reflecting and reinforcing what Eisler calls the dominator model of social and family organization) seems to carry the most influence in a parent’s decision to use physical punishment. Once physical abuse is employed as a regular tactic there is always the danger that it can escalate in severity. Despite the apparent equity between parents in spanking, fathers pose more of a serious physical threat when they do take over the corporal punishment of the children. Fathers are typically larger, stronger, and more imposing disciplinarians in children’s eyes. They are also implicated in 75% of the cases when punishment escalates to homicide, according to a recent study in Los Angeles. Other studies of child homicide in Canada over the past decade indicate that when mothers are perpetrators of homicide the children are typically under the age of 3, and fathers are more likely to be the perpetrators of children over this age. Fathers, both biological and unrelated, therefore, are more likely to escalate abuse to homicide than mothers in intact families, and this effect is strongest among older children. Although lethal child abuse is rare, it is nevertheless among the five most common reasons for child mortality among children under ten in the United States, according to recent Center for Disease Control statistics. In addition, child fatalities are several times more likely to occur in homes in which a stepfather resides. Single-Parent and Divorced Families The United States family has undergone rapid changes in structure because of both rising divorce rates and the rising birth rate to unmarried mothers, the latter being most pronounced among urban African-Americans. As a result of these trends, the United States has the highest proportion of mother-headed households in the industrial world (38%). In the United States, mother-headed families are poorer than either father-headed or two-

parent families. Unmarried women with young children face unique economic struggles and poverty because of sex-based discrimination in employment and wageearning prospects and because fathers often avoid financial responsibilities to their offspring. In most single-mother-headed households throughout the world maternal child abuse is no more likely than in intact families. For instance, among the African Ashanti single motherhood is widespread, with traditional roots, and children are well cared for. It is also the case that among the Ashanti resources in single-mother-headed households are often sufficient to raise the children, since there is a long-standing history of such family structures. In Brazil, among poor women in the north coastal areas, children are rarely beaten, and physical child abuse is extremely rare. In these same motherheaded families infanticide within the first few weeks or months of a newborn’s life is common, essentially as a form of birth control, but subsequent violence or even corporal punishment toward offspring who survived is unusual. One risk factor for children of mother-headed households is the likelihood that an unrelated male partner will coreside with them. Children appear to be at greater risk for both physical and sexual abuse when there are stepfathers in the home. The presence of stepfathers greatly increases the likelihood of child sexual abuse, especially of girls. Children are also at risk for physical abuse when their mothers are battered. They can be hurt if they try to intervene or are even present during violent marital disputes, and they are psychologically damaged by witnessing the abuse of their mothers. Violence against wives, therefore, places children at heightened physical and psychological risk even when they are not the intentional target. Such features of extended family life and community that restrict men’s abuse of women within marriage simultaneously protect children. Extended Families Extended families composed of grandparents, aunts, and uncles can be protective of children, given a nonabusive ideology. If there is an abusive ideology, however, the extended family can pose as much a risk as a buffer to children. Simple generalizations, therefore, about features of family structure and their role in child maltreatment cannot be made. There are widespread beliefs that the presence of grandparents is a buffer for children, and probably inhibits abuse. However, research findings on the support provided by grandparents to young children are mixed. In one study of African-American extended families children within single or divorced mother-headed households, however, did show signs of better adjustment when a grandmother lived with them. However, this

Family Structure and Family Violence

effect did not seem due to the grandmother’s parenting skills or direct care to the child, but to the support these grandmothers provided their daughters. The daughters, therefore, became more effective and less stressed during their own parenting tasks, and the children subsequently benefited. In the United States, therefore, the nuclear family relationships remain the most critical for the children’s health and outcome. When single mothers are nested in supportive extended family contexts, the children benefit from the direct aid offered to the mother. There have been some studies on what kinds of skills promote nonviolent and nurturant parenting. For example, researchers in child development found that mothers who are able to develop higher levels of attunement or synchrony when interacting with toddlers, and who are able to establish a mutual focus with the child on some activity or thought, have children who are more compliant and happier than mothers who are less attuned, so to speak, to their young children. Flowing with the child rather than against her or him seems to be the best policy for socializing cooperativeness and stability. Finally, the quality of the relationship between parents has a profound impact on children’s coping and mental health. Once again, the indicators of nonviolent parenting seem to be more lodged within parenting beliefs than in the structure of the family. Coercive parenting engenders aggression in children, either through modeling parental aggression or through the development of an internal mental script or ‘working model’ of antagonistic interpersonal relationships. Although there have been few direct studies to date, it appears that parents who espouse a ‘partnership model’ with each other are more likely to raise children to do the same, and to develop mutual respect for boundaries, opinions, and interests that will benefit the child, as well as the parents. The ‘dominator model’, or the traditional patriarchal family, is a problematic environment for successful child rearing, and can diminish children’s own self-esteem and ability to forge intimate relationships.

Conclusions: Cultural Ideology and Family Violence As we have seen, in many cultures family violence has been, and continues to be, considered normal and permitted. One important aspect that has begun to receive attention, thanks to feminist research and more recently to ‘gender and men’s studies’, is the study of the relationship between stereotypical gender roles and violence. An area that is also beginning to receive more attention is the interaction between family violence, personality formation, and social structure. Eisler’s work has focused on the interaction between intimate relations in the private sphere and economic or political relations in the public

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sphere. Eisler’s work suggests that if a society, or family, orients strongly to the dominator model – in which relations are based primarily on rankings of domination – patterns of violence will be necessary to maintain these rankings. By contrast, in families and societies orienting primarily to the partnership model – where relations are based primarily on linking, with hierarchies of actualization maintained by enabling rather than disabling power – the teaching of empathy, caring, and the exchange of mutual benefits can be central in the socialization process. The State, in tandem with organized religion across different cultures, has traditionally neglected the problem of violence against wives or children. Yet, other aspects of family structure and functioning such as marriage and financial commitments, inheritance, and paternal obligation to offspring have been the objects of state regulation through well-implemented policies since the beginning of state formation. For instance, the establishment of foundling homes in eighteenth-century Russia or nineteenthcentury Italy, as well as other regions of Europe, was a state-initiated effort to control the perceptibly rising births to unwed mothers. Infant mortality rates in these institutions were as high as 90%. Yet the governmentsponsored rhetoric underlying the institutions was one of charity, paired with punitive attitudes toward the unwed mothers. There have been a number of different approaches to ending violence against women and children. While at one time acceptance of corporal punishment was featured in most theories of pedagogy, today in the United States there are public health and political movements against the use of physical punishment with children. Changes in legislation, due to the pressure of organized women’s rights, children’s rights, and other human rights supporting groups, are also of great significance. United Nations Conventions, such as the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women, are also extremely important developments. Most important are the continuing grassroots actions of groups all over the world – from groups working to stop the sex trade of women and girls to groups working against rape, battering of women, child abuse, genital mutilation of female children, and other human rights violations. One of the most serious and continuing threats to women and children – especially girl children – is the higher valuation of males over females. This feature of so many cultures is also characteristic of cultures orienting to the ‘dominator’ model. In fact, female offspring are so devalued that, according to a United Nations report in 1997, at least 60 million girls who would otherwise be expected to be alive are ‘missing’ from various populations as a result of sex-selective neglect and abortions.

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Family violence occurs across different cultures and family structures. The common denominators are the cultural attitudes and the social structure that the family both shapes and is shaped by. It would seem that only fundamental cultural changes and changes in these entrenched social structures – in Eisler’s terms, a shift from the dominator to a partnership model family and social orientation – will make it possible to deal with family violence in a systemic way and to move to nonviolence as the norm in both families and societies worldwide. See also: Childrearing, Violent and Nonviolent; Child Abuse; Feminist and Peace Perspectives on Women; Gender Studies; Human Rights; Institutionalization of Violence; Peaceful Societies; Sexual Assault; Social Control and Violence; Warriors, Anthropology of

Further Reading Brush, L. D. (1990). Violent acts and injurious outcomes in married couples: Method issues in the national survey of families and households. Gender and Society 4, 56–67. Campbell, J. C., Webster, D., Koziol-McLain, J., et al. (2003). Risk factors for femicide in abusive relationships: Results from a multisite case control study. American Journal of Public Health 93(7): 1089–1097.

Chang, J., Berg, C. J., Saltzman, L. E., and Herndon, J. (2005). Homicide: A leading cause of injury and death among pregnant and post-partum women in the US 1991–1997. American Journal of Public Health 95(3): 471–477. Dobash, R. E. and Dobash, R. P. (1980). Violence against wives: A case against the patriarchy. London: Open Books. Eisler, R. (1987). The chalice and the blade: Our history, our future. San Francisco, CA: Harper and Row. Eisler, R. (2007). The real wealth of nations. San Francisco, CA: BerrettKoehler. Gupta, M. D. (1987). Selective discrimination against female children in rural Punjab, India. Population and Development Review 13, 55–70. Johnson, M. P. (1995). Intimate terrorism and common couple violence: Two forms of violence against women. Journal of Marriage and the Family 57, 283–294. Levinson, D. (1989). Family violence in cross-cultural perspective. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. MacMillan, R. and Gartner, R. (1999). When she brings home the bacon: Labor force participation and the risk of spousal violence against women. Journal of Marriage and the Family 61, 847–958. McCloskey, L. A. (1996). Socioeconomic and coercive power in families. Gender and Society 10, 449–463. McCloskey, L. A., Figueredo, A. J., and Koss, M. P. (1995). The effects of systemic family violence on children’s mental health. Child Development 66, 12239–12261. Tjaden, P. and Thoennes, N. (2000). Prevalence, incidence and consequences of violence against women. Report no. 183781. Washington, DC: NIJ. Yodanis, C. L. (2004). Gender inequality, violence against women, and fear: A cross-national test of the feminist theory of violence against women. Journal of Interpersonal Violence 19, 655–675.

Feminist and Peace Perspectives on Women Linda R Forcey, Binghamton University, Binghamton, NY, USA ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction Essentialism and Its Critics Postmodernism and Its Critics

Glossary Ecofeminism An approach that opposes the domination of nature by Western industrial culture, and the domination of women by Western industrial man. Ecofeminists see this as part of the same process of devaluation and destruction oddly characterized in masculinist history as the ‘enlightenment’. Essentialism An approach that takes gender division as given and monolithic. This means, in the parlance of feminist theory, an argument that women are ‘essentially’ different from men. Feminism Acknowledgment of women’s oppression and exploitation and of the need to do something about it. Peace Studies An interdisciplinary field of study, first emerging in the aftermath of World War I, which

Conclusion Further Reading

seeks to understand all threats to global security and human survival. Postmodernism An approach, based on borrowings from the humanities, that attacks the methodological assumptions of modern science, on the one hand, and that questions the status of all knowledge on the other. It is providing a major challenge to the essentialist standpoint in the fields of international relations and peace studies. Structural Violence A form of violence that is more insidious and indirect than physical violence. It is built into the structure of social and cultural institutions, often denying people basic human rights.

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Many contemporary feminists Challenge the popular notion that there is an integral relationship, which is assumed, between women and peace. This article briefly summarizes the contributions of feminist theorizing to peace studies and research in the United States. It informs readers as to the feminist debate and resulting tensions within the fields as to the very nature of women. Most feminist peace researchers and educators today seek a finely tuned appreciation of a variety of approaches to the study of gender and of their human differences and commonalties. Understanding of the historical and social specificity of peacemaking and reconsideration of the role of human agency are now reflected in the work of contemporary feminist peace researchers.

Introduction The first decade of the twenty-first century has been one of global transformation, destabilization, and wars. Twentieth-century history had not been kind to many of the world’s peoples, particularly its women and children in developing countries. The gap between rich and poor has widened virtually everywhere, placing mothers and children in increasingly precarious economic positions, allowing each day tens of thousands of children to die of preventable illnesses. For the past 60 years and more militarism has shaped most of our economic priorities. Its use of the resources and capital of the United States has helped to deplete medical, educational, and social programs. The violent effects of militarism have shaped the contours of the political agendas of both peace advocates and feminists. The most fundamental tenet of feminism, acknowledgment of women’s oppression and exploitation and of the need to do something about it, is now woven into peace studies, an interdisciplinary subject that first emerged as an aftermath of World War I. The field has moved steadily since then toward the ‘positive peace’ approach. This one, articulated by the influential peace researcher Johan Galtung, asks us to understand that the pursuit of global security encompasses many more threats than war itself for human survival. Both peace studies and women’s studies (feminism’s academic incarnation) shared basic assumptions as to the more peaceful nature of women against the more violent nature of men. Violence and war have historically been associated with the making of masculinity; hence, this concordance of peace with women’s studies is not surprising. The public domain has long been, for men, the place that calls on them to sacrifice their lives for their country. Carl von Clausewitz, a nineteenth-century Prussian army officer best known for his work On War, wrote that there was no better way than war to educate the spirit of people. ‘‘By it

alone can the effeminacy of feeling be counteracted, that propensity to seek for the enjoyment of comfort, which causes degeneracy in a people. . . .’’ While man’s participation in war in the name of the state had been regarded as his highest calling, for woman the parallel duty had been service to family. Nonviolence and peace are, of course, held to be the hallmarks of the private world where women serve. Hegel, in The Philosophy of Right, wrote: ‘‘Man has his actual substantive life in the state. . ., as well as in labour and struggle with the external world and with himself. . . . Woman, on the other hand, has her substantive destiny in the family, and to be imbued with family piety is her ethical frame of mind.’’ This gendered view of the public/private spheres is a dominant theme of Western political thought. As political scientist Jean Elshtain argued, we are ‘‘the heirs of a tradition that assumes an affinity between women and peace, between men and war, a tradition that consists of culturally constructed and transmitted myths and memories.’’ By and large, peace studies has been quite comfortable with an approach that takes this gender dichotomy as a given, with ‘women as women’ representing ‘an ethic of care’, certainly the assumption of the 1980s and 1990s writings of Carol Gilligan, Betty Reardon, Birgit BrockUtne, Sara Ruddick, this author, and others. On the other hand, while there remains a common core of beliefs for feminists centering on women’s oppression, subordination, and exploitation, a serious tension has arisen as to what is meant by the very term ‘women’. Some feminists go so far as to argue that ‘any’ idea of women as women is empty. Women’s studies as a whole, in fact, has become extremely skeptical of universalist ideas that discourage us from thinking about how distinct and different people are. The field now encompasses a variety of theories of gender and strategies for change. Many feminists assert that in these times of multiply contested oppressions gender cannot be considered the most salient basis of oppression.

Essentialism and Its Critics As noted, peace studies, entwined with feminism in many ways for the past several decades, has been generally comfortable with an approach that takes gender division as given and monolithic. This meant, in the parlance of feminist theory, an argument that women are ‘essentially’ different from men. Pragmatically speaking, this essentialism was not necessarily a bad thing. Considering the needs of all oppressed groups, essentialism could be a powerful consciousness-raising tool for women’s solidarity and for collective action. To argue that women are ‘essentially’ different was thus to valorize women’s experiences as caretakers and peacemakers, and thereby to encourage women’s activism. And, ethically

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speaking, humanist aspirations for a more peaceful world, where peace must include an ethic of caring and of valuing caring labor for both women and men, were at the heart of the peace studies endeavor. The essentialists’ call to action was quite simple: men must become kinder, nicer, and gentler – more like peaceful women. Until the publication of Betty Reardon’s and Birgit Brock-Utne’s monographs, there had been only a most tenuous relationship between feminist and peace research. Most peace researchers were neither women nor feminists, and many feminists considered peace studies a diversion from the main task of liberating women. It was left primarily to a few feminist scholars (most of whom would not have called themselves ‘peace researchers’) to acknowledge the role of earlier pioneers such as Bertha von Suttner, Jane Addams, Emily Greene Balch, and members of the Women’s Peace Party and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). The major objective of these women was to show that many women did play an important role in social and political history and should be counted among men for equal citizenship. Reardon and Brock-Utne called for a new definition of peace that included such structural forms of violence as inequality of rights and oppression of women. Reflecting the thinking of Nancy Chodorow, Jean Baker Miller, and especially Carol Gilligan, Reardon and Brock-Utne saw a separate female world, one in which women were essentially different from men (by and large for psychological and sociological rather than biological reasons) – more caring, more cooperative, more peaceful. They called for feminist scholarship to be integrated with peace research to draw attention to the fundamental relationship between sexism and militarism. Betty Reardon’s monograph, Sexism and the War System, grew out of her experiences with the World Policy Institute and the World Order Models Program in the 1970s and early 1980s. Reardon saw an unhealthy imbalance toward male principles in modern society, leading to war, aggression, greed, and other embodiments of ‘manly’ aspects, rather than toward the more conciliatory and constructive ‘womanly’ aptitudes. Reardon argued that ‘the war system’ (which she defined very broadly and loosely as ‘our competitive social order’) has brought us to the brink of global annihilation, leaving in its wake a society ‘paralyzed by the masculine suppression of emotion’. Even peace research and world order studies are closed out to ‘the world of feeling and the repositories of that world, feminine values and women’. Contending that within the field of peace studies most researchers have viewed women’s issues as secondary or collateral to the central concerns of peace, Reardon called for an integration of feminist scholarship with peace research whereby the need for inner psychic transformation on a personal level was appreciated as much as the need for global political and economic change. She

developed a feminist peace paradigm focused on the Yin and Yang aspects of being, contrasting such characteristics as gentleness and strength, receptivity and dominance, and caring and competing. One of Reardon’s central metaphors was mothering: conception, labor, birth, and nurture. She wrote of humane and fulfilling human relationships, personal change, vulnerability, and pastoral images of peace, and ultimately transformation. Norwegian peace researcher Birgit Brock-Ute’s Feminist Perspectives on Peace and Peace Education began with a broad positive definition of peace, similar to that implicit in Reardon’s Sexism and the War System: for example, the elimination of structural violence defined as ‘all types of repression and exploitation’ as well as war. Her central themes were that (1) women’s concerns are defined in terms of interpersonal relationships and they hence find it more difficult to condone acts of violence; (2) individuals can be educated to eschew violent and aggressive behavior; (3) doing away with sex role socialization is essential to this effort; and (4) for peace educators there may be light at the end of the dark tunnel. Histories of peace-loving and peace-promoting women continue to abound. Harriet Hyman Alonso gives us a historical study of the peace movement’s evolution from a wing of the woman’s suffrage movement that had a focus on motherhood and caring. Margaret Kamester’s and Jo Vellacott’s edited collection of World War I writings on early pacifist feminism by Catherine Marshall, C. K. Ogden, and Mary Sargent Florence illustrated ways in which men were categorized as militaristic and women innately peaceful and mothering. Pam McAllister’s chronicle of women’s nonviolent protests for social change, This River of Courage: Generations of Women’s Resistance and Action, made women’s commitment to nonviolent actions for social change a stirring challenge for her readers. Amy Swerdlow’s historical account of the Women’s Strike for Peace movement of the 1960s and early 1970s showed how some 50 000 women, all of them still espousing the traditional female pursuits of motherhood and domesticity, attempted to rein in the power of the Pentagon. Among the forms of essentialist female political activity were ecofeminist interpretations of efforts to save the environment. The Chipko movement of the Himalayan foothill regions of Tehri Garwhal in Uttar Pradesh was the most famous of India’s new social movements, one that continues to play an important part in most US peace studies curricula. Widespread forest destruction there had caused a great deal of economic hardship for the local people dependent for their sustenance from the trees. This was particularly so for women who did the work of cultivating the soil and gathering fodder, fuel, and water. Under the leadership of C. P. Bhatt and others, Sarvodaya workers organized the movement. Its famous 1974 struggle developed when the forest department authorized the felling of ash trees. The people, mostly women influenced by Gandhian workers, turned to ‘tree-hugging’ against the choppers.

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Indian ecofeminist Vandana Shiva argued that this movement was part of the women’s movement because of gender interests in the forest economy. In the worldview of the women of the Chipko movement, according to Shiva, nature is prakriti, the creator and source of wealth. Rural women, peasants, and indigenous peoples who live in, and derive sustenance from, nature thus have a systematic and deep knowledge of nature’s processes of reproducing itself. Nature and women do not acquire value through their domination by modern Western man; both lose through this process of subjugation. The domination of nature by Western industrial culture, and the domination of women by Western industrial man, is part of the same process of devaluation and destruction oddly characterized in masculinist history as the ‘enlightenment’. A UN report by the International Labor Organization also echoed these radical ecofeminists’ views: ‘‘Women tend to speak with a different voice, [it read] which as a rule lays stress on the social ethos of development, that is to say education, dialogue and peace.’’ Such arguments had tremendous appeal among American peace and women’s studies readers. Questioning these essentialist assumptions, therefore, became a delicate business. Nevertheless, there were critics who argued this line of theorizing placed an exaggerated focus on the differences between men and women, dangerously distorting any real portrait of woman as woman. Important feelings in women’s lives such as anger, frustration, aggression, sexuality, jealousy, and envy, reliving of one’s childhood, conflict between demands of a child, one’s mate, other children, and other work are missing. British feminist Lynne Segal, striking a central theme as to the inadequacy of polarized thinking about men and women, argued that there has been very little interest in the conflicts and contradictions of women’s lives, resulting in a false universalizing of women as women. Segal pointed out that, ‘‘The weight of one’s own children can mean a contradiction of social vision. . . . While it may be true that women are more concerned about peace and a better world, this does not necessarily mean that women are any less nationalistic, racist, or committed to class privilege than men.’’ A collection of essays entitled Not June Cleaver: Women and Gender in Postwar America, 1945-1960, edited by historian Joanne Meyerowitz, was a further good example of the revisionist effort to document the complexity and diversity of women and their multifarious identities and activities. The collection also documented what many White Western feminists in the 1970s and 1980s were unable or unwilling to see – that women’s identities included not only gender but also their class, racial, ethnic, sexual, religious, and political senses of themselves. In the public sphere, as most peace researchers now acknowledge, the record of women’s resistance to national wars is problematic at best, and certainly no candidate for universalization. As this author has pointed out, many

mothers, in fact, have long encourage their sons to join the military in the hope that its institutions will make their sons more mature, less prone to addictive drugs, better able to earn a living. African-American sociologist Barbara Omolade points out that African-American women have a legacy of support of war because the military represents economic opportunity and social status for Black men and now for Black women too. She writes, ‘‘every day black women encourage our men, especially our sons, to enlist as an alternative to unemployment and street crime. . . . Few black women can live outside the dilemmas posed by this predicament. Which war zone does she protect her son from: the military or the street?’’ The more radical ecofeminist and ‘deep ecology’ positions, which argued that the earth is inviolate and women and nature are especially coterminous, often faced the charge of being too essentialist. Feminist international relations theorists V. Spike Peterson and Anne Sisson Runyan argued that although ecofeminism makes a strong case about the relationship between the abuse of nature and the abuse of women, its approach is highly problematic. It makes women so coterminous with nature, the authors argued, that it can lead to justifications for keeping women out of decision-making positions that would enable them to have an impact on how nature is best used by human beings. Furthermore, ecofeminists’ call for low technology strategies to protect women and nature could conflict with women’s interests both to gain access to resources to meet their families’ needs, and to participate as equals in modern, high-technology, male-dominated institutions that control, manage, and distribute resources. Many feminist peace researchers now argue that a different set of questions needs to be asked. How else can we explain diverse historical and cultural forms of femininity and masculinity? How else can we explain mothers who send their sons to war? How else can we explain women’s behavior that does not conform to maternal thinking? How else can we understand the lives of women who do not wish to be mothers? Or of others who wish to be military heroes? Or torturers such as those involved in the brutalization of Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison in 2004? It must be noted that as of 25 March 2005, 350 000 women were serving in the US military; one in every seven troops in Iraq was a woman; 35 women soldiers had died in Iraq, and 261 had been wounded. Clearly, in the first decades of the twenty-first century, any notion of a unified female experience must be treated cautiously. Significant for feminist discourse is the kind of essentialist danger many feminists see lurking in any claim about ‘women’ that implies a homogeneous group. As political theorist Jean Elshtain points out, feminists who privilege women over men because of their female nature, are guilty of ‘paradigmatic linkages’ that ‘‘dangerously overshadow other voices, other stories: of pacific males;

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of bellicose women; of cruelty incompatible with just-war fighting; of martial fervour at odds – or so we choose to believe – with maternalism in women.’’ Clearly, feminist peace researchers can never again unabashedly accept Betty Friedan’s homogenized and universalized account of women’s experiences in the postwar decades in the United States.

Postmodernism and Its Critics While it remains clear that men throughout the world continue to have greater access to power, wealth, and privilege than do women, it also has become clear that feminists are having increasing difficulty coming to agreement on the theories and strategies needed to explain and challenge these inequities. Feminist peace theorizing now fluctuates ambivalently around a standpoint (one increasingly supported by men in the field) that focuses on the identification of essential psychological/sociological differences between men and women and another that acknowledges the distortion and disadvantages of this very stance. It grapples with this difference-versusequality debate both on theoretical and strategic levels. The tension, writes Anne Phillips, is ‘‘built into the feminist project. Men and women are different; they are also unequal; feminists will continue to debate and disagree over how far the inequality stems from the difference, and how far the difference can or should be eliminated.’’ It should be noted that Lawrence H. Summers, president of Harvard, was forced to resign in 2006 over the furor created by his comments on this very controversy regarding the differences between men and women. That it is time to move beyond the difference versus equality debate is the emerging consensus, at least outside the peace studies field. As long as women find themselves in the political context of these present times, comments historian Ruth Milkman, ‘‘feminist scholars must be aware of the real danger that arguments about ‘difference’ or ‘women’s culture’ will be put to uses other than those for which they were originally developed.’’ Joan Scott, taking Milkman’s point further, argues that the equality difference debate can be an intellectual trap, one out of which feminists must move. ‘‘When equality and difference are paired dichotomously, they structure an impossible choice. If one opts for equality, one is forced to accept the notion that difference is antithetical to it. If one opts for difference, one admits that equality is unattainable.’’ How then, Scott asks, can one acknowledge notions of sexual difference while arguing for equality? The only response, she answers, is a double one: ‘‘the unmasking of the power relationship constructed by posing equality as the antithesis of difference, and the refusal of its consequent dichotomous construction of political choices.’’ In other words, feminists

need to recognize that the antithesis of difference is not equality but rather sameness; and the antithesis of equality is not difference, but rather inequality. The analytic perspective Scott and many contemporary feminist social scientists find most valuable for moving beyond the difference versus equality debate has been postmodernism (and its variant known as post structuralism). This now somewhat maligned approach, based on borrowings from the humanities that attacked the methodological assumptions of modern science, on the one hand, and that questioned the status of all knowledge on the other, provides a major challenge to the essentialist standpoint in the fields of international relations and peace studies. In this context, it is referred to as ‘the third debate’ – a loosely defined and evolving cluster of attitudes toward theory and practice that takes into account a whole range of analytical approaches and ‘‘for all its heterogeneity has a number of thematic connections that help to identify it and explain its over arching critical purpose.’’ Postmodernism does not have one fixed meaning; rather, it is applied to a wide range of theoretical positions derived from the work of Derrida, Lacan, Kristeva, Althusser, and Foucault. In its myriad aspects, it can be defined as a broadly interdisciplinary approach that disputes the underlying assumptions of most social sciences – epistemological foundations, the Enlightenment heritage (faith in the idea of progress and rationality), and a social science methodology modeled after the hard sciences with its search for generalizations, simplifications, and verifications. Rather than focusing on personality, behavior, attitudes, goals, and choices, it turns attention to language, symbols, alternative discourses, and meaning. It holds that knowledge is grounded in language and language does not reflect ‘reality’. And it is language itself that creates and reproduces a world that is never definitive but always in transition. Having said so much, we can admit that it is really easier to say what postmodernism is not, than what it is. This is partly because it resists definition on empirical grounds and partly because it, still in its infancy, remains undefined. Postmodernism’s positive identity has yet to be formed. Its proponents, however, do agree that it aims to destabilize and render open to question all claims to an absolute foundation. In her discussion of the contribution postmodernism can offer contemporary feminism, linguist Chris Weedon articulates a specific version that is able to address the questions of how social power is exercised and how social relations of gender, class, and race might be transformed. This is not to say that the differences among forms of postmodernism are not important; but rather, that they are not equally productive for feminism. Postmodernists, according to Weedon, deny the assumption that women and men have essential natures. This does not, however, ‘‘rule out the specificity of women’s experiences and their difference from those of men, since, under patriarchy,

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women have differential access to the discursive field which constitutes gender, gendered experience and gender relations of power in society.’’ Political scientist Christine Sylvester defines the project of postmodernism as ‘‘a form of critical theory which questions secure knowledges and practices and seeks to open up policy processes to those who have been spoken for and ‘protected’ by purveyors of certitude and security.’’ From this position, Sylvester challenges the theses of essentialists like Brock-Utne, Reardon, Chodorow, and Ruddick, arguing that women are not naturally opposed to war and for peace, and that peace and war are piece of the whole, rather than negations of each other. At this moment in time, she argues, that piece, as it were, has its substance in patriarchy. It is patriarchy itself that damages and distorts women’s perspectives as well as those of men: women may be embracing (and calling our own) peacemaker images that reflect and serve the prevailing gender order, leading to a denial that liberation brings pain, confusion, and loss. Sylvester questions the value of what she calls ‘establishment-supporting gender expectations’ for bringing an end to patriarchal society as we now know it. It is inappropriate, she concludes, to draw sharp conclusions about interrelationships of women, peace lovingness, women warriors, and strategies for tipping patriarchal war–peace pieces in more feminist directions. This thinking, very much in process, is, it might be said, also healthfully incoherent. It encourages us to examine carefully claims that war and peace are negations of each other, and that women are unified in a natural or conditioned opposition to men. In a collection of essays entitled Feminism and the Politics of Difference, contributors highlight the point that feminism’s days of exclusionary solidarity and its universalizing of women as women are long gone. The editors, Anna Yeatman and Sneja Gunew, with contributors from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the United States, reject (1) the assumption that women and men have essential natures; (2) the Kantian notion of the ‘categorical imperative’ as producing universally self-evident values; and (3) the existence of any universalism except in its interested and particularized context. This interdisciplinary collection raises several key questions for peace studies: how and where do race and ethnicity intersect; who is authorized to speak for whom; which voice is authentic; what are the structures of legitimization for minorities; and how can feminists set up nonexclusive cultural and gendered positions? For US peace researchers, the centering of this analysis on the politics of difference in Australia, New Zealand, and Canada is especially informative and challenging. A growing number of dissenting voices to postmodernism have arisen, however, particularly among women of color. Professor of African-American Studies Barbara Christian deplores feminists’ emphasis on theory ‘‘with its

linguistic jargon, its emphasis on quoting its prophets . . . its gross generalizations about culture.’’ The acknowledgment of differences among women must not be so exaggerated as to negate feminist discourse, many other feminists are now arguing. ‘‘Skepticism of universalist ideas encourages us to think about how distinct and different people are,’’ argues Sondra Farganis ‘‘but by taking this track, there is the chance that moral indifference and uncertainty will undermine the very basis on which a feminist politics is founded. . . .’’ Farganis, trained in both political and social theory, outlines the major themes and contentions within feminist thought and argues for a multicultural approach that embraces common humanity while taking into account diversity of people’s lives. Maxine Sheets-Johnstone, a philosopher, provides a further alternative to currently dominant language/textoriented and social-constructionist theories by arguing that power and of power relations are rooted in bodily life, in animate form. Sheets-Johnstone’s critique of contemporary feminist social constructionists and postmodernists is so unequivocal that she opens up some new questions and approaches for feminist scholarship. In this provocative interdisciplinary work, she argues that power is rooted in bodily life. This view is not a comfortable one for feminists who have subsumed it with ‘essentialism’, and have claimed, for very good reason, that power differences as symbolized by ‘anatomy equals destiny’ arguments are by and large social constructions that have served men well and oppressed women. MaxineJohnstone’s objective is to demonstrate that in corporeal matters of fact lie dimensions of ourselves that are at once both personal and political. She insists that we acknowledge the ties that make us part of a common evolutionary humanity.

Conclusion Because of the activist nature of the field of peace studies, feminists believe there is a special urgency, poignancy if you will, to this debate about the nature of women. To argue that women are ‘essentially’ different because they are more nurturing, more caring, they argue, is to valorize many women’s experiences as peacemakers in the home. Who among us can say that there could ever be too much ‘caring’ in this violent world? Furthermore, peace studies can be seen as a critique of one of the most male-dominated of the social sciences fields, international relations. Feminist peace research that focuses on caring, nurturing, feeling, intuiting, empathizing, relating remains an important catalyst to challenge militarism. This contribution of essentialist thinking to the field of international relations and the peace endeavor is refreshing, comforting, energizing, and affirming for women. It poses a very different set of questions than those

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traditionally asked by practitioners (mostly male) in both international relations and peace studies. While women’s resistance to war has historically taken a wide variety of forms, many have focused on women’s traditional roles as caretakers. More recently, on the 2006 anti-Iraqi War activist front, was the phenomenal emergence of Cindy Sheehan, a 48-year-old grief-stricken mother of a son killed in Iraq, as the ‘‘Mother of the Movement.’’ Karen Houppert, writes for The Nation: ‘‘The authenticity of her message resonates because she is ordinary – and thus unthreatening.’’ However, another women’s group beginning in 2002 called Code Pink was part of a different kind of feminist anti-war activity not related to women’s reproductive function. As Liza Featherstone described them, ‘‘Code pink is not an organization but a phenomenon: a sensibility reflecting feminist analysis and a campy playfulness, influenced in style and philosophy by . . . the antiglobilization movement.’’ In retrospect it now seems inevitable to most feminist scholars that understandings of what it means to be ‘women’ would be contested, and that feminism’s days of exclusionary solidarity and universalized women are long gone. Peace studies can no longer accept a strict dualism between feminine and masculine development. Much of feminists’ early observations about women now seem naive at best, dangerous at worst. Their exaggeration of sexual differences, their belief in an intrinsic female pacifism, and their lack of adequate analysis of the modern war system is troubling for postmodern feminist theorists and should be troubling for peace educators. Clearly, any notion of a unified female experience must be treated cautiously in the twenty-first century. The question as to whether women are ‘essentially’ different from men – that is, have a distinctively ‘women’s point of view’ – is now easily read as a biologically essentialist claim compatible with conservative discourse as to the proper roles for women and men. More significant is the kind of essentialist danger many feminists see lurking in any claim about ‘women’ that implies a homogeneous group. As recent feminist theorists remind us, contested understandings of what it meant to be ‘women’ must include our evolutionary history and an appreciation of both the diversity and commonality of women’s lived experiences. Interdisciplinary in its boundaries, the new feminist scholarship raises two key internal questions: Is feminism itself built on the ‘othering’ of some women because of feminists’ tendency to believe that they have privileged access to gender truths? And who is authorizing whom to speak? As Australian sociologist Anna Yeatman writes, ‘‘It is a salutary and uncomfortable experience for . . . white, Western and middle-class women . . . [to] have been challenged as voices privileged by the discursive economies of feminism by those whom these same economies disprivilege: women who are not white, Western, middle-class.’’

The challenge for feminist peace researchers and educators is to recognize the dilemmas inherent in the feminist debate. It is to recognize both the power of universalizing women as women in the name of solidarity for social change, and the danger of such a denial or suppression of differences among women. It is to learn how politically to manage fragmentation in ways that do not deny women’s differences or interdependence. Clearly, there must be an accommodation between what Edward Said regarded as an ominous position involving the ‘‘fetishization and relentless celebration of ‘difference’ and ‘otherness’ ’’ that ultimately undermines all feminist discourse, and, on the other hand ‘‘a hegemonic white western feminist intellectuals’ universal civilizing mission to extend to their less fortunate sisters their embracing voices that speak for all women.’’ In granting each and every one a separate identity we need not lose the essence of the human community of which we as women and men are a part. As feminist Rosemary Tong points out, ‘‘[Feminists] need a home in which everyone has a room of her own, but one in which the walls are thin enough to permit a conversation.’’ For feminists to feel unable to speak out for women from a variety of cultures ‘‘only further reinforce the voices of those who have constructed approaches out of the experiences of men.’’ This is to say, the facts of women’s unequal power in most cultures of the world and the violence inflicted upon women across all cultures and socioeconomic groups must be addressed in all their complexity without grossly oversimplifying women as women. The trick, it now seems to many contemporary feminist peace researchers, is to honor the differences but also to acknowledge at the outset what Edward Said called ‘‘the massively knotted and complex histories of special but nevertheless overlapping and interconnected experiences – of women, of Westerners, of Blacks, of national states and cultures.’’ In granting each and every one a separate identity we need not lose the essence of the human community of which we as women and men are a part. See also: Climate Change: Cooperation and Human Security; Gender Studies; Military Culture; Peace Culture; Peace Studies, Overview; Social Control and Violence; Structural Violence; Warriors, Anthropology of; Women and War

Further Reading Alonso, H. H. (1993). Peace as a women’s issue: A history of the US movement for world peace and women’s rights. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University. Brock-Utne, B. (1989). Feminist perspectives on peace and peace education. New York: Pergamon. Elshtain, J. B. (1987). Women and war. Brighton: Harvester Books. Featherstone, L. (2003). Mighty in pink. The Nation 3, 34.

Folklore Forcey, L. R. (1987). Mothers of sons: Toward an understanding of responsibility. New York: Praeger. Forcey, L. R. (1995). Women’s studies, peace studies, and the difference debate. Women’s Studies Quarterly XXIII(3-4), 9. Gilligan, C. (1982). In a different voice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Gunew, S. and Yeatman, A. (1993). Feminism and the politics of difference. Boulder, CO: Westview. Harris, A. and King, Y. (1989). Rocking the ship of state: Toward a feminist peace politics. Boulder, CO: Westview. Houppert, K. (2006). Cindy Sheehan: Mother of a movement? The Nation, http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060612/houppert (accessed Oct 2007). Lorentzen, L. A. and Turpin, J. (eds.) (1998). The women and war reader. New York: New York University Press. Peterson, V. S. and Runyan, A. S. (1993). Global gender issues. Boulder, CO: Westview. Pettman, J. (1996). Worlding women: A feminist international politics. New York: Rutledge.

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Reardon, B. (1985). Sexism and the war system. New York: Teachers College. Reardon, B. (1993). Women and peace: Feminist visions of global security. New York: State University of New York Press. Ruddick, S. (1989). Maternal thinking: Toward a politics of peace. Boston, MA: Beacon. Segal, L. (1987). Is the future female? London: Virago. Shiva, V. (1988). Staying alive: Women ecology and survival in India. New Delhi: Kali for Women. Swerdlow, A. (1993). Women’s strike for peace: Traditional motherhood and radical politics in the 1960s. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Sylvester, C. (1994). Feminist theory and international relations in a postmodern era. Cambridge: Cambridge University. Tickner, J. A. (1992). Gender in international relations. New York: Columbia University Press. Whitworth, S. (1994). Feminism and international relations.

Folklore Sanja Magdalenic´, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

What is Folklore? Identifying Themes of Violence, Peace, and Conflict in Folklore Research

Glossary Genre Traditionally, a system for collecting and classifying folklore material. In recent perspectives, orienting framework for the production and interpretation of cultural discourse.

What is Folklore? Folklore generally refers to cultural expressions, such as narratives, jokes, beliefs, proverbs, legends, myths, music, songs, dances, costumes, food, and festivals, through which individuals and groups shape and disseminate a shared identity. There is, however, hardly any consensus among folklorists on either how to define folklore or how to explain the issues with the meaning and the function of it. The interest in folklore emerged primarily out of the Romantic nationalism of the early nineteenth century. Enthusiastic intellectuals, amateurs, and artists started to collect different kinds of folklore material in order to be

The Dilemmas of Folklorists Regarding Research on Violence and Conflict Prospects for Future Research Further Reading

Performance Repeated artistic practices that shape individual and group identity. Tradition A continuous process in which individuals and groups construct their future by reference to past experiences.

able to study various aspects of ‘the folk’ and folk-life. During this early period, folklore was viewed as ‘the lore’ – the materials of folklore – of ‘the folk’ – the people who utilize the materials. The discoverers of folklore identified the ‘folk’ as peasant society or rural groups, regarding them as the main carriers of distinct traditions that were slowly dying out due to urbanization and industrialization during the transition to modernity. The bourgeois nostalgia for the ‘paradise lost’ motivated the efforts to examine and preserve different aspects of folk-life. In some countries, the rising interest in folklore studies was also motivated by the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. Within this perspective, the folk and their traditions were regarded as primitive and therefore had to be

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studied in order to be transformed. Early folklorists focused primarily on oral traditions, such as ballads, folktales, epics, and sagas, and how these were transmitted within rural communities. During the 1960s, a paradigm shift occurred in the theory and methods of folklore studies. Folklorists became aware of the class, gender, and national bias embedded in the old concept of folklore. Moreover, contrary to earlier research that approached folklore as authentic and ahistorical artifacts, new research streams pointed out that folklore was always situated within some particular space and time. Recent folklore studies tend to view folklore as process-centered, context-sensitive, and performanceoriented. According to a contemporary influential conception of folklore, ‘folk’ refers to any group of people who share some common grounds, such as occupation, language, religion, or ethnicity. Most people are members of several and not just one folk-group. The paradigm shift allowed the expansion of folklore studies into new areas of inquiry that previously received little attention. Folklore studies (alt. folkloristics) as a discipline continues to struggle for its place in the academic world, where it rarely has achieved an autonomous status. In most countries, folklore is studied within the neighboring fields of ethnology, anthropology, cultural studies, literature, or history. Folklore material is primarily collected through fieldwork, participant observation, and interviews. Various kinds of secondary sources, such as archival materials, diaries, autobiographies, letters, and photography, serve as excellent sources of folkloric imagination. The availability of sources, however, varies both geographically and chronologically. Inasmuch as ‘folk culture’ was long considered to be of low status and was denned in opposition to ‘high culture’, records of it sometimes exist only as selected and filtered by the latter. When folkloristics as a scholarly endeavor emerged in the West, it was primarily oriented toward documenting Western folklore. Collecting folklore from other parts of the world was done occasionally by missionaries, travelers, and anthropologists. There are also examples that colonial powers not only actively discouraged but even banned native scholars from collecting folklore expressions. In recent discussions on the state of folklore scholarship, there have emerged claims that contemporary folklorists must direct attention even toward the political aspect of folklore research in order to be aware of who is studying whose traditions and on what terms.

Identifying Themes of Violence, Peace, and Conflict in Folklore Research Recent research approaches tend to view folklore as a system in which and through which individuals and groups interact. The assumption underlying this

perspective is that folklore takes shape in social relations within groups and is strengthened in communication with other groups. The group’s image of itself as well as its images of other groups is often reflected in its folklore repertoire. In general, folklorists have been predominantly concerned with documenting and analyzing customs and traditions that emerge in peaceful conditions and deal with identity formation or social cohesion, while neglecting the dark sides of social life. Even though folklore archives contain such material, entries such as aggression, conflict, violence, and war are seldom found in folklore journals and monographs. Some folklorists have suggested that the fact that such studies are rare is to a great extent related to the two perspectives that influenced the development of folklore studies. The perspective of Romantic nationalism considered folklore to represent the best of a given national culture. Such a point of view, however, hindered folklorists from acknowledging that the folk, the idealized object of their study, could even have destructive beliefs and traditions. The political perspective of the Enlightenment, on the other hand, perceived folklore as a primitive culture that had to be studied in order to be changed. From this perspective, it was justifiable to collect destructive elements if the aim was to condemn them and eliminate them through social reforms. Even though these two perspectives were opposed to each other, they created a similar outcome: folklorists experienced considerable difficulties when confronted with the violent behavior and aggressive ideas of their informants. This in turn created the remarkable avoidance of such topics and placed them on the margins in folklore research. The absence of these issues is also explained with reference to the character of knowledge production in folkloristics, the lack of funding, and personal dilemmas related to the topics. Comparative research, in particular, cross-cultural research in this area, has been less common. Over the past few decades, however, the interest in the dark side of folklore, in aggressive and violent practices about which groups invent traditions, seems to have found its way onto the research agenda. The change of paradigm in folklore research brought to light awareness that peace, conflict, and violence are an inherent part of human existence, and that folklore can be as much a mechanism of social cohesion and identity affirmation as of conflict and violence. The examples of folklore expressions considered in this article have different forms and take place in a variety of contexts; they are loosely grouped along a continuum from primarily peaceful settings, ritualized versus real violence to war. Folklore in Primarily Peaceful Contexts There is a wide variety of ways in which people use folklore to negotiate identities and boundaries between

Folklore

different groups as well as express beliefs, anxieties, aggression, conflict, and violence. Such practices most often take place in primarily peaceful settings and do not necessarily lead to open conflict or violence. Narratives, urban legends, jokes, children’s games, and nursery rhymes are some examples of folklore expressions that enable dealing with cultural values, norms, conflict, and violence in peaceful contexts. Fairy tales, this popular children’s literature that derives from folktales, have entertained generations of children over the last two centuries. Tales such as Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, Cinderella, and Hansel och Gretel have appeared in various forms and have become part of a cultural legacy. Fairy tales deal with a broad spectrum of themes from love, affection, happilyever-after romance, and heroic deed to family conflict, child abuse, punishment, aggression, murder, cannibalism, torture, and spectacular violence. As Maria Tatar in 2003 has shown, violence has a special place in this folklore genre that is often narrated to children at bedtime. Some of the pioneering work in collecting folktales was done by the Grimm brothers who at the beginning of the nineteenth century collected and edited an anthology of fairy tales that almost immediately gained enormous popularity. Tatar indicates that one of the reasons behind this success can be attributed to the fact that fairy tales were in accordance with the moral standards of the emerging bourgeoisie during the nineteenth century. She shows how the Grimms selected particular versions of the tales and sometimes transformed them so as to serve the pedagogic visions considered as appropriate. Violence was sometimes removed from, disguised in, or added to fairy tales for didactic purposes. In such edited versions of fairy tales, violence was turned into an instrument for controlling behavior of children, socialization, and acculturation. Folklore can reflect symbolic hostility between different groups and individuals who participate in the mutual exchange of stereotype attitudes so as to define their identity and establish their place in an imagined social hierarchy. Sociocentrism and boundary work are some of the conceptual tools that folklorists utilize when studying ‘the will to differentiate’. Some folklorists believe that people need hate figures in order to be able to project onto outsiders the hostilities and tensions that exist within the community. Projection is a type of psychological defense mechanism that is defined as the unconscious ascription of one’s own feelings and qualities to a source in the environment. Some of the common examples in folklore of how attitudes of suspicion and hate can be projected toward outsiders include projections on witches and scapegoating. Manifesting indifference and/or feelings of superiority are used as a device in practices that facilitate the formation of individual and group identity. From time to time, folklore can serve as a channel through which people are able to express attitudes and

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behavior that otherwise might be considered socially unacceptable. Examples from the area of folklore research on humor and jokes reveal the existence of a complex hierarchy among folk-groups and their subgroups. Groups employ different strategies to regulate joking so that it does not get out of hand and become a destructive force. Regulation of joking, for instance, is easily observed in gender differences in joke-telling traditions. Contemporary folkloristics emphasizes the importance of paying attention to context in the study of jokes, claiming that variations in text and structure of jokes are related to the particular situation within which jokes are told. Furthermore, contextual variation offers multiple interpretations of jokes. The person telling the joke and the audience listening to it are identified as two of the most vital constituents of contextual structure. A joke often reflects a concern of society. Thus, the existence of racist jokes is seen as an indication of the society’s racist attitudes. In a comparative study of ethnic jokes, Christie Davies in 1990 has examined jokes as a means of ascribing different traits to other groups in a comical manner. According to her findings, the most popular and universally spread are ethnic jokes in which groups either are depicted as stupid, inept, and ignorant, or are portrayed as canny, calculating, and craftily stingy. Every country has its own repertoire of ethnic jokes about ‘stupid’ and ‘canny’ groups. By means of telling ethnic jokes, people strengthen their own identity. Davies also emphasizes that joke-telling patterns and patterns of social stratification are strongly related to each other in an asymmetrical manner. The members of the dominant ethnic group in a given society never make jokes about their own group but only about others. The joke patterns of subordinate and marginal groups, on the other hand, include their own group but are even more directed toward superior groups in the hierarchy. Over the past few decades, folklorists have turned attention to a variety of ways in which ethnicity is used to construct identity and solidarity as well as the category of the ‘other’. Collecting and analyzing narratives, the classic folklore genre, has enabled to study how different majority and minority groups deal with ethnicity through folklore expressions. On the one hand, there are narratives of immigrants who attempt to negotiate their position in the new country and to preserve traditions that they consider as valuable. Such narratives can be used to form ethnic identities and strengthen ethnic communities. On the other hand, folklorists have also collected narratives told by majority groups about immigrants. These narratives, which often include remarks on specific traditions and practices that are perceived as culturally different, become a channel through which majority groups construct and articulate their images of minority groups. Narratives, along with other folklore expressions,

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play an important role in negotiating the imagined rather than fixed boundaries between ‘us’ and ‘them’. Folkloristic collections include even numerous examples of how traditional wisdom, but even cultural and ethnic stereotypes as well as racial prejudices are transmitted through proverbs. Proverbs are among the most universal expressions within the genre of traditional verbal folk art. They are found in all human cultures, and they display similar structural features across languages and societies. A proverb is a saying that is assumed to express a general truth, a wisdom of the elders, that everyone can approve of as important and useful to recall. Folklorists have indicated that proverbs often reflect the norms and values of some particular society in which they circulate. In this view, a complete interpretation of a proverb has to take into account what is being promoted and in which context. One classical example in point is the incorporation of proverbial expressions aimed at degrading the undesirable members of the population, the Jews and Gypsies in particular, into the propagandistic vocabulary that supported the political program in Nazi Germany. Wolfgang Mieder in 1997 has explored the mechanisms of how proverbs are created and transmitted, and how they often continue to be used in daily communication. He draws attention to the ways in which various political leaders have used and misused proverbial expressions, aware of the great manipulative power of this folkloristic material. Mieder also examines more closely the origins and the meaning of two American proverbial stereotypes ‘The only good Indian is a dead Indian’ and ‘No tickee, no washee’. As regards the first, even though it is not certain who coined this proverbial slur, its appearance in documents and speeches suggest that by 1886 its use was already well established. This proverb was used as a battle slogan in the massive campaign that started after the American Civil War with a purpose to physically and culturally exterminate the Native Americans. Even today this proverb is widely spread in the United States and continues to transmit the negative stereotype of Native Americans. Moreover, Mieder has noticed that an internationalization of the basic proverbial formula ‘The only good X is a dead X’ has occurred. This essentially racist saying has been practiced against military enemies in many ‘national’ variants. For example, during World Wars I and II , the original pattern was adequately adapted and utilized as a slogan against the German enemy. The same formula was also found during early Spanish conquests in South America. There seem to be no limits for how this particular proverb can be modified as a national stereotype or be used as a generalization about any racial minority. Even the other proverbial slur, ‘No tickee, no washee’, has been and still is used to transmit stereotypes about minorities, in this case Asian-Americans. Hence, the study of proverbs can significantly increase the awareness of the psychological

and ethical implications of the strategies for transmitting stereotypes and prejudices in everyday verbal interaction. Folklore and Violence This section considers ritualized or festive canalization of inter- and intragroup antagonisms, where performed aggression, in particular circumstances, may turn into real aggression, as well as how folklore expressions may be used to deal with actual violence. Analyses typically indicate that the mechanisms for control of violence are closely related to the outbursts of it. Folklorists have shown that mock battles, football matches, festivals, or carnivals often are accompanied with both ritualized and real violence. Festive violence can be found in many countries, for example, Spain, Peru, and Trinidad. One example of a festival that includes a performed battle is Tomatina, which is held at the end of August in the Spanish town Bun˜ol. Perhaps the most spectacular part of this festival is the tomato fight. About 30 000 people come from all over the world to participate in this ritual battle and throw ripe tomatoes at each other. Similar to other rituals, the tomato fight is regulated by special rules that the participants are expected to follow for safety reasons. Firing water cannons signals both the beginning and the end of the battle, which goes on for exactly one hour. Carnival is another example of ritualized canalization of festive violence. The tradition of Carnival – an annual festival held in days preceding Ash Wednesday – has European origins and is particularly strong in the Mediterranean and Central European area. Folklorists have identified food, sex, and violence as three main themes of Carnival festivities. Violence, however, especially the relationship between ritualized aggression and real aggression seems to have attracted the least scholarly attention. Folklorists view Carnival as a cultural performance that allows social roles to be temporarily inverted. Carnival is a time of institutionalized disorder, when adults and children dress in costumes and are encouraged to insult others and criticize authorities under controlled forms. Some folklorists believe that festive violence has a meaning, and that it should not be understood simply as an unintended consequence of festive behavior or alcohol consumption. In an inquiry on carnival in a Brazilian city, Daniel Touro Linger in 1992 has observed that people even tend to judge Carnival by its level of violence and they see it as a disturbing indication of the community’s underlying anxieties. Carnival violence often takes the form of briga, a physical fight between two individuals, and entrudo, a practice of throwing various substances, such as mud, urine, sewer water, and rotten eggs, at other members of the Carnival procession. In Linger’s view, there is an apparent class component in violent Carnival actions: people always attack either their social equals or social inferiors, never those in a superior

Folklore

position within the internal social hierarchy of the given community. Within the analysis of rituals in public places in Sweden, attention was directed to the ritual of honoring the anniversary of death of Charles XII (1682–1718), which occurs on 30 November. In the beginning of the 1990s, the ritual (which at that time took place around the statue of Charles XII in Stockholm) often escalated into violent conflicts that required police intervention to separate the two opposing groups that took part in it. One group consisted of nationalists and skinheads, who marched together in a procession toward the square, determined to place a wreath at the king’s statue. Antiracists and members of immigrant groups formed the opposing group. At the moment when the first group approached the square, they were confronted by the opposing group, which attempted to prevent them from achieving their task. At this point, the manifestation typically evolved into a conflict about conquering and defending an imagined territory around the statue. The celebrators of Charles XII believed that they had to reconquer this particular territory and defend the right to pay homage to their national symbol. Although they differed in ideological standpoints, both sides in the conflict sang the national anthem – yet two different versions of it – and both used the flag as their main symbol. Folklorists even observed that the media used war rhetoric and words such as front line, attack, and war scenario when reporting this ritual conflict. In media accounts, the conflict came to symbolize an annual struggle between good and evil forces in the society, which is a well-known theme in the realm of folklore. An interesting detail is that the day of death of Charles XII coincides with the day of birth of Arthur Hazelius, the creator of Skansen, an openair museum in Stockholm, which was built to represent Swedish nature and folk culture. During a short period after World War II, on 30 November, homage to both Charles XII and Arthur Hazelius was paid in Skansen. In the view of the celebrators of Charles XII, Skansen continues to stand for genuine Swedish values and culture, which, they believe, are being threatened by foreign influence. These groups tend to romanticize the peasantry, mythologize the past, promote the ideas of cultural purity – which originate from the ideas of racial purity – and see themselves as keepers of the ancient traditions. Folklore expressions vary among different subgroups. The folkloristic study of gangs focuses on particular aspects of a phenomenon that can be observed in the larger cities throughout the world. Poor social and economic conditions, loosening of family ties, domination of female heads of households, lack of male adult identification, and spatial segregation from the rest of the society are usually indicated as the main reasons behind the formation of a gang subculture. Most gangs recruit their members from racial or ethnic minorities, for whom

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membership in gangs becomes an important source of identity. In a now classical study of African-American oral tradition, based on fieldwork carried out at the end of the 1950s in what at that time was a lower-class black neighborhood in Philadelphia, Roger D. Abrahams was able to observe distinctive characteristics of gang formation and gang behavior. This folkloristic inquiry into traditional oral performances of the people from the ghetto contains numerous insights into gang patterns in the neighborhood. For the youngsters living on the streets, the gang becomes one of the main forces of socialization. Organized as a loosely formed grouping, the gang gives the individual, who is generally male, the sense of belonging to a particular neighborhood and it offers protection from aggression by other similar groups. Obscene rough talk, a distinctive, colorful dress style, a characteristic way of walking and hairstyle have been indicated as parts of the image of gang members. A gang lifestyle emphasizes and promotes manliness in both words as well as actions, ranging from general toughness, roughness, and mistrust toward women, via choices of profession and favorite heroes, to actual physical violence. In this context, folklore – in the form of proverbs, jokes, taunts, toasts, or catches – is used as a weapon in verbal battles and provides an important channel for control of expressions and dealing with anxieties. Winning verbal contests affirms the masculinity of the winner and demonstrates the femininity of the defeated. Such verbal battles generally follow specific rules by which the boundaries of the game are strictly predetermined so as to provide the means for the control of aggression. In a study of Chicano gang subculture in Southern California, James Diego Vigil in 1988 employed the concept of multiple marginality to explain why some members of this particular ethnic minority join and identify with gangs. He also draws attention to a characteristic style of appearance called ‘cholo’, a particular street identity required by everyday life in the street. Cholo, which actually appears marginal to both Mexican and American culture, consists of: (1) cholo front: dress, forms of speech, gestures, and body language; (2) street rituals: initiation and exit rites, gang warfare; and (3) symbols: tattoos and graffiti. According to this study, this particular image becomes a source of identification with the gang and with the territory that is under its control. Affiliation with gang style may be of varying duration: from short to lifelong membership. In Vigil’s view, the difference among regular, peripheral, temporary, and situational gang members is central to an explanation of gang behavior, since it influences not only gang entrance and exit but even the likelihood of engaging in violent behavior. Scarcity of resources, discrimination, drugs, delinquency, and frustrations that result from an awareness of the inescapable cycle of poverty are listed as the main generators of violent behavior. Even though the presence of

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conflict is found in many aspects of gang life, Vigil’s analysis points out that manifestation of conflict and violence within some particular gang formation is regulated and restricted. For example, a member who too often causes confrontation within the group runs the risk of being expelled from it. On the other hand, violence is considered obligatory when it is directed toward nonmembers of the gang, especially when it is used to defend the territory claimed by the gang, the boundaries of which are symbolically marked out by graffiti. The inquiry confirms that fighting between gangs is the main reason behind most contemporary gang violence. Such conflicts are increasing and they create numerous problems, especially in the large cities. A rivalry between gangs often has a long tradition that tends to be reproduced by group solidarity based on perceived differences in gang organization and culture. One of the ways in which people cope with the increasing rate of violence in urban areas is by transforming their experiences into narratives. Particularly in the United States, folklore about crime in general, and narratives that deal with violence and criminal behavior in particular, have been identified as a part of the common cultural heritage. Eleanor Wachs in 1988 collected and analyzed crime-victim stories that circulated in New York, a city that occupies a special place in American folklore as regards the issues of crime and violence. Crime-victim stories fall within the genre of urban folklore. Some of these stories are versions of urban legends, which is another folklore expression. Mugging, murder, and rape are three types of narratives that Wachs has distinguished. The stories typically focus on three characters: the victim (hero/heroine), the offender, and the occasional witness to the event. The pattern of resolution is predictable and appears in three forms: the offender manages to flee the scene, the victim somehow sneaks away from his/her pursuers, or the police are called to intervene. Unlike the media reports on crime, the tellers of crime-victim stories are highly reluctant to talk about violence in concrete terms and tend to use euphemisms instead. To a certain extent, however, these narratives transmit racial prejudices, since the offender in stories most often is black. As folklore expressions, crime-victim stories have several functions. They are used to transmit attitudes about life in New York, they provide information about required cultural and social codes for living, or they are told as cautionary tales to warn women, who make up the majority of victims, about how to protect themselves as well as how to avoid dangerous situations. It is believed that the wish to show others how not to become a crime victim is one of the main reasons that these stories continue to circulate. Personal narratives about domestic violence are related types of folklore materials. Along with documenting violence against women they provide insights into the

ways in which women deal with traumatic experiences by narrating their stories of violence. For example, storytelling may also be a way to achieve personal empowerment. Elaine J. Lawless in 2001, who collected and examined narratives of abused and battered women in a women’s shelter, questions the ‘cycles of violence’ narrative (‘his’ violent behavior and ‘her’ responses to it), which has become the master narrative in the institutions that work with abused women. In her view, storytelling is as an important element in this particular context. In order to get aid and shelter, battered women must give an account of their traumatic experiences in contacts with different officials, such as the police, the shelter workers, counselors, and in the courts of law. According to Lawless, the stories they tell in these different contexts are often only fragmentary as the women almost immediately learn how to ‘tell their story’ in order to achieve best assistance. Paradoxically, the ‘system’ that helps the women compels them to frame their narratives according to the existing institutional practices and language. The women learn what to tell, and how, and what to leave out of their accounts. In order to provide a ‘herstory’ of domestic violence, and bring in the perspective of the battered women into the discourse, Lawless asked the women to tell their entire stories in their own words. The narratives that she collected in this way revealed that all of the women whom she interviewed have been abused most of their lives and that spirals or cycles of abuse often occur across generations. Lawless also noticed the tendency of women to narrate ‘around’ violence when being unable or unwilling to recount particular incidents. Through personal narratives about violence, the women survivors are able to make sense of their experiences. This ‘transformational remembering’ enables them to gradually find ways to escape violence and move toward a life beyond abuse. Folklore and War Folklore collections contain reminiscences of war in various forms of folklore materials. War is a context of extreme and unpredictable violence. Folklore expressions are part of the strategies that people use to cope with traumatic experiences of chaos, terror, and dehumanization. Folklorists have not systematically analyzed wars. In studies on war, they typically examine some traditional folklore expression and the ways in which it is used and transformed within the context of war. Collecting folklore material seems to be the main interest and the context of war is seldom problematized in these studies. Studying folklore and war does not imply that folklorists necessarily focus on violence, shooting, and killings. Wartime humor, public displays, and peace rituals have also attracted folklorists’ attention. For example, as Kathleen Stokker in 1995 has shown, wartime humor helped the Norwegians who were opposed to Nazism to

Folklore

develop and promote a sense of solidarity during Norway’s World War II Nazi occupation. Jokes that ridiculed the Germans were used to raise morale and encourage resistance. Occupation humor also provides insights into how people dealt with different aspects of daily life during occupation, such as food shortage. Furthermore, through wartime humor the Norwegians were able to disseminate information about actual war developments that was censored from the media. A focus on public displays, that is, various events, performances, and artifacts, also sheds light on the nature and the evolvement of some particular conflict. In his analysis of what he terms a guerilla war in Northern Ireland, Jack Santino in 2001 drew attention to the ways in which the two sides of the conflict (Protestants and Catholics) use public displays – such as parades, flags, assemblage, fireworks, bonfires, murals, and spontaneous shrines – to shape and reconstruct their particular version of collective memory and national identity. During the Gulf War in the 1990s, folklorists observed that many houses and public places in the United States were decorated with yellow ribbons and American flags. Two related traditions merged in this custom: the public assemblage and the symbolism of yellow ribbon. The custom of decorating public and private spaces with assemblage has become quite common during recent decades. The old tradition of displaying a yellow ribbon as a sign of remembering the absence of a dear person emerged anew during the 1970s crisis with Iran. During that period, many Americans tied yellow ribbons to trees, on doors, and on facades of buildings. Two meanings of this custom were identified: showing absence and expressing welcome. During the Gulf War, the yellow ribbon became a patriotic symbol. During the calendrical holidays that occurred at the time of war, holiday decorations were combined with war symbols, which made the signification of assemblage even stronger. By displaying flags and yellow ribbons people not only declared their support for American troops but also found a way to cope with uncertainty and their inability to control and influence the war situation. Moreover, putting up war-related assemblage was a folkloric expression of community solidarity. The Gulf War often included updated folkloristic materials from earlier periods (and earlier wars). According to Alan Dundes in 1997, the Gulf War folklore in the form of xerographic cartoons and jokes was frequently based on masculine symbolism. He draws attention to sexual undertones that are often present in male ritual combats where the invasion by an enemy force is perceived as a metaphorical rape. Specific rituals in the form of nonviolent protests against the war, such as calls for peace, marches of refugees with candles and songs, and mass gatherings in town squares, have also been observed when the war in Croatia broke out in the early 1990s. Through these, people were

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able to express their feelings and deal with the traumatic events through folklore. A variety of folklore expressions were observed. For example, with the outbreak of war, the intellectuals as a group were confronted with a dilemma of what to write and whether to write at all during the war, or whether their position ought to be on the front line instead. For some of them, this dilemma resulted in an intense need to write about war and to inform others about the situation. An important part of the activity that emerged included sending letters and appeals to existing or symbolic addresses in foreign countries, which was meant to give the war an international dimension and provide a Croatian perspective on the evaluation of events. The sending of appeals was most intensive at the very beginning of the war, when it was believed that the confusion in international scientific and media reports was a result of a lack of information. Since most of the appeals received little attention abroad, as the existing image of the Balkans as ‘the other’ in Western press and academic reports and of the war as a tribal conflict was difficult to change, this activity slowly died out. To some extent, folklore studies on war deal with different aspects of military folklore. The existence of a soldier subculture and its masculinity as manifested in clothes, songs, dance, slang, and various kinds of rituals, was observed already during the early modern period. It was not unusual among ordinary people at that time to have warriors and soldiers, whom they probably considered a form of protection, painted on cupboards. In many parts of the world warriors prepared for battle or celebrated victory by ritually performing the conflict. War dance is a highly specialized form of folk dance with great variation in form and style. It can be performed by men, women, or men and women together. In some parts of the world, such as in the Far East, dance performances may include acrobatic scenes with weapons, or, as in some countries of South America, require specific masks. One of the most common forms of war dance is a stylized combat mime usually performed with weapons. Various types of sword dances still performed in Europe are some of the examples of ritually performed reminiscence of battle and war. The origin of sword dances, as folklorists believe, derives from ancient victory dances or military training exercises. Sword dances, such as Moresˇka and Moros y Cristianos, are today only performed during festivals and the original meaning of these performances has been completely transformed. Even though these dances are based on conflict or symbolic struggle for freedom, folklorists emphasize that one of the main purposes of this kind of dance today is to reinforce the integrity of the particular community within which the dance performance takes place. Some analyses of folklore expressions have pointed to the existence of taboos within the context of war. Taboo, the principle of social prohibition or the method of social

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control, can be found in most cultures. It can appear in diverse forms, such as actions, words, names, sexual relationships, food, or social contacts. Emmanuel Chiwome in 1990 observed that practicing various kinds of taboos was common among both the guerrilla soldiers and peasants in Zimbabwe during the War of National Liberation of the 1970s. The taboos regulated different kinds of actions. For example, it was forbidden for combatants to eat certain kind of food, to mate, to sleep in houses, as well as to allow anyone not engaged in combat to carry weapons. It was even prohibited for menstruating girls to make food and enter the military base. Since the taboos had their origins in the precolonial era, they helped to establish a sense of solidarity among the combatants. Folk songs are considered another important means for establishing a sense of belonging and homogeneity among group members. Collections of folk songs performed during war consist mainly of military occupational folk songs, but still provide a specific inside perspective on the war. In the War of National Liberation in Zimbabwe, folk songs were an important part of oral traditions used by the liberation movement in the armed confrontation with the white colonial regime. According to Chiwome, the Chimurenga (Uprising) songs helped the combatants to emotionally cope with the war situation and raised their fighter spirit as well as their awareness of oppression. At the same time, folk songs documented and preserved the radical social transformation Zimbabwe was passing through. Folk songs, together with the rock and roll music of the 1960s, had an important role among American soldiers in the Vietnam War as well. Even references to popular music found their way into the language of the war: ‘rock and roll’ meant fire from an M-16 on full automatic. Some of the collected folk songs were created especially for Vietnam and both the words and music were original. Otherwise, it was more common to set new lyrics to the already existing folk, country, or popular tunes. Most of the songs, however, were actually a part of the traditional military folklore of earlier wars: World Wars I and II, the Korean War, and even RAF and British Army songs. These songs display traditional themes of the military folk song: praise of the great leader, celebration of heroic deeds, laments for the death of comrades, disparagement of other units, and complaints about incompetent officers. The civilians serving in Vietnam developed their own traditions and had a different song repertoire. It is interesting to note that the majority of folk songs from Vietnam were not collected by a professional folklorist, but by an air-force general stationed in Vietnam. His collection of occupational folk songs provides folklorists with an inside perspective on the ways in which soldiers expressed emotions and the strategies they developed in order to cope with violence, fear, and frustration during the war.

Marching chants, a particular military tradition, have attracted only minor attention among folklorists. This part of military training programs circulates not only from company to company but even from war to war. In times of war, marching chants make the recruits adopt the role of front-line soldiers, whereas in peacetime, they are intended to help them remember their predecessors. Folklorists who have studied the lyrics of this particular form of military folklore have indicated that marching chants provide valuable information about how some traditions and attitudes characteristic for military life are transmitted to new recruits. Offensiveness, whether in the form of insult to a superior, slaughter of innocents, or sexist objectification of women, has been identified as the main characteristic of the chants. The chants assist the transition from civilian to military life through the verses that celebrate the displacement of sexual energy from the female left behind to the enemy waiting on the battlefield. The existence of particular projective folk characters was indicated in the lyrics of marching chants during the Vietnam War: ‘Jody’, a reference to a trainee’s nonprofessional life, the trainee’s car, his girl, or his sister; ‘Charlie’, a personification of the military/civilian enemy, ‘Slippery Sam’, a marine soldier who fights against ‘Charlie’, and ‘Mama’, a character who is addressed to approve the use of violence. To a great extent, marching chants are used by soldiers as a way of controlling emotions, of establishing group cohesion, and of easing the strain caused by the demands of military training. Recently, some efforts have been made to prohibit the transmission of the most sadistic versions. How individuals use folklore expressions to deal with their experiences of the Vietnam War has also attracted folklorists’ attention. One of the examples is the analysis of dioramas created by a disabled Vietnam veteran, in which he portrayed scenes of battle and military experiences, such as firefights, prisoner of war (POW) camps, torture pits, and ambushes. Three types of dioramas were identified: those dealing with situations familiar to most Vietnam veterans, those reflecting personal memories, and those based on stories told by other veterans. For folklorists, this work is an interesting example of folk creativity that is directly related to such narrative forms as war stories and ballads. The fact that dioramas are not for sale makes them characteristic of folk art. This example shows how personal war traumas can be dealt with creatively through artistic expression. When the war in Croatia broke out in 1991, scholars and folklorists found themselves within the war. Accounts on war from an insider position, such as those collected in Fear, Death and Resistance, provide various insights on how the war transforms everyday life and about the strategies, including folklore expressions, which people used to cope with the war situation. The war transformed the existing

Folklore

political rituals on the one hand and generated new manifestations on the other. The context of war made the soldiers become visible as a subgroup. Folklorists observed changes regarding dress style, music, and speech. Some of the soldiers transmitted warrior images from films and television series. The war transformed even many of the rituals of commemorating Croatian soldiers killed in the war. For example, civilian occupation was no longer mentioned in obituary notices. Instead it was indicated that the deceased soldier was a member of the Croatian armed forces. Funerals changed into soldierly funerals, with uniformed soldiers in the funeral procession, the coffin covered with the Croatian flag, the decorations often in the shape of the Croatian coat of arms, and the national anthem at the end of the ceremony. Furthermore, folklorists drew attention to the emergence of rituals with respect to a commemorative board with photographs of soldiers that was placed at the central square in a small Croatian town. Besides being commemorative, the board became a site of mourning ritual. When one of the photographs was taken down, rumors started to circulate about the event. The site was visited not only by relatives and friends of dead soldiers but also by the official delegations that came to town. The board was decorated on the name-day of soldiers with wreaths, flowers, and candles. Even the annual holidays, such as Christmas, Palm Sunday, and Easter, were marked by placing ribbons or decorations characteristic for the holiday underneath the board. Through these folklore expressions, the community, which experienced the war only indirectly through the death of its young men, managed to preserve and strengthen its integrity. Folklorists also collected narratives and letters of refugees from Eastern Slavonia, a part of Croatia that was occupied by Serbian troops during the war. The potential of these documents is significant, inasmuch as they provide accounts of personal experiences of having to deal with violence and fear as well as raising awareness about the human tragedy of the war. Some of the themes that can be illuminated through narratives include identity formation and the ways in which refugees construct and narrate their history, memories of war and life in exile. On the basis of personal narratives, researchers were also able to analyze nutrition, which is a traditional research topic in folkloristics, in the context of war. Personal narratives revealed how everyday life during the shellings turned into everyday struggle for survival in food shortages and chaos. People baked bread in ashes, as they had seen in an educational program on Australian aborigines. These documents also have the potential to show how refugees shape and/or transform their traditions. However, researchers emphasized that the study of refugees, from all other possible war themes, caused the greatest moral and scientific dilemmas.

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The Dilemmas of Folklorists Regarding Research on Violence and Conflict Many folklorists who have studied violence and related themes in folklore have pointed out serious personal as well as professional dilemmas in connection with such research efforts. The mentioned dilemmas, however, do not seem to be as apparent among folklorists who study archival material as they are among those who personally encounter their informants during fieldwork. An issue that has been discussed concerns the potential effects of publishing studies that deal with material that can be viewed as delicate or provocative. There is always the risk that such publications will be perceived as sensational. Doing folklore research on political violence and on war in particular raises a number of ethical issues. Researchers also must be extremely cautious when interviewing refugees in war conditions or other victims of violence to carefully protect their anonymity. The researcher also has to be able to cope with his/her own emotions when confronted with the traumas of others. Studying violent topics may in some cases even involve personal danger. Finally, there is a dilemma as to whether researchers should collect folklore material without questioning the circumstances in which some of the informants or groups of informants live. On the whole, doing folklore research about conflict and violence is a complex and demanding effort that raises important ethical, methodological, as well as theoretical problems.

Prospects for Future Research During recent decades, the awareness that the dark side of folklore often has been neglected and left out of the research agenda has created a growing interest in the mutual relationship between identity-affirming folklore and its opposite destructive component. There is a trend towards studying the issues of conflict and violence from within the location in which they take place. Like other scholars who deal with similar issues, folklorists will have to solve problems connected with dangerous fieldwork, emotional dilemmas, or veracity of data. Having realized that comparative studies are necessary for mapping the historical and geographical distribution of folklore expressions as well as for their interpretation, many folklorists now call for the exchange of scholarly information across cultural and disciplinary borders. In this contemporary vision of folklore as transdisciplinary and integrative, folklorists will have to be prepared to accept multiple interpretations and to capture the interplay between national and international influences brought about by processes of globalization. Understanding folklore as partly universal and partly embedded into some particular

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cultural context benefits the systematic field research necessary to elaborate a conceptual framework within which to study and explain different aspects of the interrelation among peace, conflict, and violence. The existing folklore studies form a solid foundation for future research. See also: Aggression and Altruism; Collective Emotions in Warfare; Ethnicity and Identity Politics; Gangs; Military Culture; Ritual and Symbolic Behavior; Peaceful Societies

Further Reading Abrahams, R. D. (1970). Deep down in the jungle: Negro narrative folklore from the streets of Philadelphia. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company. Bauman, R. (ed.) (1992). Folklore, cultural performances, and popular entertainments: A communications-centered handbook. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bendix, R. and Roodenburg, H. (eds.) (2000). Managing ethnicity: Perspectives from folklore studies, history and anthropology. Amsterdam: Het Sphinus. Burke, C. (1989). Marching to Vietnam. The Journal of American Folklore 102(406), 424–441.

Cˇale Feldman, L., Prica, I., and Senjkovic´, R. (1993). Fear, death and resistance: An ethnography of war (Croatia 1991–1992). Zagreb: Matrix Croatica and X-Press. Chiwome, E. (1990). The role of oral traditions in the war of National Liberation in Zimbabwe: Preliminary observations. Journal of Folklore Research 27(3), 241–247. Davies, C. (1990). Ethnic humor around the world: A comparative analysis. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Dundes, A. (1997). From game to war and other psychoanalytic essays on folklore. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky. Klein, B. (ed.) (1995). Gatan ar var! Ritualer pa offentliga plaster (The street is ours: Rituals in public places). Stockholm: Carlssons. Lawless, E. J. (2001). Women escaping violence: Empowerment through narrative. Columbia: University of Missouri Press. Linger, D. T. (1992). Dangerous encounters: Meanings of violence in a Brazilian city. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Mieder, W. (1997). The politics of proverbs: From traditional wisdom to proverbial stereotypes. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Santino, J. (2001). Signs of war and peace: Social conflict and the use of public symbols in Northern Ireland. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Stokker, K. (1995). Folklore fights the Nazis: Humor in occupied Norway, 1940–1945. London: Associated University Press. Tatar, M. (2003). The hard facts of the Grimms’ fairy tales. Princeton, Oxford: Princeton University Press. Vigil, J. D. (1988). Barrio gangs: Street life and identity in Southern California. Austin: University of Texas Press. Wachs, E. (1988). Crime-victim stories: New York City’s urban folklore. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

G Game Theory See Decision Theory and Game Theory

Gandhi and His Legacies Lester Kurtz, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Gandhi Story Major Themes in Gandhi’s Life and Thought

Glossary Ahimsa Nonharmfulness or noninjury, a concept rooted in the ancient Vedas and a key ethical principle in Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism. Ashram A disciplined spiritual community; for Gandhi a location for training, support, and mobilization for satyagraha, as well as spiritual practice and experiments in building a nonviolent social order with diverse races, creeds, castes, and classes. Brahmacharya An ancient spiritual practice that cultivates nonattachment, including celibacy; literally, conduct of one approaching God (Brahman). Civil Disobedience The deliberate violation of an unjust law in order to deliver a moral and political message, popularized by Henry David Thoreau and a basic element of Gandhian nonviolence. Noncooperation Acts that deliberately restrict, withhold, or discontinue social, economic, or political cooperation with an institution, policy, or government. A general class of methods of nonviolent action. Nonviolent Direct Action A technique of action in conflicts in which participants conduct the struggle by doing – or refusing to do – certain acts without using

The Gandhi Story ‘‘There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible. But in the end, they always fail. Think on it . . . always. All through history, the way of

Gandhi since Gandhi Further Reading

physical violence. It may also be called nonviolent struggle. Principled Nonviolence Nonharmfulness and nonviolence as a way of life or spiritual practice, rather than strategic nonviolence in which nonviolent strategies are used more narrowly as a means to an ends. Sarvodaya The welfare of all, or upliftment of all. Satyagraha Nonviolent resistance or a nonviolent campaign, sometimes called Truth Force or Soul Force, from the Sanskrit Satya, truth, and agraha from the Sanskrit prefix a and the root grah, thus meaning grasping or holding the truth. The term was coined by Gandhi to replace the concept of passive resistance. Satyagrahi One who engages in satyagraha. Shanti Sena Peace brigades, or peace army; Gandhi’s vision of a nonviolent force that would keep the peace from the village to the international level, transforming conflicts and engaging in constructive work that would undermine conditions potentially leading to conflict such as injustice and a lack of resources. Swaraj Self-government or home rule, from the Sanskrit svarajyam, ‘own rule’.

truth and love has always won.’’ That was the belief and the vision of Mahatma Gandhi. He described that, and it remains today a vision that is good and true. (US President, Ronald Reagan at the United Nations, 24 September 1984)

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838 Gandhi and His Legacies

Few individuals have captured the collective imagination as Mohandas K. Gandhi, not only the Father of Independent India, but also of modern nonviolence. Born into a family of public servants in an Indian princely state in 1869, Gandhi grew up in a household where his father was an administrator trapped between British colonial agents and Indians. His mother was a devout Hindu who conducted, according to Gandhi, an ‘‘endless chain of fasts and vows.’’ This tension between his mother’s spiritual orientation and his father’s politics and public service laid the groundwork for his life’s work which, although he was trained as a lawyer in England, consisted primarily in what he called ‘‘experiments with Truth,’’ that is, the application of nonviolence to personal and public affairs. In addition to his most well-known role as the leader of the Indian Independence Movement, which helped to create the momentum for the end of the colonial period, Gandhi also inspires subsequent generations of nonviolent activists and movements, from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the US Civil Rights Movement to the antiapartheid movement of South Africa and prodemocracy and human rights movements in every continent. Scholars, activists, critics, and admirers have written much about Gandhi, and others, making an evaluation of his legacies complicated. Indeed, the US Library of Congress lists 999 titles that include the term ‘Gandhi’ (as of January 2008), the majority of them written in recent decades, almost all of them about the Mahatma. This article will briefly review the history and basic tenets of Gandhian nonviolence and examine his impact in various spheres.

Gandhi as a Counterplayer Psychoanalyst Erik Erikson points out in Gandhi’s Truth that Gandhi is a ‘‘counterplayer.’’ Whereas conventional wisdom assumes that power grows out of the barrel of a gun, or is given to those who steer a course down the mainstream, Gandhi’s success lies in not accepting dominant paradigms but in challenging them. At the core of his challenge, Lester Kurtz observes, is a synthesis of the two prevailing but contradictory teachings in the world’s religious and ethical traditions about force and violence, the warrior and the pacifist. On the one hand, the warrior motif allows or requires the use of force as a sort of sacred obligation; on the other hand, the pacifist believes that it is a sacred duty not to kill or to harm others. Gandhi’s nonviolent activist – the satyagrahi (holder to the Truth) – fights like the warrior, but like the pacifist avoids harming or killing the adversary. It is this key insight, drawn from multiple spiritual traditions and his insights into practical political dynamics that led Gandhi to develop a new paradigm of conflict that some scholars consider transformative.

Noted conflictologist Johan Galtung goes so far as to claim that Gandhi is to conflict what Einstein and Newton are to physics. South Africa and the Birth of Nonviolence After studying law in England and being admitted to the bar at the High Court of Chancery, Gandhi returned home to practice law in India. Contrary to our image of him as one of the most prominent men of the twentieth century, Gandhi was by his own account unable to function in court and was speechless. In an attempt to salvage his legal career, he took a job doing legal work for a trading firm in South Africa run by Indian-Muslims. Shortly after his arrival he had a life-changing experience: he was unceremoniously thrown off of a train in Pietermaritzburg because he was ‘‘colored’’ and refused to move from the first-class compartment where he held a ticket. It is a classic story of tragedy transformed – this personal experience of raw racism prompted his development of nonviolent methods of struggle against injustice. Moreover, as his granddaughter Ela Gandhi puts it, the Mahatma ‘‘started to look at the world from a poverty-trapped peasant’s perspective rather than a middleclass bourgeois perspective.’’ On 11 September 1906, he launched his first nonviolent campaign against a new pass law imposed by the South African regime that required all Indians to carry passes distinguishing their racial identity and granting the police access to their homes without a warrant. He returned home to India a hero in 1915 having developed all of the basic strategies that he later put into practice to fight colonial domination and the discrimination of the caste system and against women. Influenced by John Ruskin’s spiritual treatise, Unto this Last, Gandhi came to advocate sarvodaya, the upliftment or welfare of all – society must strive for the well-being of all of its members, not just an elite few or even a majority. He also began to develop the concept of swadeshi, local self-sufficiency, that emphasized the value of small local industries over large-scale industrialization. During his time in South Africa the basic foundation of what became Gandhian nonviolence was firmly laid. Unhappy with the implications of the term ‘passive resistance’ often used to describe it, Gandhi coined the term satyagraha from the Sanskrit Satya, truth, and agraha from the Sanskrit prefix a and the root grah, thus meaning grasping or holding the truth. It is sometimes translated into English as Truth Force or Soul Force; a Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) series and subsequent video game designed to teach the art of nonviolent strategy refers to it as ‘‘a force more powerful.’’ Gandhi also experimented with his own version of the traditional Hindu spiritual community, the ashram, transforming it into a tool for radical social change and setting

Gandhi and His Legacies

the stage for his later nonviolent struggles in which he resisted the existing order with one hand, and began replacing it with a more just, equitable one on the other. In his Phoenix and Tolstoy Ashrams in South Africa, he brought together in community a group of people that cut across then existing social divides: men and women, people of various faith traditions, classes, nationalities, and castes. The ashram became a place for training of recruits for the movement and a support network for activists thrown into jail or out of work because of their participation. He deepened his spiritual commitment and at the same time became active in political struggle, as well as developing a serious critique of Western civilization, calling for an end to colonial rule and Hind swaraj, that is Indian home rule.

The Indian Freedom Movement Gandhi returned to India as a hero and the leadership of the Indian National Congress immediately attempted to enlist his support in the freedom movement. An elder statesman of the movement, Gopal Krishna Gokhale arranged for Gandhi to be supported first to rediscover his homeland, and later to begin the process of mobilizing people to participate in the movement. Applying the strategies and tactics of nonviolent direct action he developed in South Africa, Gandhi became the uncontested leader of the Freedom Movement and mobilized millions of the poor, as well as appealed to the middle and upper classes to use their resources and talents to struggle for independence. Two of his landmark satyagraha campaigns – the boycott of British cloth and the Salt March demonstrate key aspects of his approach. In 1920 Gandhi went the heart of the colonial system by calling upon Indians to boycott imported British cloth and spin their own thread and weave their own cloth. The British economic system, built on the technological revolutions in textile production, was dependent upon raw materials and foreign markets. India’s indigenous textile industry was undercut by British mechanized production and it was that relationship that constituted a major reason for the existence of colonial domination. The spinning wheel became a symbol of resistance to British rule while at the same time tapped into the vast storehouse of labor that India had, creating an alternative institution that became a hallmark of nonviolent action elsewhere with its combination of boycotts and alternative production and markets. Congress provided everyone with a spinning wheel who wanted one, in exchange for a certain amount of homespun thread donated back to the movement, in turn facilitating the purchase of more equipment and the recruitment of more freedom fighters. The act of spinning was at the same time

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a gesture of defiance and a spiritual meditation, as well as economic production. Similarly, Gandhi’s famous 1930 Salt March has great symbolic, as well as practical value. He organized a 400km march from Ahmedabad to the seashore at Dandi to make salt himself in defiance of a British tax on this basic element of life in a warm climate. Thousands joined him in the march and in creating a parallel industry of salt making that deliberately rejected British control over Indian economics; thousands were arrested, but the movement continued with its leadership in jail until finally the Viceroy, Lord Edward Irwin, negotiated a settlement in 1931 that brought the civil disobedience to an end, set free the prisoners, and led to the Round Table Conference in London, where Gandhi was invited as the representative of the Indian National Congress. The Salt March is paradigmatic of Gandhi’s nonviolence: it is dramatic and symbolic noncooperation, strategically focused on a specific goal, mobilized mass participation, involved civil disobedience, and had a profound cultural resonance. It both resisted an existing regime and empowered people to create alternatives; it was used not as an end in itself, but as a means for organizing and mobilizing further resistance. Above all, it demonstrated the power of the people to resist a violent regime without violence. Not only did the march rivet the attention of the Indian and international media for an extended period of time, but the protestors arrived at the seashore on the anniversary of the most vivid symbol of the violence of the British Empire, the Jallianwala Bagh (or Amritsar) massacre of 1919 when the British Indian Army had opened fire on unarmed demonstrators resulting in hundreds of casualties and undermining the legitimacy of British rule. In a classic example of repression management, Gandhi turned the tragic effort to suppress the movement into an occasion for mobilization. The narrative of the heroic Gandhi is not the only one, of course, and he has a chorus of critics from the British who see him as a disturber of the peace and a threat to the empire, to some insurgents who see him as playing into the hands of the British with his gestures of respect and insistence on nonviolence. (Winston Churchill once sent a telegram to the Indian Viceroy demanding to know ‘‘Why isn’t Gandhi dead yet?’’) Some blame him for the partition of India and Pakistan while others see him as an anachronistic embarrassment, with his loincloth, spinning wheel, religious rhetoric, and vow of sexual abstinence. Some Muslims disparage him as primarily a champion of Hinduism at the expense of Islam, while others (such as his assassin Nathuram Godse) contend that he betrays Hinduism by catering to the Muslims. Others point to the poverty and violence of contemporary India and ask why Gandhi failed.

840 Gandhi and His Legacies

Major Themes in Gandhi’s Life and Thought Warrior and Pacifist Perhaps the most significant impact of Gandhi’s legacies lies in his establishing the foundations for nonviolent struggle as a way of addressing the dilemmas of the warrior and the pacifist. The warrior, who traditionally believes in the sacred duty to fight, nonetheless knows that harming and killing others is problematic. This difficulty is exemplified in the high frequency of what is now called ‘post-traumatic stress disorder’ and acknowledged by militaries in contemporary training methods. The pacifist, however, may share with the warrior the urgency to fight against something or someone, but may be immobilized by sacred prohibitions against harming and killing. Gandhi’s satyagrahi, or nonviolent activist, fights like the warrior but avoids harming like the pacifist, thus allowing individuals and groups to engage in struggle for just causes without facing the self-sanctions or moral condemnation by others attached to committing acts of violence. Moreover, Gandhi’s perspective is that nonviolence has proven to be not only a moral ideal but has a pragmatic advantage, a proposition for which there is some empirical evidence not only in Gandhi’s own ‘‘experiments with Truth,’’ as he called them, but also from recent political struggles inspired by the Gandhian model.

Rethinking Conflict and Power Many scholars in addition to Sharp (e.g., Bondurant, Bell, and Nagler) point out that Gandhi’s theory of power provides a new frame for viewing issues of domination and rebellion. His approach analyzes how conventional power works; it also presents an understanding of an alternative form of power, that is, the power of nonviolence or ‘people power’, in which resisters can bring down the pillars of support for an existing unjust regime by refusing to cooperate with it. The most important theme in alternative theories of power, as various feminist theorists observe later, is a shift from a focus on domination to looking at power as being associated with ability, capacity, and competence – in short, ‘power to’ (empowerment) rather than ‘power over’ (domination). From this perspective, power is clearly distinguished from force, coercion, authority, and violence and can be possessed simultaneously and equally by all parties involved in an interaction. This distinction has been made in the theoretical discussions of Hobbes, Arendt, Parsons, and even Machiavelli. One significant result of this redefinition is that power is no longer viewed in the context of a ‘zero-sum’ interaction. The traditionally accepted view of a ‘one-up, one-down’ dynamic in power interactions gives way to the assumption that

power is not increased by denying it to others, but rather expands and is regenerated when it is shared. Like the Enlightenment theorists of the West, Gandhi wished to replace old power structures with new ones. In contrast to Western thinkers, however, he also wished to transform the very nature of power and our conceptions of it. His definition of power involved three basic principles: (1) respect one’s opponents as persons; (2) refuse to cooperate with unjust power; and (3) create alternative systems of power through nonviolent direct action. Gandhi’s innovative approach to conflict grew out of his understanding of power and its multiple bases, as well as his religious convictions and belief in the efficacious and moral superiority of nonviolent rather than violent means for engaging in struggle. His determination to engage in conflict as a way of confronting injustice and untruths in the structures around him is consistent with his firm conviction in the Hindu principle of ahimsa, or nonharmfulness. He was committed to avoiding violence as defined in the broadest manner, including not only physical violence but also harmful thoughts toward another person. One must avoid harmful thoughts, words, and deeds. Gandhi was, however, neither a rigid pacifist, as he is sometimes perceived in popular culture, nor a peacemaker in the sense of wanting to prevent or avoid conflict or struggle. On the contrary, his life viewed from one angle appears as a series of conflicts, many of which he deliberately provoked. As J. D. Sethi contends, ‘‘Gandhi was a man of conflict and not of consensus and as such his approach was revolutionary.’’ Gandhi believed that it is not so much the resolution, but the management or means of conduct of conflict that is essential. Moreover, it should be carried out in such a way that the outcome is creative and not viewed as a zerosum process in which one of the adversaries loses, while the other wins. He consistently provoked conflict rather than shunning it, theoretically even preferring violence to cowardice. The focus of Gandhi’s conflict theory is not on winning or resolving a conflict, but on facilitating ‘the Truth,’ which is shared by both parties to a conflict (including even Gandhi’s own opponent). The strategy is to provoke conflict when it seems necessary, but to distinguish between the adversary as a person and the allegedly reprehensible activities in which he or she is engaged. It is this aspect of Gandhi’s theories of conflict management that addresses the self-perpetuating dynamics of conflict. Conflicts, including violent ones, take on a life of their own, and escalate beyond the control of the participants. As conflicts are abstracted, the stakes are raised, so that each party considers itself to be fighting for a righteous cause, rather than for their own personal gain. Gandhian efforts to break the spiral of escalation involve an identification of the needs and aspirations of all involved, even if one risks ‘losing’ the conflict.

Gandhi and His Legacies

There are always risks in conflict, whether violent or nonviolent. One may, however, have more to lose in being sensitive to the opponents’ point of view if one is clearly the stronger adversary. That is why Gandhi insisted on the ‘nonviolence of the brave,’ rather than operating from a position of weakness. For him, nonviolence was not a strategy of last resort for those without weapons and resources, but a way of life – and of conflict – that was appropriate for all people at all times. The core of Gandhi’s approach to conflict lies in his insistence on the separation between the deed and the doer (or ‘the sin and the sinner’), which were for him two distinct things. Attacks in nonviolent conflict thus target behavior, systems, and structures rather than individuals and involve the denunciation of actions and patterns of action rather than their agents: ‘‘Whereas a good deed should call forth approbation and a wicked deed disapprobation, the doer of the deed, whether good or wicked, always deserves respect or pity as the case may be.’’ This perception of conflict was for Gandhi both a religious principle and a pragmatic strategy. It goes to the heart of the processes of reciprocity that fuel upward spirals in conflicts at all levels from the interpersonal to the international and has become the bedrock of contemporary techniques of conflict resolution.

Satyagraha and Ahimsa With satya combined with ahimsa, you can bring the world to your feet. (Mahatma Gandhi)

For Gandhi ahimsa was the path to the doctrine of noninjury. It involved a resolve not to harm anything. It was not just a matter of not killing anyone but was a positive state of love. Ahimsa was the natural response of a deep spiritual commitment for Gandhi, but it had a practical dimension as well, in a number of ways. First, on a sociological level, the practice of ahimsa served to contain the escalation of conflict. In the nuclear age, of course, if carried to its extreme, violent conflict could result in annihilation. If adversaries treat each other with respect and try to avoid harming one another, the likelihood of conflict resolution may be greater, Gandhi claims, because both participants gain. Otherwise, adversaries are caught up in the escalation spiral; the longer it persists, the more each party has to lose, so the less willing they are to capitulate, leading to seemingly intractable conflicts like those in the Middle East and elsewhere. Second, at the psychological level ahimsa is a strategy for throwing the adversary off guard. As Gene Sharp puts it, participants in nonviolent actions will . . . be able to apply something like jiu-jitsu to their opponent, throwing him off balance politically, causing

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his repression to rebound against his position, and weakening his power. Furthermore, by remaining nonviolent while continuing the struggle, the actionists will help to improve their own power position in several ways. (Gene Sharp, 1973: 110)

This is a subtle psychological insight incorporated into the teachings of many religious leaders (e.g., Jesus and the Buddha), but seldom practiced in international relations. It enhances members of a social movement to engage in what Smithey and Kurtz call ‘‘repression management,’’ taking advantage of the paradox of repression, that it sometimes backfires against a regime, initiating sympathy for the protestors and raising questions even within the regime about its legitimacy. Finally, ahimsa, as an element of conflict strategies, reduces both personal and collective motivations for harmful reciprocity. Whereas violence will probably precipitate a violent response and a concomitant escalation of the conflict, nonviolence is a reflexive strategy that anticipates a potential resolution of the conflict or at least a change in its mode. ‘‘If I kill a man who obstructs me, I may experience a sense of false security. But the security will be short-lived. For I shall not have dealt with the root cause.’’ Although the use of nonviolence does not guarantee ‘success’ in a conflict, neither does violence. Gandhi summarized his understanding of nonviolence in his equation God ¼ Truth ¼ Ahimsa

In other words, ahimsa was not a mere ethical guide but a fundamental principle of the universe. As he put it, ‘‘Ahimsa is my God & Truth is my God. When I look for Ahimsa, Truth says, ‘find it through me’. When I look for Truth, Ahimsa says, ‘Find it through me’.’’ Ahimsa is not something that is easily achieved, however, but is the fruit of serious discipline and self-control. Nonetheless, it can be achieved by all who are willing to undertake the necessary self-control and sacrifice. As Gandhi put it, ‘‘Means to be means must always be within our reach, and so Ahimsa is our supreme duty. If we take care of the means, we are bound to reach the end sooner or later.’’ This perspective presents a radical challenge to mainstream thinking about power and social change: if, as Gandhi proposes, ahimsa and truth are equated with God, then nonviolence is more powerful than anything else, including violence. This equation is an integral part of Gandhi’s schema for understanding the nature of the universe. He writes two columns in his diary (see Table 1). The most significant aspect of Gandhi’s understanding of ahimsa – at least from the sociological point of view – is that he extended it to the social/political sphere, thus

842 Gandhi and His Legacies Table 1 Truth and untruth according to Gandhi’s diary

Challenging Caste, Communalism, and Sexism

Truth is

Untruth is

Light Life Goodness Existence Love

Darkness Death Evil Nonexistence Hatred

In addition to the end of British colonialism, Gandhi has three other major themes as part of his emphasis on sarvodaya, the welfare of all, or upliftment of all: unity among religious communities, the eradication of ‘untouchability’, and the liberation of women. Although Gandhi never fully denounced the caste system – he tried to reformulate it in a less-exploitative and more-spiritual manner – he was firmly opposed to discrimination, especially against the so-called ‘untouchables’, literally the ‘outcastes’ in Hindu society who were even forbidden to enter temples because, according to Hindu teachings, they would defile the sacred site and its devotees. He declared untouchability to be ‘‘the greatest blot on Hinduism.’’ At the Meenakshi Temple in Madurai, he mobilized a famous satyagraha and eventually won the group, which he called the harijans, the ‘‘children of God,’’ the right to worship at the temple. He spoke and acted boldly on behalf of interfaith respect and dialog, especially – but not exclusively – across Hindu–Muslim lines. On more than one occasion he claimed that he was a Muslim and Christian, as well as a Hindu, and he repeatedly drew inspiration from a wide range of scriptures, many of which were read at his daily prayer meetings, including, of course, his beloved Gita, but also the Bible, the Qur’an, and other sacred texts. His final days were spent addressing the violence that broke out between Hindus and Muslims in India after independence. He walked on foot (a padayatra) through troubled sections of Bengal and fasted successfully for an end to the Hindu–Muslim riots in Calcutta, staying at the home of a Muslim while the violence raged outside. Although Gandhi was in some ways still a product of his time; he made bold challenges to his patriarchal culture and involved women in public life in an unprecedented way. He had women intimately engaged in his own organizing – facilitated, in part, by his vow of chastity (brahmacharya) that eliminated the ubiquitous problem of sexual aspects of cross-gender relations with charismatic public figures. (One of his most controversial experiments – even among his devotees – was his sleeping naked with unclothed women to test his ability to get completely beyond the sexual instincts.) He retained some traditional essentialist ideas about women and a gendered division of labor, and believed that women should not just rush to take on men’s roles, but he insisted that there be no barriers to their doing so. He stressed the importance of ‘feminine’ nurturing, nonviolent aspects of male identity and, after fathering four sons and becoming a ‘mahatma’, took his famous vow of brahmacharya. He deliberately cultivated an androgynous identity – one of his grandnieces wrote a book about him entitled Bapu – My Mother, which roughly translates as Father – My Mother. Indeed, Nandy contends that Gandhi’s trans-sexual identity as a mahatma or saint in the Indian sense was part of a

diverging from more traditional interpretations of the concept, which cultivated a detachment from social involvement. As Margaret Chatterjee suggests, Gandhi transforms the concept from a pathway to individual liberation into a means for social change. His goal was to extend what was often emphasized as an individual ethic to the collective life, eventually violence from all spheres of life. Social activism based on religious conviction and the ethic of ahimsa was also linked intimately in Gandhi’s ethos with courage. One of the keys to Gandhi’s success in mobilizing the Indian Freedom Movement and other movements for radical social change during his lifetime – and another major component of the Gandhian paradox – was his ability to envision and present his revolutionary aspirations by means of an appeal to tradition. This mode of presentation was not merely a manipulative strategy; it was the way he himself framed the world and the issues with which he struggled. At the core of Gandhi’s life and thought was a deep spirituality that drove him. It had a Hindu foundation from his childhood but was forged out of encounters between that tradition and a variety of others, notably Jainism and Buddhism and also Islam and Christianity. Gandhi’s Hinduism was not entirely ‘orthodox’, if a rather non-Hindu concept may be used. It did not contradict many of the currents of Vedic tradition’s transformation on the subcontinent during the colonial period, but it did stand in sharp contrast to a number of traditional schools of thought and practice. Ashis Nandy contends that Gandhi was neither a progressive nor a conservative, but that he transcends ‘‘the dichotomy of orthodoxy and iconoclasm,’’ forging ‘‘a mode of selfexpression, which by its apparently non-threatening simplicity reconciled the common essence of the old and the new.’’ Gandhi’s relationship to religious traditions was thus consistent with other paradoxical elements of his legacies: he drew upon the tradition in deep and rich ways and incorporated it as his own, but he also transformed key elements of it such as ahimsa to be woven into his own unique worldview. Consequently, despite the fact that Gandhi was neither a spiritual guru nor a religious scholar, he had a substantial impact on the tradition itself.

Gandhi and His Legacies

psychological strategy for fighting against a colonialism that equates masculinity with aggressive social dominance and femininity with subjugation.

Gandhi since Gandhi Why does the figure of Gandhi continue to be such a source of fascination? Attenborough’s film [‘‘Gandhi’’] supplies one answer, for it presents the picture of a lone moral individual triumphing over the conventional forces of authority in society. This image of moral strength outweighing conventional strength is the stuff of which the classic Western adventure tale is made. It is the cowboy, the space hero, and all those cinematic incarnations of Jesus and Moses. This moral conqueror is also to be found in a certain kind of Indian heroic archetype: the noble renunciant who defies dharmic propriety for the sake of a higher spiritual truth. (Mark Juergensmeyer)

Gandhi and Independent India At the time of independence, Gandhi urged the leaders of the Indian National Congress not to take over the independent government as a narrow political party, but to transform its nationwide grassroots organization into a movement for social and economic development. Jawaharlal Nehru should not live in the viceroy’s mansion but in its servants’ quarters and help to empower the flowering of a just, nonviolent India. That dream was not to happen, however, as the freedom fighters were anxious to reap the benefits of their victory and Gandhi himself became a symbol of the establishment in general and the ruling Congress Party in particular. Indians witnessed something of a Gandhian revival in the late 1960s, however, in part because of the centenary celebration of Gandhi’s birth in 1869 and an increase in publications about Gandhi surrounding it. It died down in a couple of years however, and again Gandhi was not widely appreciated until another revival in the 1980s. In the end, Gandhi, like the Buddha, not only took root in India but was also exported and had a broad impact far beyond his native land. His legacies are now not so much an Indian as a global phenomenon. Because of the prominence of the Indian Freedom Movement and the worldwide interest in Gandhi’s nonviolence, the Mahatma became an internationally known figure whose iconic image was called upon not only by civil rights, human rights, and prodemocracy activists, but even the world’s governments, as demonstrated by the stamps issued around the world (see Figure 1). From grassroots human rights activists on every continent to Albert Einstein and the world’s most powerful leaders, Gandhi’s praise echoes around the globe. The laudatory

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language is, of course, seldom met with actual practices of Gandhian nonviolence and his iconic image is coopted by everyone from John Lennon and Harry Potter to Apple. One of the most notable examples of Gandhi’s external impact is the remarkable (though admittedly limited) advocacy of nonviolence by Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet head of state. When Gorbachev visited India in 1989 he left quite an impression. Gorbachev used explicit references to the Mahatma in his speeches and advocated the establishment of a ‘‘nonviolent world’’ in the Delhi Declaration that he signed with Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

The Anticolonial Movement The Indian Freedom Movement naturally inspires anticolonial aspirations elsewhere around the world, sometimes very explicitly as, for example, with Kwame Nkrumah and Julius Nyerere. Nkrumah was born in a small West African village, studied in the States and Britain, and became involved in forming a nonviolent resistance movement against British rule in the late 1940s. He studied Gandhi and observed his success, as well as Nehru’s efforts to combine Gandhi with socialism, leading the independence movement that eventually resulted in the creation of the independent nation of Ghana. Nyerere contends, ‘‘The significance of India’s independence movement was that it shook the British Empire. When Gandhi succeeded I think it made the British lose the will to cling to empire.’’ He sees in Gandhi’s movement a model for the independence struggle in East Africa and even merges Gandhian thought with an African socialism (Ujama) after the formation of independent Tanzania. Although some of his economic policies have been widely criticized, Nyerere takes a page from Gandhi’s autobiography when he launched a nationwide literacy campaign calling upon all those who could read or write in Swahili to teach those who cannot. He himself spends time every day tutoring the illiterate even while head of state, and after his voluntary retirement he returns to his farm in the countryside (although he is often called into service internationally to consult or mediate conflicts).

Human Rights and Civil Rights After the success of the Indian Freedom Movement, Gandhi’s example became the prime motivator and model for a wide range of social movements, mostly nonviolent, and in every part of the world. The most prominent example is the American Civil Rights Movement launched in the 1950s with explicit Gandhian roots. A number of leaders in the African-American

Figure 1 Gandhi honored in the world’s stamps.

Gandhi and His Legacies

community become aware early on of Gandhi’s work in South Africa and India, as well as the potential relevance to their own community. A. Philip Randolph discovered Gandhi in the 1920s in a period of unprecedented intellectual creativity in the African-American community in the arts, poetry/prose, and music. Randolph began the process of rethinking Gandhi in an American context with a Christian rhetoric, a project later envisioned by Mordecai Johnson, president of Howard University, and Benjamin Mays, dean of the Howard Divinity School. At the Yale Seminar on the Negro Church in 1931 the conferees passed a resolution contending that ‘‘every Negro church must discover and develop a type of leadership that would do for America and the Negro race what Gandhi has done for India and what Jesus has done for the world.’’ The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. takes up the leadership of the Civil Rights Movement as head of the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955. People from Christian pacifist organizations who had studied Gandhi, namely, George Houser from the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), and Bayard Rustin, sent to Montgomery by the Fellowship of Reconciliation, tutored him in Gandhian nonviolence. He also relies upon the expertise of the Reverend James Lawson, a United Methodist clergyman who had spent time in India. The AFSC subsequently organizes and finances a Gandhian tour of India for Coretta Scott King, and Dr. King, who explicitly acknowledged his debt to Gandhi and his trip to India as formative. Houser provides a direct link between Gandhi’s ashrams and the civil rights movement. As a young Methodist seminary student in New York City he lived in David Dellinger’s Harlem Ashram, an interracial community modeled after Gandhi’s experiments in heterogeneous communities in South Africa and India. After a term in jail for refusing to register for the draft (a decision inspired by his reading of Gandhi), he enrolled in the University of Chicago Divinity School, where he organized a Gandhi study group that meets on Saturday mornings. After a period of study they decided they need to act so began experimenting with nonviolence as a means to fight segregation in Chicago eating establishments and eventually formed the Congress of Racial Equality. Houser arrived at Dr. King’s home in Montgomery with a stack of Gandhi books and was welcomed by the bus boycott organizers. When sitting in the King family home the day after it was bombed, he found a gun under the cushion and engaged the young civil rights leader in a long conversation about the need to avoid violence completely to have a more effective movement. King gave up the gun and grew into a dedicated nonviolent activist who later refused to press charges when he was attacked with a knife. When visiting Bombay the young pastor was moved

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to spend the night alone in the room where Gandhi used to stay when in the city. Whereas Gene Sharp secularized Gandhi, extracting his strategic principles and social theory from their religious foundations in the Mahatma, King baptized Gandhi, giving his approach a Christian frame, which he deemed effective in the American context and from a Christian clergyman’s perspective. The American Civil Rights Movement was never fully successful in bringing about its goals – especially in its later formulations by King and others that included more than voting rights but also justice for all Americans. It is widely extolled and emulated the world over, however, and became a vehicle for further disseminating Gandhian nonviolence. At the height of the Cold War the movement was prominently featured in some sectors of the communist press because it showed the failures of the American system, but it inadvertently laid the groundwork for resistance against communist regimes in the 1980s and 1990s. The African National Congress (ANC) of black South Africans was originally modeled after the Indian National Congress and had a significant Gandhian influence, not only because of the success of the Indian Freedom Movement but also, of course, because Gandhi had first developed his methods of satyagraha in South Africa in an effort to protest the injustices wrought upon Indians living there. After years of apparently fruitless struggle against the system they became disillusioned with nonviolent tactics and many in the ANC turned to violence. As some scholars observe, however, the apartheid system did not finally fall until they returned to nonviolence. Elsewhere Gandhi’s legacies can be seen in a wave of human rights struggles from the human rights movements of Eastern Europe to the struggles in Argentina such as the Mothers of the Disappeared who marched weekly in the Plaza de Mayo from 1977 wearing the names of their missing children embroidered on white head scarves in a subtle and effective form of resistance of the military junta there, which eventually restored civilian rule and was ousted in new elections in 1983.

Sustainable Development and Environmental Responsibility Gandhi’s notions of grassroots economic development and self-reliant local economies lived in serious tension with the large-scale industrial development of Jawaharlal Nehru’s socialism and its successors in India. Although trained in nonviolent resistance by Gandhi, Nehru was attracted by the socialist critique of capitalism and colonialism as a student at Cambridge. As India’s first prime minister, he promoted a mixed economy with a statecontrolled economy in some spheres such as heavy

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industry, mining, and energy, but grassroots development at the village level promoting cottage industries. Many Gandhians feel that Nehru betrayed the Mahatma with his large-scale industrial development. Much of the Gandhian spirit is alive at the grassroots, in experiments in sustainable development and Gandhian education. According to Janardan Pandey, one of the profound impacts of Gandhi on the national life of India is the flowering of voluntarism in the culture. In addition to the organizations created by Gandhi himself to do ‘constructive work’, that is, grassroots development and cultivation of civil society, about 11,000 voluntary organizations are officially registered with the Home Ministry. Gandhi’s Harijan Sevak Sangh, Gramodyog Sangh, and Hindustan Talim Sangh promote his dedication to service and the construction of a society based on nonviolence, justice, and equality of opportunity. All across India people are inspired to engage in Gandhian service to the people. In South India, for example, where Gandhi fought untouchability, S. Jeyapragasam is not only a scholar who studies and teaches Gandhi at Madurai Kamaraj University, but he facilitates a network of grassroots sustainable development projects and Gandhian activists. At the ‘Servants of the People Society’ in New Delhi, ayurvedic doctor, Arya Bhardwaj struggles profoundly with Gandhi’s legacies and attempts to live a simple life of service to the poor and to the cause of nonviolent social transformation. Arya and his family have turned their home into a way station for constructive workers and for pilgrims from around the world – activists and scholars alike – to come and stay when they are in Delhi. Arya founded ‘Gandhi-in-Action’ in 1984 when he came to the conclusion that if Gandhi’s ideas were to be put into action then they have to transcend geopolitical boundaries. In 2006 peasants from all across India organized by Ekta Parishad, a nonviolent social movement, marched on foot from Mathura (the legendary birthplace of Krishna) to Delhi, demanding land reform. They followed the Gandhian twofold strategy of simultaneous protest and construction. It brought people together to demand their rights, on the one hand, and facilitated community-based economic development, on the other, that strived to liberate them from dependency on welfare and government programs. One hallmark of the Gandhian movement since independence has been the development of a locally controlled economy that is sensitive to the environmental impact of large-scale industrialization. Gandhi’s concepts of self-rule and self-reliance have become required reading for many people looking for economic models that promote justice and environmental sensitivity, including the notion of ‘deep ecology’ that involves a respect for all forms of life, echoing not only Gandhi but ancient Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist teachings as well. They have also been incorporated into critiques of neoliberal economic

policies and the commodification of resources. The economic policies of recent decades (and longer) in most countries have eroded the local control of natural resources such as water, land, and forests, often subverting the ability of indigenous communities to sustain their livelihood, which involves a direct reliance on nature in the immediate environment.

Bringing Down Dictators Not only were human rights movements inspired by Gandhi, but also a significant number of nonviolent insurgencies against authoritarian regimes as demonstrated in Table 2. In 1986, the People Power Movement in the Philippines resisted the Ferdinand Marcos regime with classic Gandhian strategies of nonviolent direct action. Benigno Aquino, an opposition leader in the Philippines who studied Gandhi and the Indian Freedom Movement and aspired to apply his methods to the Filipino context, initiated the insurgency. When returning home from a period of living in exile, he was assassinated at the airport upon his arrival in Manila. His wife and brother picked up the banner, however, and called in Jean and Hildegard Goss-Mayr of the Fellowship of Reconciliation (whose representative had trained the Montgomery Improvement Association and Dr. King) to consult about nonviolent strategies and Table 2 Representative nonviolent prodemocracy movements Iran (1977–79) Philippines (1986) Haiti (1986) South Korea (1987) Chile (1983–89) Bangladesh (1989, 1996) Mongolia (1989–90) Nepal (1989–90) Mali (1992) Taiwan (1992) S. Africa (1984–91, 1993) Madagascar (1991–93) Indonesia (1998) Serbia (2000) Peru (2000) Georgia (2003) Ukraine (2004) Lebanon (2005) Soviet Bloc Czechoslovakia (1989) East Germany (1989) Poland (1989) Estonia (1991) Latvia (1991) Lithuania (1991) USSR (1991) Yugoslavia (1991)

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tactics. Benigno’s brother and the opposition movement he led, was approached by the guerrillas about forming a coalition, claiming that a few street demonstrations would never overthrow Ferdinand Marcos. The movement decided to follow a Gandhian path instead and trainers from the Fellowship of Reconciliation conducted workshops around the country. One bishop told the Reverend Richard Deats, one of the trainers, that he believed, of course, in nonviolence, but that it would never work against Marcos since he was the Hitler of Southeast Asia. On Election Day in February 1986, government workers responsible for tabulating the election results walked out on their still unfinished task in protest of obvious attempts by Marcos to steal the election. This ignited the people, and, in the end, following a split in the military and people stopping Marcos’ troops with massive nonviolent resistance in the streets, the dictator fled the country and Corazon Aquino was inaugurated as president. The revolution was televised, even in the Soviet Bloc (because the Marcos regime was a staunch ally of the US), and the movement inspired uprisings elsewhere and became something of a benchmark for late-twentieth-century movements. The subsequent decades see a veritable explosion in nonviolent insurgencies, as shown in Table 2. A study by Adrian Karatnycky and Peter Ackerman concludes that the major agent of change in the last 33 years of transitions from authoritarian to more democratic states has been broadbased nonviolent civic coalitions that use Gandhian nonviolent strategies such as boycotts, mass protests, blockades, strikes, and civil disobedience to undermine the pillars of support for authoritarian rulers. ‘People power’ movements, a central feature of Gandhi’s legacies, were the key factor driving 50 of the 67 countries transitioning toward more civil liberties and human rights. As Jack DuVall observes, people power undermines the legitimacy of oppressive systems, drives up its costs, and divides the loyalty of those who enforce its orders (see www.nonviolent-conflict.org). Alternative Dispute Resolution and Peer Mediation Various forms of alternative dispute resolution, conflict resolution, and mediation have their roots in Gandhian nonviolence and have taken root and flourished in various spheres in recent decades. At the core of much of what is now sometimes called ‘conflict transformation’ is Gandhi’s principle of separating the doer and the deed. Whether the management or transformation of a conflict is carried out solely by the parties themselves or with the aid of a third party (as in mediation), Gandhi’s conflict paradigm is foundational, even if – as Thomas Weber points out – scholars have not made the direct causal link between Gandhi and contemporary conflict resolution literature. Nonetheless, Gandhi at least sets the tone for its development. The point is not to have one party win and the other lose, but

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to identify the most beneficial outcome for both parties and to struggle creatively and positively toward a just solution, sometimes with the aid of a third party. Mediation and alternative dispute resolution are popular movements now spanning the globe. Dimostenis Yagcioglu, of the University of Athens, has developed a list of conflict resolution centers around the world. In the United States, alternative dispute resolution has become popular in many circles, in part because of the clogged court systems and a growing insistence by many scholars and practitioners that the adversarial confrontation of the court system is often detrimental to facilitating the most positive outcome of conflict. In some states people going through a divorce are required by the court to seek mediation if one of the parties desires it, and many attorneys and other professionals trained in conflict resolution are guiding people through conflicts in a more creative manner. One popular experiment in the schools has been peer mediation, in which students are trained in techniques of mediation and conflicts among members of the student body are taken first through a peer mediation in hopes of resolving them more amicably, getting to the roots of the issue, and not incidentally relieving the school administration of much of the burden of imposing discipline. A parallel experiment in South Africa known as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission also has Gandhian roots. Archbishop Desmond Tutu and others who developed the Commission believed that they could find an alternative to a tribunal or some other court procedure to deal with the postapartheid situation in which there had to be some sense of justice rendered, but addresses the rift and pain of a society traumatized by years of injustice. The purpose of the Commission was to find the truth, but then also to find ways of moving beyond the atrocities committed and admitted to by people attempting to start over in a new South Africa. Tutu was awarded India’s Gandhi Peace Prize in 2007 as a confirmation of his efforts to carry on Gandhi’s legacies. Gandhian Economics and Environmentalism Nehru’s socialism adopts a centralizing approach modeled after the planned central economy but never produces the promised economic benefits for the poor. One response to growing economic disparities in independent India is a self-consciously Gandhian socialism which emerges in the wake of Indira Gandhi’s 1977 declaration of a State of Emergency. As Anand Kumar notes, this brand of socialism is egalitarian but opposed to the centralization of economic and political power. The mainstream of independent India, under Nehru’s direction, heads down the path of a democratic socialism in an effort to promote economic development, which is squarely in opposition to Gandhi’s conception of village

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industries, which became something of an embarrassment to the economic elite of the country. Gandhi is no longer around, nor is he needed for the struggle against the British, so his economic theories fall somewhat quickly by the wayside, with the exception of those involved in the constructive work movement within such organizations as the Harijan Sevak Sangh. Grassroots Gandhianism involves hundreds of thousands in the economics of sustainable development dedicated to sarvodaya, although it is considered by some to be a mere finger in the dyke given the overwhelming needs of India’s 1 billion people. Gandhian Scholarship and Peace Studies It is, of course, easier to study Gandhi than to use his approach to engage in conflict, and one major aspect of Gandhi’s legacies is Gandhian scholarship and the birth of the peace studies movement, institutionalized in such associations as the International Peace Research Association and its regional associations, the African Peace Research and Education Association, the AsiaPacific Peace Research Association, the Latin American Council on Peace Research, the European Peace Research Association, and the Peace and Justice Studies Association. Three central themes emerge in Gandhian theories of peace in the area of international relations: 1. Relationships among nations are too important to be left to their governments; direct contacts should be made among people within the countries themselves, so that they can make peace agreements where their governments fail. 2. Peace is conceived of holistically so that it has elements that are spiritual and ecological, as well as those concerning conventional power politics and intergovernmental relations. Gandhi deliberately introduced an ecumenical spiritual component into his efforts in all spheres, of which the political was just one, linked intimately with all other aspects of life. Gandhi also links peace with justice and equality, insisting that all peoples must be treated with respect and that the desire for a mere lack of overt conflict and violence at the expense of justice was not peace at all but a different form of violence. 3. Finally, Gandhi himself, and some of his followers, suggested that even international conflicts could be carried out nonviolently and that Shanti Senas, or ‘Peace Brigades’ could eventually replace military solutions and third-party nonviolent interventions even in large-scale conflicts. Over time the peace studies movement has become increasingly concerned not only about the prevention of war but also the implementation of justice, of a positive

peace that addresses the underlying causes of war and violence, a theme represented in the name of the North American Peace and Justice Studies Association. This concern with the web of violence that connects the interpersonal with the global has a strong resonance with Gandhi’s approach.

Shanti Sena and the Peace Brigades Gandhi advocated, as he put it, ‘‘the formation of Peace Brigades whose members would risk their lives in dealings with riots, especially communal. The idea was that this brigade should substitute [for] the police and even the military.’’ The idea of a nonviolent security system, the Shanti Sena, was barely sketched out by Gandhi himself and seemed too idealistic for all but his most loyal followers, especially in the face of the Nazi threat of the time. Gandhi was quite serious, however, about the evolution of a nonviolent army that would keep the peace both locally and in the face of a foreign invasion. Despite the increasingly militaristic path of governmental policies in India, especially after the conflict with China in 1962, the vision of a Shanti Sena was cultivated along informal lines. Gandhi’s notion was that holistic provisions for security would be built from the bottom up; each village would have its own brigade of individuals trained in nonviolence. Not only would they have a rigorous training and discipline that paralleled that of military troops, but also they would engage in preventive constructive work in the interim periods between overt conflicts by attempting to address the problems in a community that might lead to violence. Economic inequalities, problems of basic survival such as housing, food, water, and so forth, would be addressed along with intercommunal tensions along whatever cleavages existed within a village. Consequently the Shanti Sainiks, that is, members of the Peace Brigades, would build up a level of trust among the people that they were serving so that they could more effectively manage any conflicts that might arise. The structure of Shanti Senas organized at the village level would then also serve as a deterrent to potential aggressors from outside the community, who would be met with bold and courageous resistance should they threaten its security. It is unlikely that such a development could have even been given a hearing outside of India in the wake of World War II; although the political culture of India was far from nonviolent, it had not been militarized as thoroughly as most of the world that had just fought or served the Nazis, Fascists, and expansionist Japanese. Only in India, one might argue, was there a critical mass of people who had personally experienced the efficacy of nonviolent direct action.

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Evidence of this strong belief in the potentiality of nonviolent struggle was present throughout the culture and stood in sharp contrast to the violence of mainstream policies. From the veterans of the freedom struggle to the top of the contemporary military one could find advocates of nonviolence. The idea of the Shanti Sena was thus taken quite seriously by a number of Gandhian scholars and activists and the concept was experimented with systematically at Gandhigram University in Tamil Nadu where the constitution of the university stipulated that students be given training in nonviolence. Dr. M. Aram, Dr. N. Radhakrishnan, and Dr. J. Ramachandran set up a program to develop and train young people for a Shanti Sena. Other experiments with the concept include the founding of the Mahila Shanti Sena (Women’s Peace Corps) in Bijar in 2002, stimulated by empowerment of women in the wake of the 1992 amendment to the Indian Constitution that gave rural villages political autonomy and reserved 30% of the seats on the panchayats (village councils) for women. Not only have these ideas been developed in India, but they have inspired a number of similar movements elsewhere, including the International Peace Brigades and the Nonviolent Peace Force that are experimenting with nonviolent accompaniment of human rights activists and other forms of nonviolent struggle in the Middle East, Latin America, and elsewhere. Others, such as Gene Sharp, have explored the possibility of a nonviolent civilian-based defense, either to parallel or replace a military defense, a notion actually experimented with in postSoviet Lithuania. Because of Gandhi’s prestige in independent India, Gandhian studies programs were set up at universities throughout the country and prominent scholars took up the study of Gandhi at its premier universities (such as S. C. Gangal at Jawaharlal Nehru University and Mahendra Kumar at Delhi University). Many universities set up departments of Gandhian studies, partly for reasons of national pride, and two Gandhian universities experiment with a wide range of Gandhian studies and their implications – Gandhigram in Tamil Nadu and the Gujarat Vidyapith in Ahmedabad. Under the able direction of Prof. N. Radhakrishnan, a dean at Gandhigram, and his successor Dr. Savita Singh, the Gandhi Smriti and Darshan Samiti – a national Gandhi museum in Delhi – has moved beyond a traditional museum and become something of a research and educational center that provides resources for Gandhian scholarship and teaching, including a substantial library with an online catalog. The Gandhi Peace Foundation and the Gandhian Institute of Studies in Banaras are independent institutes that promote the study and application of Gandhian ideas. These institutes are sometimes criticized by the more progressive Gandhians such as the followers of J. P. Narayan’s ‘total revolution’, but the

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Gandhi Peace Foundation has taken a more activist stance recently with new leadership despite its establishment roots involving the first president and prime minister of the country. Although the hundreds of works about Gandhi often tend toward hagiography, his life and work also inspire significant and profound intellectual reflection by such scholars as B. R. Nanda, Gene Sharp, Judith Brown, Margaret Chatterjee, Mark Juergensmeyer, Ashis Nandy, S. Jeyapragasam, William Baskaran, Michael Nagler, Joan Bondurant, Ragavan Iyer, Erik Erikson, S. C. Gangal, Thomas Weber, Suzanne and Lloyd Rudolph, Richard Johnson, and many more. Although they do not call themselves explicitly Gandhian a significant school of critical science is emerging in India that no doubt has some Gandhian roots. Parts of it indeed sound like they were taken out of the pages of Gandhi’s Hind swaraj. Although Gandhi considered himself a scientist who was conducting experiments in nonviolence, he asks us to look at the way science has been subservient to political ends. Gandhi believed that we would have to search for an alternative kind of science, one that shows more modesty than convention Western science and is oriented toward the well-being of all. Gandhi believed that such a science could and must be developed and that they must take the first steps. This conception of science has profound implications for how knowledge is produced and institutionalized, some of which are being explored now, calling into question even some of the basic assumptions and methods of the social and natural sciences. Gandhi as a Social Theorist Although neither deliberately a social theorist nor thought of as one, Gandhi’s social thought is not only profound, but also relevant to both intellectual and policy issues. The 100 volumes of his collected works reveal not a systematic theorist but an intellectual activist. In his theory – as well as his politics and religion – Gandhi is a counterplayer who confronts the mainstream in his political and social theory. In an inversion of conventional wisdom, Gandhi would argue that the major source of humanity’s core problems of violence, poverty, exploitation, and the like, is not at the margins of the social order but its core. It is not the masses of poor who beg for bread, or the deviant misfits who operate outside of the law who create the bulk of misery in the world. It is, rather, those who sit in the seats of power. Conversely, he would contend that the solution to these dilemmas will come not from the center, but the margins – not from Wall Street, Washington, London, or Moscow, but – from such places as that poverty-stricken, violent country called India. The great masses of the poor

850 Gandhi and His Legacies Table 3 Social theories of Thomas Hobbes and Mahatma Gandhi Hobbes

Gandhi

Context: growing civil strife, 1630s England

Context: oppressive colonial rule, late-nineteenth- to early-twentiethcentury India Persuade people to disobey the law Encourage resistance to corrupt structures and provide order internally Authority of God and individual conscience are adequate; the state imposes violent, unjust, temporary solutions Egalitarian ethic: virtues of justice and service Human action compelled by love and nonviolence

Persuade people to obey the law Impose order from above Absolute authority of political sovereigns Tyranny is necessary for the good of the people Egalitarian ethic: virtues of justice and charity Human action compelled by unlimited desires and perpetual motion (vs. Aristotle: state of rest) Primary motivations: Restless desires for power after power Avoidance of violent death (self-preservation) Nominalism, atomism action Early scientific philosophy

Primary motivations: Ahimsa (nonharmfulness) Preservation and welfare of all (sarvodaya) Realism but with a strong belief in the efficacy of individual ‘Scientific’ experiments with ‘truth’

who constitute the majority of the world’s population are, despite their misery, far from powerless. And, despite the systems of oppression that bear down upon them, they are in the final analysis responsible for their own liberation because they can – if they summon the will to do so – rise up and overthrow the old system, putting a new one in its place. His is a radical social theory that, as Nandy notes, offers an alternative language for public life and values but is presented and actualized as the most natural thing to do. It is helpful to compare Gandhi’s social theory and the assumptions he brings to it with those of Thomas Hobbes, the foundational figure for the modern social sciences (see Table 3). The domain assumptions and theoretical orientations brought to social theory by Thomas Hobbes and Mahatma Gandhi are diametrically opposed on a number of dimensions and have significant implications for theory construction, as well as public policy. Hobbes, writing in a chaotic seventeenth-centuryEnglish context, believes that humans are basically propelled by unlimited desires and an absolute sovereign is necessary in order to control people and prevent a ‘‘war of all against all in which life is nasty, brutish and short.’’ Gandhi, on the other hand, writes in an oppressive colonial context in which he sees the problem as not individual humans – who are basically motivated by nonviolence, love, and the desire for the preservation and welfare of all – but rather the structures that corrupt and oppress them, so must be resisted and replaced. Whereas Hobbes’s theoretical atomism places an emphasis – as do the British utilitarians who follow him – on the individual who is perceived as a rational calculating individual, Gandhi has a more collectivist (realist) theoretical paradigm, believing humans to be social creatures but capable of effective individual action. Moreover, the cultural forces shaping individuals are

quite different from those posited in the utilitarian tradition. In fact, Gandhi explicitly takes on Adam Smith in his essay on ‘New life for khadi’, claiming that Smith is mistaken to assume that human nature is marked by mere calculations of profit and loss and a selfish attitude. The alternative model, Gandhi’s khadi, functions to counteract that notion and is ‘‘based on the benevolence which is inherent in human nature.’’ A Hobbesian public policy places a premium on hierarchical social structures that keep individuals in check, whereas Gandhi proposes that every individual should be trained in nonviolent resistance to oppose structures of injustice and facilitate the flowering of the good and positive motivations that lie within every person’s heart. In the end, it is impossible to sum up Gandhi’s legacies in a few pages or even a series of books, but they are a significant element of our effort to review the thinking and scholarship that has gone on in the past two centuries about violence, peace, and conflict. Standing in sharp contrast with so-called realist perspectives regarding relationships from the interpersonal to the international, they nonetheless have stood the test of time as a counterpoint to mainstream scholarship and action. If C. Wright Mills is right in suggesting that the utopians are now the realists in light of the development of the atomic bomb, we may find Gandhian scholarship flowing into the mainstream as we move into the next century. See also: Aged Population, Violence and Nonviolence Toward; Critiques of Violence; Family Structure and Family Violence; Institutionalization of Non-Violence; Nonviolence Theory and Practice; Political Economy of Violence and Nonviolence; Power, Alternative Theories of; Public Health Models of Violence and Violence Prevention; Religious Traditions, Violence and Nonviolence; Technology, Violence, and Peace

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Further Reading Baskaran, W. (1999). Shanti sena: The Gandhian vision. Madurai: Gandhi Media Centre & Madurai Institute of Peace Science. Bondurant, J. V. (1988). Conquest of violence: The Gandhian philosophy of conflict. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Boulding, K. E. (1964). Why did Gandhi fail? In Ramachandran, G. and Mahadevan, T. K. (eds.) Gandhi – His relevance for our times, pp 129–134. CP V, pp 155–162. Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, for the Gandhi Peace Foundation. Brown, J. (1989). Gandhi: Prisoner of hope. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Chatterjee, P. (1984). Gandhi and the critique of civil society. In Guha, R. (ed.) Subaltern studies III, pp 153–195. Delhi: Oxford University Press India. Dickerson, D. C. (2005). African American religious intellectuals and the theological foundations of the civil rights movement, 1930–55. Church History 74, 217–223. Erikson, E. H. (1969). Gandhi’s truth on the origins of militant nonviolence. New York: Norton. Gandhi, E. (2008). Gandhi and development. http:// www.resurgence.org/resurgence/issues/gandhi214.htm (accessed on Feb. 2008). Gandhi, M. K. (2000–2001). Collected works of Mahatma Gandhi, 6th rev. edn., vols. 100. New Delhi: Publications Division Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India. Ingram, C. (1990). In the footsteps of Gandhi. Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press. Johnson, R. L. (2006). Gandhi’s experiments with truth. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Juergensmeyer, M. (2005). Gandhi’s way. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Karatnycky, A. and Ackerman, P. (2005). How freedom is won: From civic resistance to durable democracy. http:// www.freedomhouse.org/uploads/special_report/29.pdf (accessed on Feb. 2008). King, M. L., Jr. (1986). My trip to the land of Gandhi. In Washington, J. M. (ed.) A testament of hope, pp 23–30. San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row. Nagler, M. N. (2001). Is there no other way? The search for a nonviolent future. Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Hills Books. Nanda, B. R. (1996). Mahatma Gandhi: A biography (first publ. 1958). Delhi: Oxford University Press India. Nandy, A. (1980). Final encounter: The politics of the assassination of Gandhi. In At the edge of psychology, pp 70–98. Delhi: Oxford University Press India. Pandey, Janardan. (1998). Gandhi and Voluntary Organizations. Springfield, MO: M. D. Publications. Prabhu, R. K. and Rao, U. R. (eds.) (1967). The mind of Mahatma Gandhi, 2nd edn. (first publ. 1945). Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House.

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Sharp, G. (1979). Gandhi as a political strategist. Boston, MA: Porter Sargent. Sharp, G. (2005). Waging nonviolent struggle. Boston, MA: PorterSargent. Smithey, L. and Kurtz, L. R. (1999). We have bare hands: Nonviolent social movements in the Soviet bloc. In Zunes, S., Kurtz, L. R., and Asher, S. B. (eds.) Non violent movements, pp 96–124. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers. Weber, T. (2006). Gandhi, Gandhism and the Gandhians. New Delhi: Roli. Zunes, S., Kurtz, L. R., and Asher, S. B. (eds.) (1999). Nonviolent social movements. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Press.

Relevant Websites http://news.bbc.co.uk – BBC Website on Gandhi with Links to Recent News Articles. http://www.mkgandhi.org – Bombay Sarvodaya Mandal Website. http://www.geocities.com/Athens/8945/links.html – A Conflict Resolution Page. http://www.gandhiserve.org – Gandhiserve: Extensive Resources on Gandhi with Links to Other Relevant Sites. http://www.gandhismriti.gov.in – Gandhi Smriti and Darshan Samiti: National Gandhi Museum and Government of India Website. http://www.nonviolent-conflict.org – International Center on Nonviolent Conflict. http://soc.kuleuven.be – International Peace Research Association. http://www.nonviolenceinternational.net – Nonviolence International. http://www.nonviolentpeaceforce.org – Nonviolent Peace Force. http://www.peacejusticestudies.org – Peace and Justice Studies Association. http://www.peacebrigades.org – Peace Brigades International. http://www.peace.ca – Peace Curricula and Classroom Resources. http://www.transcend.org – Transcend Peace and Development Network. http://www.gutenberg.org – Works by Mahatma Gandhi at Project Gutenberg.

852 Gangs

Gangs Glen D Curry and Scott H Decker, University of Missouri, St. Louis, MO, USA ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Gangs in History The Magnitude of Contemporary Gang Problems Theories of Gang Involvement Correlates of Gang Involvement

Glossary Gang (James F. Short, Jr.) Groups of young people who meet together with some regularity, over time, on the basis of group-defined criteria of membership and group-defined organizational characteristics. In the simplest terms, gangs are unsupervised (by adults), self-determining groups that demonstrate continuity over time.

Reason for two definitions. The operational definition of what constitutes a gang is one of the major debates in research on gangs. Both sides in the debate agree that gangs are groups and are recognized as such by their members and those outside the group. The controversy is over whether the definition of gangs should include participation in delinquent or criminal behavior as part of the definition. Among senior gang researchers, James F. Short and Joan Moore are among those favoring the exclusion of delinquency criteria from the definition of a gang. They argue that discussions of the relationship between gangs and delinquency become tautological when the definition of gang requires such a relationship. On the other hand, a larger number of researchers, including Walter Miller, Malcolm Klein, and Irving Spergel, argue that the exclusion of delinquent or antisocial behavior from the definition of gang diffuses any study of the phenomenon beyond practicality. Since this definitional issue is far from resolved, one of each kind of definition is offered.

Gangs in History At least one biographer of Napoleon described his youthful participation as a leader in gang fights. The Sons of Liberty were described by British sympathizers as no more than a gang of delinquent youth. Accounts of the American Civil War include the threats against Lincoln

The Dynamics of Gang Involvement Responding to Gangs Further Reading

Gang (Malcolm W. Klein) Any denotable group of youngsters who are (a) generally perceived as a distinct aggregation by others in their neighborhood, (b) recognize themselves as a denotable group (almost invariably with a group name), and (c) have been involved in a sufficient number of delinquent incidents to call forth a consistent negative response from neighborhood residents and/or enforcement agencies.

made by a Baltimore gang and the effort of Jefferson Davis to intervene in a dispute between rival adolescent gangs in Richmond. Urban industrial development in the latter part of the nineteenth century brought a large influx of European immigrants into American cities. The children and adolescents of these immigrants became members of groups identified as gangs. In the late 1800s, youth gangs emerged in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, St. Louis, and Pittsburgh. In those decades, Italians and Irish immigrants were overrepresented in the ranks of gang members. These gangs roamed the streets of their neighborhoods engaging in petty forms of property crime and conflict with members of rival gangs. As with today’s gang members, these youth represented what were regarded as the lowest levels of the economic strata of their communities. There was an apparent decline in gang activity between the last decades of the nineteenth century and the 1920s. This was the first such increase and decline to be recorded. This and subsequent rises and declines in gang activity have led some researchers to hypothesize that gang activity in the United States follows decadeslong cyclical patterns. While the youth gangs were very different organizationally from the adult gangs of the prohibition era, it is worth noting that Al Capone and a number of his peers were members of delinquent youth gangs before moving into organized crime in adulthood. One of the most important of all gang researchers, Frederic Thrasher, did his work on the gangs of this

Gangs

period. Based on his observations of Chicago gangs, Thrasher concluded that gangs developed out of the spontaneous play groups of children and adolescents and were strengthened by conflict with other groups and community adults. The major activity of gangs, he noted, was the search for thrills and excitement. Fighting was the predominant activity, and fights with members of one’s own gang were as likely as those with members of rival gangs. During the depression and World War II, the United States again experienced a decline in gang activity. The postwar gangs differed from the gangs of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. For the first time, large numbers of African-American, Puerto Rican, and Mexican-American youths were involved in gangs. Also, levels of violence were higher than in previous periods of gang activity. This increased lethality has been attributed to guns and automobiles, a condition that would be magnified in the next great wave of gang activity. The most recent wave of gang activity emerged in the 1980s. At the beginning of that decade, gang problems were recognized in only a few large cities, particularly Chicago, Detroit, New York City, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles. By the end of the decade, gangs taking on the symbols and names of the Blood and Crip ‘nations’ from Los Angeles and the People and Folk ‘nations’ from Chicago were appearing in large and medium-sized cities across the nation. Levels of violence were much higher than during any previous wave of gang problems, perhaps corresponding with even more widespread availability of automobiles and firearms. The spread of gangs in this most current wave of activity has been attributed on the one hand to the emergence of an urban underclass hopelessly separated from available economic opportunities and on the other to a youth culture that makes gang symbols, clothing, and language commodities available in large and small cities.

The Magnitude of Contemporary Gang Problems National surveys of law enforcement agencies have served to provide the most widely accepted assessment of the magnitude of the US gang problem. In 1988, Irving Spergel and his colleagues found that 76% of 98 cities screened indicated the presence of organized gangs and gang activities. From reports from 35 of these jurisdictions, 1439 gangs and 120 636 gang members were tabulated. In 1994, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention established the National Youth Gang Center (NYGC) in Tallahassee, Florida. In 1995, the NYGC conducted its first assessment survey of the national gang problem. Of 3440 responding agencies, 2007 reported youth gang problems. The survey’s total of

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23 388 youth gangs and 664 906 gang members suggested that the most recent wave of gang activity is the largest ever experienced in the nation’s history.

Theories of Gang Involvement Cultural Theories Two major bodies of theory have most frequently been offered as explanations of gang activity. The first of these are cultural theories. Subcultural theory has been characterized by two very different kinds of explanations. In one view, lower-class youths find that they are failing to measure up to ‘middle-class measuring rods’. As a result these youths undergo what has been called a ‘reaction formation’ and turn middle-class values ‘upside down’ to create subcultural norms. Youth gangs become repositories and mechanisms for transmitting these antisocial subcultural values. A very different perspective suggests that gang behavior reflects preexisting focal concerns of lower-class culture. Hence, lower-class youth who join gangs are not rebelling against the values of the adults in their lives but are simply taking on the values of lowerclass adults. Social Disorganization Theories Of the two major types of theories, social disorganization theory has the longer history. From Thrasher’s research on 1920s gangs, he concluded that gangs were interstitial in the sense that they filled gaps in the institutional fabric in which youths grew into adulthood. Where families or schools were weak or ineffective in socializing a youngster, the gang took their place. In this earlier form, social disorganization theory placed its emphasis on interpersonal ties between members of a community. This led to a powerful critique of social disorganization theory as an explanation of gangs, because gangs existed in many comparatively poor communities where interpersonal ties were strong. Systemic control theory has been offered by Robert Bursik and Harold Grasmick as an enhancement to classic social disorganization theory. Under systemic control theory, interpersonal ties between community residents are only one level of social control. Two other levels are also important. These are control of parochial institutions such as schools and businesses and public resources such as government and police protection. Gangs can then emerge in communities where interpersonal ties are strong, but parochial or public control are weak. Levels of Explanation Gangs are collectivities. In terms of social organization, gangs fall somewhere between their individual members

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and their greater community context. Most studies of gangs have treated individual gang members or communities as the level of analysis. Very few studies have incorporated differences in individual gangs into the analysis. In his 1997 presidential address to the American Society of Criminology, James F. Short called upon social scientists to attempt to include all three levels of explanation into their research on gangs.

Correlates of Gang Involvement Ethnicity and Gangs Ever since the post-World War II resurgence of gangs, law enforcement records have indicated an overrepresentation of minority youth among the ranks of gang members. A national survey of police departments conducted by the National Institute of Justice supported this overrepresentation especially for African-Americans and Latinos. According to that study 48% of gang members were African-Americans, 43% Latinos, 5% AsianAmericans, and 4% white. It has been argued, however, that police, and thereby police data, overly criminalize the activities of minorities. Survey research projects conducted in Denver, Colorado, and Rochester, New York, have reported far more white gang members than were found in surveys of police departments.

Gender and Gangs From a study of police records conducted in the late 1970s, Walter Miller suggested that 10% of gang members were females. Several studies suggested that police departments have consistently underestimated gang involvement by females, at least until recently. A number of surveys based on different community contexts have reported that as many as 30% of all self-reported gang members are females. Her study of female gang members in New York City led Ann Campbell to suggest that female gang members were becoming more independent of males in their gang involvement. Joan Moore and Meda Chesney-Lind have challenged the perspective that gang involvement by females can be a ‘liberating’ experience. From their separate research efforts in Los Angeles and Hawaii, they have argued that gang involvement for females results in levels of social injury sufficient to overshadow any level of personal actualization. A view that accepts both the findings of Campbell and those of Moore and Chesney-Lind suggests that gang involvement can provide females some level of agency in coping with the deprivations of their day-to-day existence, yet still result in social injury and enhanced risk of victimization.

Gangs and Community As noted above, gangs can be considered as interstitial groups that are able to develop to the degree that other community institutions are weak. For this reason, one strategy for understanding gangs places them in the broader social context of other community institutions. Five social institutions that have been shown to have an impact on gangs are (1) families, (2) schools, (3) the criminal justice system, (4) politics, and (5) the labor market. The family or household is the primary institution in community life and particularly in the lives of children and adolescents. The proposed connection between the emerging urban underclass and the most recent increase in gang activity is very important, since the institution most affected by the emergence of the underclass is the family. Where families were once the key socializing and supervising institutions for young people, families where they still exist are preoccupied by the struggle to survive. As a consequence, many young children grow up with little or no direction, and the need for socialization and order in their lives is often found on the streets. In many instances, gangs filled the void in juveniles’ lives. Another factor linking families to gangs is the growing intergenerational character of gangs in some locales. When gang members and former gang members become parents, their children are at increased risk for gang membership. After the family, schools are the most powerful socializing agent in the lives of adolescents. As is the case with families, the strength and stability of inner-city schools have suffered as a result of national-level changes in the economy over the last two decades. Just as strong families produce strong communities, strong communities have historically been associated with effective schools. This principle has an obvious converse. Weakened communities with struggling households produce schools that have a tenuous place in those communities and a limited capacity to prepare students for participation in mainstream society. The relationship between school and gangs has been conceived in two ways by researchers. In one perspective, gang involvement in schools drive students to skip school or to drop out in fear of gang violence. There is limited empirical support for this view. The more likely scenario is that it is gang members themselves who are pushed or pulled away from schools. Gang members are usually poor academic performers and are more likely than other students to violate school discipline codes. Administrators and teachers facing such unpromising and disruptive charges may do everything possible to force them out of school. On the other hand, the gang and its thrills and excitement may have a greater appeal to the student gang member than anything that the school can offer.

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Another important institution, particularly in the lives of gang-involved youths, is the juvenile justice system. Research suggests that while most adolescents engage in some level of risk-taking or delinquent behavior, sanctions are more likely to be leveled against the minority youths most likely to be involved in gangs identified as such by law enforcement. In communities where families and schools are stronger, youths who do get in trouble with the juvenile justice system have more resources available to them with which to recover from the stigma of a delinquent label. There is a great deal of evidence that incarceration may be an extremely important factor in increasing a youth’s ties to gangs. In some juvenile facilities, gangs are extremely active. The incarcerated youth must choose between taking care of himself or relying on a gang for some margin of safety and protection. At the same time, being incarcerated can provide gang members with additional status when they return to the streets. In the past, researchers have viewed gang involvement as a transitional phenomenon filling the gap between childhood and adulthood. The primary mechanism by which the transition was effected was through the young adult getting a job and eventually forming a family. A predominant feature of the urban underclass is the absence of linkages to the mainstream economy. Under the dramatic economic restructuring of the last two decades, there are few if any jobs to motivate a gang member to leave the gang. When there is no prospect for a job, there is even less likelihood of stable family formation. From family to labor market and back to family, the dearth of opportunities result in community conditions that foster the emergence and continuity of gang activity.

The Dynamics of Gang Involvement Gangs and Delinquency One consistent research finding has been that gang youths engage in more delinquency than nongang youths. Surprisingly enough these findings come not from law enforcement data, but from surveys where both gang membership and delinquency are self-reported. Both cross-sectional and longitudinal surveys conducted in a variety of social settings have shown that youth who report being gang members also report higher levels of delinquency. In studies conducted in Chicago, Los Angeles, San Diego, Rochester (New York), and Denver, males were found to report more frequent and a wider range of delinquency than girls. Male gang members surpassed female gang members, but female gang members surpassed male nonmembers. Across all of these studies, gang members reported approximately three times as many delinquent offenses as did nongang members. Longitudinal studies have shown that levels of

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self-reported delinquency go up after youths join gangs and decline again after youths leave their gangs. Gangs and violence

In a national survey conducted in the late 1970s, Walter Miller found that by far the most common defining characteristic of gangs offered by representatives of agencies dealing with gangs was violent behavior. Field researchers in the decades since have reached a similar conclusion. In a study of Milwaukee gang members, John Hagedorn reported that gang members were well armed and had unactualized potential for engaging in violence. From another field study in St. Louis, Scott Decker described how gang members’ lives were permeated with thoughts and actual incidents of violence. Many gang members report joining their gangs out of fear of gang violence only to discover that their risk of violent victimization is actually increased. Violence serves as a method of initiation for many gangs through ‘beating in’ rituals or requirements to commit an act of violence against members of rival gangs. The day-to-day activities of gang members were characterized by violence, and even gang members’ own proposed solutions for gang problems were violent in nature. Of the 99 gang members included in Decker’s study which was published in 1996, 16 were dead by New Year’s Eve 1998. In order to explain cycles of gang violence at the community level, a contagion model has been suggested. In such a model, subsequent acts of violence are directly linked to preceding acts of violence through an expanding network of retaliation. The central role of violence in gang life is evident in recent patterns in gang homicide rates. Between 1987 and 1992, the number of gang-motivated homicides in Chicago increased five times. In Los Angeles County, the number doubled in that same period of time. Most large cities with gang problems reported that in the early 1990s a larger and larger proportion of their city’s homicide victims involved gang members. Some cities such as Chicago and St. Louis report that about one in four homicide victims are gang members. In Los Angeles County, authorities claim that nearly half of homicide deaths are gang members. Gangs and drugs

There are two very different opinions among researchers about the role of gangs in drug sales. The first argues that gangs run well-organized narcotics distribution operations. The other presents the contrary view that while individual gang members may engage in drug sales and especially drug use, organized drug-selling operations by gangs as organizations is comparatively rare. Interestingly enough, both of these very different perspectives originated from studies of crack distribution in California. One study was based on interviews with prison inmates and representatives of law enforcement agencies. Its authors

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concluded that many gangs are organized solely for the purpose of selling drugs. They characterized involvement of gangs in drug distribution as disciplined and structured. A principal conclusion was that many gangs in California effectively controlled the drug markets in their territory. The second study analyzed the official records on drugrelated crimes in Los Angeles and several other jurisdictions. The authors of this study concluded that gangs did not control a significant portion of crack distribution and that drug-related crimes involving gang members were no less likely to involve violence than those that did not involve gang members. Subsequent studies of drug sales by gang members in other cities have supported one or the other of the two perspectives. The key question underlying gang involvement in drug markets revolves around the nature of gang organization. In order for gangs to participate in drug distribution with any kind of organizational effectiveness, a stable leadership structure, member roles, shared goals, mechanisms for consistently disciplining members, and the ability to manage collective resources would all be required. Few studies of gangs have substantiated the existence of any of these features in contemporary gangs. In an extensive report issued in 1992, the District Attorney’s Office of Los Angeles County concluded that gangs did not control drug sales in that jurisdiction because of their disorganized and loosely confederated structures. Entering and Leaving Gangs Gang members have been said to be both ‘pulled’ and ‘pushed’ into gang membership. Those pulled into gang membership are attracted by the camaraderie and excitement promised by membership. In many communities, especially Latino and Hispanic, gangs represent a source of cultural pride and identification. A number of studies also quote gang members as stating their motivation for joining the gang to be profits from drug sales and other crimes. There is a general distrust of such professed gains from gang-related criminal activity among most researchers. Youths are pushed into gangs by the perceived threat of violence from other gangs and by the lack of other alternatives. As noted above, the supposed security provided by gang membership often is accompanied by greater risk of victimization. The lack of other alternatives can be represented by both a lack of economic opportunities and deficits in what James S. Coleman called social capital. Whether a member is pulled or pushed into joining the gang, becoming a member is agreed by most researchers to be a gradual process requiring an extended period of trust building and progressive participation. Most gangs do, however, have a recognized initiation process to mark the point at which a gang associate makes the transition to gang member. Most often this initiation involves violence.

The most widespread procedure is being ‘beaten in’. In the beating in process, the new initiate usually experiences a brief infliction of violence by current members. The next most common ritual is a requirement to inflict some kind of harm on a member of a rival gang or at least issue through some action a challenge to a rival gang’s sovereignty. Such challenges usually involve assault on a rival gang member or committing an act of vandalism or a robbery in the rival gang’s territory. Any initiation requirement is, however, likely to be waived for a younger sibling or cousin of a current member with some level of prestige. Several incidents given attention in the media involve the initiation of female members by male gang members in mixed-sex gangs through a process described as ‘sexing in’. The veracity of the most highly publicized incidents of this type have been subsequently challenged. In most cases, female gang members enter the gang in initiations similar to those required of males, most often being beaten in or required to perform a violent act against a rival gang. Most often the initiation of females is the responsibility of other females. In some incidents recorded by researchers, female gang members have ‘set up’ females whom they did not really intend to include in their group for group rape or other abuse by male gang members. There exists considerable mythology about leaving the gang among gang members. Media reports and gang members have attested that it is simply impossible to leave the gang. In some gangs, there is a myth that the member must kill a parent in order to leave the gang without experiencing the gang’s wrath. The truth is that no such exit from a gang has ever been recorded. In some gangs, there is a ritual ‘beating out’ comparable to the ritual ‘beating in’. Based on studies from a number of cities, though, it is a very simple matter for members to leave their gangs. The major problem is that former gang members find little else to do outside of the gang. Gang members who try to leave too often find themselves hanging out with the same old associates and engaging in many of the same activities that they did as a gang member. The gang is where the former members’ friends are, and there are few opportunities, social or otherwise, to take their place.

Responding to Gangs Types of Response Irving Spergel led a team of researchers in conducting a 1988 national study of promising gang intervention programs. From this study, four basic strategic responses to gangs were identified. These were suppression, social intervention, community organization, and economic opportunities. First, suppression was the most common reaction to gang problems in the 1980s. On one hand, it involved

Gangs

traditional criminal justice efforts to identify and incapacitate serious offenders. On the other, it involved enhanced networks between criminal justice agencies and the implementation of sophisticated intelligencegathering techniques. The rise of suppression as the dominant response to gang crime problems in the 1980s may have been a function of growing political conservatism, or suppression may have simply been the easiest and most rapid response to implement in reaction to increased levels of gang violence. In most cases, the institutional instrument of suppression strategies has been police department gang crime units, many modeled after Los Angeles Police Department’s Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums (CRASH) program. A 1992 national survey reported specialized police gang units in 53 of the 79 largest city police departments. Of these units, a majority were created after 1986. The second most common strategy used as a response to gangs in the past has been social intervention. Social intervention strategies primarily have taken one of two forms – agency-based service programs and street outreach programs. In the agency-based programs, youth centers usually offer adolescents a secure setting in which to participate in structured recreational activities while receiving other kinds of services. One of the oldest and without question the most widespread agency-based program involved in gang response is the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. Frederic Thrasher evaluated a gang intervention program at a New York ‘Boys Club’ in 1928. In a typical Boys and Girls Club in St. Louis, a gang prevention and intervention program is provided to specifically targeted youth at high risk of gang involvement. At the same time, the club offers water recreation activities (including kayaking), organized sports programs, music and art lessons, and even a free dental clinic. The other kind of social intervention program is street outreach. These programs have been called detached worker or street worker programs. In street outreach programs, workers approach and interact with youths on the streets of their neighborhoods where risk of gang involvement and youth violence is greatest. On the street, the worker provides counseling. From the street, the worker makes referrals to agency-based social intervention programs. Social intervention programs were the most common response to gangs in the 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s. A study published by Malcolm Klein in 1971 on his research in Los Angeles questioned the effectiveness of social intervention strategies. When such strategies dealt with gang members within the context of their gangs, Klein concluded that programs could increase the cohesion of the gangs. The first large-scale gang response program was implemented under the leadership of Clifford Shaw, a University of Chicago professor, who had conducted extensive research on gangs in 1929. The Chicago Area

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Project was in its philosophy and structure a community organization strategy – the third type of strategic response. Residents were empowered to elect the leaders of the Chicago Area Projects, of which the major goal was the strengthening of interpersonal ties within the community and greater community control over key institutions such as police, schools, and government. Subsequent community organization strategies were implemented in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. A major criticism of these earlier community organization programs has been their inadequate or inconclusive evaluations. The fourth response strategy to gangs has been opportunities provision. This response strategy is based on the importance of access to legitimate opportunities for avoiding and ending gang involvement. Opportunities provision strategies are financially costly and difficult to implement. Under this response strategy fall programs that provide job preparation, training, and placement for gang-involved youths, as well as programs that reintegrate younger gang members back into schools or alternative educational programs that can enhance their future employability. The 1988 national survey found that opportunities provision strategies were the least common of all strategies. Major Gang Initiatives In 1982, Walter Miller advised that any significant reduction in collective youth crime would require major federal initiatives. In the 1990s more federal and local initiatives responding to gangs were in place than ever before. In 1988, under the Omnibus Anti-Drug Abuse Act, the Youth Gang Drug Prevention Program under the Administration on Children, Youth, and Families (ACYF), US Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), was implemented. Between 1989 and 1996, this program established gang program consortiums in 16 cities and a diversity of single-agency gang prevention and intervention programs (including programs designed specifically for females, new immigrant youth gang members, and intergenerational gang families). Each year between 1991 and 1994, ACYF sponsored an annual conference designed to build skills, communication, and understanding among representatives of funded projects and other agencies with shared goals. Although the Youth Gang Drug Prevention Program was eventually phased out, it provided a model for a number of programs that would follow. Programmatic responses to gangs have emerged in conjunction with an unprecedented level of federally funded research on gangs. The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention undertook a longitudinal research program in four cities to identify the causes and correlates of delinquency. The first wave of

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data was gathered in 1990. In 1991, an initiative on research on gangs was undertaken by the National Institute of Justice. Many of the findings cited in this article were generated by these research efforts. In addition to longitudinal research on gang involvement in Rochester, New York, and Denver, and the national surveys of law enforcement agencies about record keeping and levels of gang activity, research was conducted on gang activity in correctional facilities, patterns of gang migration, and other topics with relevance for policy. In 1995, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention established the National Youth Gang Center in Tallahassee, Florida. The center is responsible for maintaining updated information on the level of gang problems nationwide and serving as a clearing house for current information on gangs. At least three major gang program initiatives with strictly defined evaluation guidelines were in place in 1997. The first was the Comprehensive Community-Wide Approach to Gangs implemented by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency in five cities. The Community-Wide Approach is generally known as the ‘Spergel model’ because it was developed by Irving Spergel from his surveys and program analyses conducted between 1988 and 1992. The Spergel model is primarily a community organization strategy with integrated social intervention, opportunities provision, and suppression components. Training manuals were produced for law enforcement, grassroots organizations, schools, youth service agencies, prosecution, the court, probation, and corrections. Once the mobilization is underway, any of the component agencies can be the lead or mobilizing agency. The model was designed to be tailored to the special needs of each individual community. The program’s flexibility encourages local program planners to assess the special features of local gang problems and take advantage of local agency strengths. The guidelines for community mobilization are intended to facilitate interagency cooperation and minimize interagency conflict. The Spergel model was funded for implementation in five sites. The results of evaluations at each site revealed areas of success and failure that can be incorporated in future programs. At the same time that the Spergel model was being developed, the Causes and Correlates Program was developing a systematic response to serious, chronic, and violent offending by juveniles. The model was based on a social development model emphasizing protective and risk factors and focusing on the influences of family, school, and community. A key principle of this response model (called the ‘comprehensive strategy’) required the juvenile justice system to become part of a comprehensive continuum of services and sanctions for youth. Officials at the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention had become convinced that the problems of serious, violent, and chronic offending and gang-related crime were related. In their most commanding initiative

to date, the agency undertook the implementation of a combined program called Safe Futures in four urban sites, one rural site, and one Indian reservation. The Safe Futures Program combines both the Spergel model and the comprehensive strategy. Initiated in 1996, funding for Safe Futures projects was larger and extended over a longer period of time (5 years) than funding for previous comparable efforts. Each program was required to incorporate a local evaluation and cooperate with a national evaluation. The program implementation evaluation was positive, but outcome evaluations were incomplete or inconclusive. Some sites terminated their programs early failing to spend all of the funds available. In addition to community organization initiatives, two other kinds of gang response programs were implemented in the 1990s. A law enforcement strategy that tied suppression to community organization is community orienting policing. In 1996, the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) office in the Department of Justice launched a 15-city Anti-Gang Initiative. The 15 target cities were selected on the basis of their consistency in providing gang-related crime statistics to national surveys in the preceding decade. The local programs were encouraged to choose among a number of community policing strategies, including the improvement of data collection, the integration of law enforcement agencies into community-wide responses to gangs, and the provision of a safer setting in which less-suppressive response programs could be given a chance to develop. Evaluations of the programs published by the Department of Justice showed mixed results. The final contemporary gang response program of note is school based. Gang Resistance Educational Assistance and Training (GREAT) was modeled after the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) program. Under GREAT, uniformed police officers provide in-class training to fourth- and seventh-grade students. GREAT is funded by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) of the US Treasury Department. Initial evaluation results of GREAT suggested that the program was successful in reducing gang participation by middle-school children in the short term. However, a longitudinal evaluation revealed the positive effects of the GREAT program to diminish with time. ATF redesigned the GREAT program curriculum, and the revised GREAT program is undergoing a stringent evaluation.

See also: Drugs and Violence in the USA; Ethnicity and Identity Politics; Juvenile Crime; Minorities as Perpetrators and Victims of Crime; Ritual and Symbolic Behavior; Youth Violence

Gender Studies

Further Reading Curry, G. D. and Decker, S. H. (2002). Confronting gangs: Crime and community, 2nd edn. Los Angeles: Roxbury. Decker, S. H. and Van Winkle, B. (1996). Life in the gang: Family, friends, and violence. New York: Cambridge University Press. Huff, C. R. (1996). Gangs in America, 2nd edn. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Klein, M. W. (1995). The American street gang. New York: Oxford University Press.

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Miller, J. A. (2001). One of the guys: Girls, gangs, and gender. New York: Oxford University Press. Moore, J. W. (1978). Homeboys: Gangs, drugs, and prison in the barrios of Los Angeles. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Short, J. F., Jr. (1990). New wine in old bottles. In Huff, C. R. (ed.) Gangs in America, 1st edn, pp. 223–239. Newbury Park: Sage. Spergel, I. A. (1995). The youth gang problem: A community approach. New York: Oxford University Press.

Gender Studies Lynne M Woehrle, Mount Mary College, Milwaukee, WI, USA Donna Engelmann, Alverno College, Milwaukee, WI, USA ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Overview What Is Gender? Patriarchal Gender Relations and Violence

Glossary

Women and Peacebuilding Conclusion: Viewed through a Gendered Lens Further Reading

Ecofeminism An academic and activist movement which applies feminist analysis to theorizing about and acting on environmental issues. Equity Feminists Those feminists whose goal is to achieve equality of rights, opportunity, and social standing between women and men. Feminism Theories and practices that challenge male dominance and privilege. Critiques patriarchal power relations. Gender One’s socially constructed identity as male or female. May or may not be identical to one’s biological sex characteristics. Glass Ceiling The invisible barrier that keeps members of a less-powerful group from advancing into the top-tier leadership and decision-making positions in a society or group. Intersectionality A theoretical perspective that analyzes social structures and relations from and at the

points where various categories (e.g., race, class, gender, etc.,) intersect. Argues that oppression is not an additive model (e.g., race þ class þ gender) but a dialectical model. Marginalization Placing a person, group, theory, or practice to the edge of society. It utilizes exclusion from institutions and social relations. Strategies may include silencing, severe disempowerment, and the exclusion from participation in the creation of dominant knowledge. Patriarchy A hierarchical system of power relations that is based on male privilege. Privilege Access to or control over social power and resources that provide power. Often its presence seems invisible, or if visible, natural. Radical Feminists Those feminists who seek to dismantle theoretical frameworks and institutional arrangements, based on gender, which create and maintain patriarchal dominance and oppression.

Gender studies is a multifaceted field of inquiry into social structures and social relations that has important implications for the study of violence, peace, and conflict. Gender analysis provides tools that are applicable to a wide range of social concerns. This article summarizes key aspects in the field of gender studies in order to consider the contributions that gender analysis brings to inquiries into violence, peace, and conflict. A discipline in

its own right, gender studies focuses on the implications of values, actions, and systems formed on the basis of definitions of and beliefs about masculinity and femininity. Suppositions in the theories of gender mesh well with the normative approach of peace and conflict studies. This essay considers the influence that gender studies has and can have on thinking about violence, nonviolence, war and peace, and conflict transformation.

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Overview Gender studies as a field of study does not offer a single, unified approach to understanding the phenomenon of gender. The interdisciplinary nature of the topic and the variety of areas from which gender analysis has emerged means that there are multiple and at times conflicting streams of thought about gender and its meaning and origins. Where gender comes from (learned or innate), what purpose(s) it serves in society, and its relation to other forms of oppression, are central concerns to the field. Although processes of sexism, racism, classism, heterosexism, and ableism vary in the specific ways in which they operate in social structures, each shares a dependence on a hierarchical system of power relations for continued existence. Identifying the operation and effects of those power relations is a central component of gender studies. For this reason, gender studies cannot merely analyze gender but it must also cast a critical eye on the larger systemic nature of social inequality – power and privilege. While research often focuses on the problems of the oppressed, gender studies have opened a discussion of the importance of identifying the role of privilege (the access to and control over social power and economic capital and the ability or recognized ‘right’ to invoke that power) in perpetuating systems of inequality. The power of privilege is its ability to combine multiple levels of exclusion and oppression based on gender, race, ethnicity, class, ability, sexual orientation, nationality, and/or global location. Gender studies work at the intersections of these sources of privilege and oppression to shed light on how systems of inequality are maintained and enforced and this can assist the project of emancipation. It also points to the responsibility the ‘haves’ bear in creating social change and reminds us that the categories of ‘have’ and ‘have not’ are a false dichotomy that oversimplifies the complex web of relations of power. The relevance of gender to the study of violence, peace, and conflict is significant. Our intent is to show how the analysis of gender has over time opened new insights into each of these areas.

What Is Gender? Theoretical Explanations of Gender It is generally accepted across the field of gender studies that sex and gender represent different entities in society. Sex is used to refer to the biological categories, most often described as male and female. While the strict division between male and female sexes seems rooted in biology, seeing sexual identities as polar opposites masks a continuum of sexual identities: intersexed individuals, hermaphrodites, and transsexuals. A well-known feminist

who argues that gender is a continuum is Judith Butler. She supports this claim by pointing out that even on the level of human physiology the existence of intersexed individuals demonstrates that there are in fact more than two biological sexes. She points out that in spite of social stigma around atypical gender behavior in dominant cultures, there is a great variety in the ‘performance’ of gender. Gender refers to the social processes that fit us into the highly distinct (though falsely so) categories we have named male and female. Gender involves action and agency. West and Zimmerman refer to this as ‘doing gender’. Gender can come from either individual actions or institutional structures or systems. In other words, one can put on the clothing and style the hair in ways recognized by society as either male or female and thus reify one’s location in the social structure. More persuasive though in shaping individual actions are institutional rules such as dress codes or even less explicit cultural expectations which may influence or even enforce the practices of gender. For example, female flight attendants were required to wear makeup until they fought their employer in court. And in the late nineteenth century in the United States women could be arrested for wearing pants. If we accept that sex categories exist on a continuum rather than in a dichotomous relationship, it is much more difficult to establish membership in distinct groups and to create a hierarchical ordering of society. Gender analysis points out the ways in which a series of rather discrete variations are treated as categories that can be used to reify the hierarchical systems of power. Once gender is seen as an action rather than as a static role, it is possible to understand how gender can be the basis for enforcing a system of privilege and oppression. We have such deeply embedded structures of gender in society that we will risk everything to fit ‘properly’ into one group or the other. And those who transgress strict gendered social codes are marginalized and stigmatized. Theorists continue to debate how much of an individual’s gender-oriented behavior is culturally induced and how much relates to biological predispositions. Since socialization begins early, often even before birth, separating the biological and the sociological is very difficult. It is apparent that there are some sex-linked chemical differences in the brain, however most scholars agree that the experiences of socialization solidify and exaggerate these differences. Thus gender studies tend to emphasize the social processes of teaching, learning, and enforcing gendered behaviors and beliefs. Within gender studies there is significant variation on how to address and change the gender dichotomies and power relations. Some feminist thinkers and activists, sometimes called ‘equity feminists’, have accepted the socially prevalent structure of gender difference and focus their efforts on rectifying the unjust distribution of social goods between males and females in society.

Gender Studies

Others, who might be termed radical feminists, seek to question and ultimately overthrow the gender categories themselves. Yet others suggest maintaining the differences in role and ability associated with gender categories but eliminating the hierarchy that privileges that which is male. Each of these approaches adds valuable ways for reworking our thinking about peace. More generally what we can draw from gender studies is the concept of gender as socially constructed and the idea that such distinctions provide the opening for destructive systems of inequality, such as patriarchy. This provides important insights for the analysis and understanding of violence, conflict, and peace. Gender in Society Worldwide, the consequences of the use of categories of gender to create hierarchies of political and economic power can be seen in the material conditions of women and children. In the United States, the feminization of poverty – the increasing tendency for those in poverty to be primarily women and their children – has been documented over the last several decades. During this same period, it has also been conclusively demonstrated that women in the United States are paid less than men for work in the same occupation. An important factor contributing to this situation is women’s lack of access to positions of influence and decision-making in government and business – the glass ceiling. Of the CEO’s of the Fortune 500 companies in the US in 2005, only eight were women. Outside the US, especially in the Third World, the political and economic situation for women is very difficult. Despite important strides forward during the United Nations Decade for Women (1985–95) gender inequality is still rife on the global stage. In many countries in the developing world, gender roles restrict women’s access to education, to political participation, and to many sectors of the workforce. In some societies, where there are limited social goods available, such as resources for food, healthcare, and school fees, the resources go to men before women, male children before female children. And in countries with government-imposed, or scarcityimposed restrictions on child-bearing, female fetuses are aborted in favor of bearing male children. Responses of gender theorists to these inequities have taken several forms. Some feminists have argued for the extension and modification of the available theoretical tools of Western notions of human rights. For instance, Charlotte Bunch has argued that the traditional notion of human rights is incomplete because it does not universally encompass women’s rights. In many societies legal protections are not extended to women in the private sphere, such as protection against domestic violence. Other feminists, especially postmodern and Third World feminists have

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recognized the gap between the guarantee of procedural rights and the inequity of social outcomes for men and women. They have argued that the Enlightenment notion of human rights is inherently flawed, in that it assumes that the bearer of rights is an independent, white, male property-owner. At its inception and ever since, this notion of rights has operated only in the public sphere for the benefit of men, and has not been extended to guarantee the political, economic, and social rights of women. Even countries that champion human rights still fail to recognize the necessity of protecting women’s rights, as is seen in the United States’ failure to ratify the United Nations Convention on Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) enacted in 1981. Moreover one could argue that, the insistence by Westerners on imposing their notions of human rights on nations whose cultures do not value individualism, capital and property accumulation, and competition, or share Western ideas of gender and family relations, is a type of cultural imperialism. Responding to these cautions against cultural imperialism, Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen have proposed a capabilities approach to development and rights issues. Nussbaum and Sen argue that there are certain characteristic activities of human beings – capabilities – that can provide a basis for determining what is just in the distribution of resources. These include, among other capabilities, the ability to live out a normal span of life, to have good health, food, shelter, the ability to move around at will, to be educated and to participate in political life, to have choice in reproductive matters and to have sexual and other forms of life-enhancing pleasure, and to avoid unnecessary pain. These capabilities as articulated by Nussbaum and Sen strongly resemble the rights outlined in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights which ground many international and local development schemes. They also parallel the work of Johan Galtung and his concept of structural violence which articulates that violence is not merely the direct physical attack but can also come from institutional inequalities. What might seem basic needs to some is to others a potential trip-wire for cultural imperialism. For example there are arguments about whether the capabilities or rights represent a false, and thus unacceptable, essentialism or universalism. This debate is at the center of academic and policy discussions about development and aid for ameliorating the condition of women and children worldwide.

Patriarchal Gender Relations and Violence Violence and Masculinity Gender studies, which grew out of feminist social critique and the feminist movement to end sexism, concerns much more than studying the ways in which women are

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oppressed in various social conditions. Recognizing the way in which gender operates in a society demands that we understand the experience of males. This is not a singular experience because other sources of categorization, such as race, class, and sexuality, enter into the larger picture of male experiences. The naming of ‘male privilege’ hides important adjectives that go along with that expression. When we look more closely at the intersections of race, class, and gender, we can see that the privilege of being male is a different experience for White, middle/upper-class males than it is for other groups of men. This can affect men’s relations with women. The most privileged men may view their advantage as natural and can justify it based on the rationale that they are better equipped to wield political and economic power. It is to their benefit to exclude women on the basis of gender and to view the power that they have as a failure on women’s part to be strong enough or masculine enough to compete. Thus men’s power over the so-called ‘weaker sex’ is justified in biological and historical terms, and the social structures of oppression and exclusion are ignored. Male power is often reinforced with physical violence, an arena in which men generally have a clear advantage over women. Men who are not in the most privileged categories may have more of a sense of inferiority and thus have a different and more complex relationship with women’s oppression. As author bell hooks suggests, men in the traditionally oppressed and under-represented groups can be an ally for social change if they embrace the goal of ending sexist oppression. On the other hand, these men can also contribute to perpetuating sexist oppression if they believe that exercising their physical power over women is a means for joining the club of the elite privileged male. In this way, Manning Marable in his essay in Messner and Kimmel’s book, Men’s Lives, suggests that men of color and with lower incomes manipulate women in order to try to make up for the disempowerment that they feel elsewhere in their lives. Perhaps controlling women or the family as a whole is their one means of feeling good about themselves. As John Stuart Mill wrote in ‘On the Subjection of Women’ in 1869, the poor man ‘‘exercises . . . his share of power [over women] with the highest nobleman.’’ Studying the impact of cultural assumptions about masculinity and the intersections of gender with other categories is an important strategy for understanding violence and nonviolence, and conflict and peace and the various experiences of these social interactions. Studying ‘domestic violence’ as an important issue in peace studies means unpacking the complex layers of gender in which it is embedded. If we can see beyond a sense of isolated victims and bad individuals we can explore the ways in which gender, race, and class structures of inequality are

an integral part of violence that happens on a seemingly personal level. Connecting the societal to the individual level resonates with the familiar feminist slogan which insisted ‘‘the personal is political.’’ Violence against women by men is a means of controlling women and maintaining or enforcing male privilege. Male privilege is the mainstay of a patriarchal system. Work in gender studies has also shown the intertwining relationship of militarism and patriarchy. It is argued that violence against women is linked to all other forms of violence that are perpetuated by the model of dominant and dominated that is basic to Western forms of hierarchical rule. One example is provided in the intersection of gender and peace studies. Scholar/activist Betty Reardon described the reinforcing relationship of patriarchy and militarism pointing out that the virtues of patriarchy are the virtues of martial culture. The justifications for the domination of women and the use of violence against them to maintain male power in the domestic sphere, parallel the arguments used to justify military aggression. Another example is provided by a range of theorists who argue that the analysis of rape and sexual assault should look at them as products of patriarchal relations where men utilize violence to maintain power. Thus it is a system of rule and not a biological function to dominate and violence, including war, functions to maintain those in power. Power is not exclusively abused by men. As bell hooks argues, there are many ways in which women also use this system to dominate others, including other women. Violence is seen as a means for achieving security and wide latitude is given to the state for violent acts committed in the guise of nationalism and protection of citizens. As children we are consistently exposed to the idea that violence is the most effective way to deal with conflict. Feminism points to violence and gender distinctions as mutually reinforcing each other. As we have seen, violence is used against women on the interpersonal level to enforce patriarchal rule. Social institutions such as competitive sports and the military provide examples of negative views of weakness being associated with the archetypal female. In these settings the insult of being or acting like a ‘weak woman’ is attached to men and women who are unwilling or unable to participate. Women are not only placed as the victim they are also blamed for the system. For example, women who have been raped have been accused of bringing the sexual assault on themselves through their own promiscuity, choice of clothing, social image and status, participation in sex work, or even natural beauty. An important part of the patriarchal gender system is the privileging of heterosexual intimate relations. The social construction of heterosexuality as the norm – what feminists have called ‘compulsory heterosexuality’ – is achieved in a number of ways, one of which is the

Gender Studies

repression of homosexuality through homophobic violence. Many people are surprised to learn that with the increasing public presence of homosexuals in social institutions and throughout daily life, violence against homosexuals has increased. Besides ridicule, discrimination, and general social exclusion, homosexuals are constantly faced with threats and acts of physical violence if they make their sexuality public knowledge. Women and the War System Sex and sexism are used to limit and control women within many institutions; international relations and war provide important examples of this process. In patriarchal social structure women are viewed as property. Many historical precedents in Western legal code are based on this objectification of women’s bodies as property of men. For instance, Carole Pateman has argued that the social contract which governs relations among male citizens in patriarchal liberal democracies has its foundations in an unspoken agreement among them to treat women and children as property. We still have not moved beyond patriarchal arrangements that pass a woman from her father to her husband to her son. It is this objectification of women as property that makes it possible to believe that violence against women is a plausible means for gaining power over women or over other men related to the women against whom the violence is directed. It is also the rationale that makes women targets for the enemy. Violence against women can enter into struggles to maintain culture against outside influences. Women are often pawns in the practice of state politics. And women as a group seldom have much say in the processes of foreign relations. Sometimes women are the victims of violence used in resistance against unwanted foreign political and cultural influences. Two examples of this are explored in Moghadam’s work, including sati, the tradition of wifeimmolation in India, which has been revived in recent years by religious traditionalists in resistance to the introduction of values perceived to be Western and the increasing influence of modernity. Also the sometimes violent enforcement of hijab and seclusion is argued by some to be a resistance to the cultural colonialism of Western economic and military powers. Women feel the violence of state politics in wartime. They are the most likely to be displaced and along with children make up the vast majority of refugees of conflict. There are plenty of examples throughout history where the rape of women is a conscious strategy of warfare and cultural genocide. But this is not a new concern; perhaps more surprising is that it is still used as a strategy in the twenty-first century despite a clear exposure of its basis in power rather than in sexuality. War shares with sexual assault the characteristic of being a mechanism for shoring

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up masculinity through power assertion and the controlling of another. Cultural offense through the sexualization of a situation has also entered into wartime practices such as torture, as exemplified by the case of the sexual and physical torture of Iraqi prisoners by US military personnel at Abu Ghraib prison in the Second Iraq War. Women have also served as soldiers in war for both the state and for rebel groups. This phenomenon has been extensively studied and many scholars conclude that it rarely leads to the elimination of sexism or the long-term empowerment of women. The presence of women soldiers has led to increased visibility of instances of sexism in the military, but thus far women have not gained significant political or social power through military service. Governments formed by rebel groups have usually expected their female participants to return to tending what are considered the gender appropriate responsibilities in that society once the conflict is over. The association of female with weak and male with strong and successful is rife throughout military organizations and the history of modern warfare. An excellent analysis of the embedded masculinity in military organizations appears in the work of Carol Cohn, writing in her 1987 article in Signs, Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defense Intellectuals, about her firsthand observations of ‘nukespeak’ among military leaders and strategists. This, coupled with accounts of misogynist training rituals in the preparation of military recruits and the barring of women from positions of power and honor in the military, suggests means by which we can do a structural analysis of gender inequality and its relationship to masculinity. The practices of institutionalized prostitution, female sexual slavery, and human trafficking are important examples of the treatment of women (and other disempowered groups) as property to be used rather than as beings with agency. In some cases women become bounty in war, claimed as slaves by the enemy and often later traded or sold into prostitution. One force for the expansion of prostitution globally has been the military. Enloe has observed the pattern of locating houses of prostitution near military bases. Historically women have been encouraged to support war and conflict by making sure that soldiers receive sexual gratification. The claims of Korean women against the Japanese government for their use as ‘comfort women’ for Japanese troops in World War II is a prime instance of involuntary sexual servitude in war. Whether voluntarily or involuntarily providing sexual outlet for male soldiers, women’s bodies are integrally connected to their experience of international politics.

Women and Peacebuilding There are three stages that occur in the process of integrating the study of women and women’s experiences into

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theorizing. In the first stage the history of participation of the silenced actor or concept is reclaimed, named, and included. Feminist movements over the years have left a wake of books and articles about women’s contributions. In the second stage women are included in the larger picture, and books written by women may be included in the curriculum or cited by scholars. A research study may include a more diverse sample or the category of gender becomes a variable for analysis. This stage is often referred to as ‘add-and-stir’ gender studies. In the third stage, gender or female is not merely a variable but it becomes a paradigm of analysis. So, for example, in studying social inequality one would not just control for gender, but rather the larger social context of patriarchal systems would guide the development of the analysis. Two books written in the 1980s helped guide the emergence of the third stage in US gender studies: Carol Gilligan, In A Different Voice (1982), and Mary Field Belenky and colleagues, Women’s Ways of Knowing (1986; 1996). Perhaps a more important influence, however, is the theories of intersectionality that have been generated by womanist theorists writing about feminism from the margins of society. The work of postcolonial critics such as Audre Lorde, bell hooks, Angela Davis, Chandra Mohanty, and Patricia Hill Collins, among others chart the way for seeing the multi-dimensionality of gender and oppression. The four sections that follow provide examples of the potential for integration of gender analysis into peace and conflict studies.

the supposed superior standard of living of the developed nations. The spiritual poverty in the midst of material plenty of the developed nations – demonstrated by high rates of mental illness, drug addiction, and personal violence – and the relation between spiritual poverty and estrangement from nature, is less visible to Westerners themselves, but still very real. Sandra Harding and other feminist philosophers of science have argued that science and technology have played a leading role in worldwide patriarchal dominance. The supposed value-neutrality and objectivity of scientific method has cloaked science and its resulting technological advances in an aura of certainty and inevitability. In reality, science has been firmly in the control of and has conferred its benefits upon the wealthy and powerful. Its pretense to being a progressive force for all humankind has served to conceal such damaging results as destabilizing and polluting military technologies, exploitation of natural resources, and unchecked consumption. Harding and others have argued that it is important to recognize the validity of non-Western and indigenous methods of acquiring knowledge. It is also necessary to acknowledge that social contexts and value systems influence all forms of knowledge production, including Western science, so that these practices and their results can be properly examined and critiqued. In the absence of these critiques, science and technology will continue to be a force for widening the gap between the richer and poorer nations, resulting in increasing misery and political instability.

Ecofeminism and Peace Analyses of the intersectionality of race, class, and gender oppression have been applied in the arena of environmental activism. Ecofeminism has developed as an international movement that includes academic feminists and first and third world environmentalists. Ecofeminism encompasses a variety of approaches to thinking about and acting on behalf of the environment, but all ecofeminists recognize the necessary linkage between a healthy ecology and healthy lives for women and children. Ecofeminists view patriarchy as responsible for both the oppression of women, the poor, and indigenous people and for systems of production and consumption which view nature as a commodity to be used and discarded. Vandana Shiva has argued that in pursuit of an illusion of progress, Third World development projects designed to promote industrialization on the Western model have enriched their Western sponsors while doing little if anything to alleviate the poverty of Third World people. Worse, they have tended to replace small-scale indigenous ecological practices with large-scale degradation of the environment. Shiva distinguishes between material poverty and spiritual poverty. While Third World material poverty is real and highly visible, it is also relative to

Conflict Transformation/Mediation For centuries women have played central roles in conflict and in resolving conflict. As discussed above women’s bodies have been violently abused as a strategy of escalation in conflict. Women have become workers in the wartime industries, making it possible for more men to join combat. Women in significant numbers have joined revolutionary armies, particularly in colonial and postcolonial societies. Alternately women have participated in and led nonviolent confrontations throughout the world, documented at least as far back as when Hebrew women hid their sons in the bulrushes to protect them from the Pharaoh. Carrying the precepts of gender studies into research on conflict demands that gender (and thereby other relevant social categories as discussed earlier) be introduced into the analysis. In studies of conflict and conflict resolution, gender is currently introduced primarily as a variable rather than as a social paradigm. Therefore, most study of gender in conflict has tended to look at the influences of sex category differences in behavior rather than in the way in which gender operates in conflict and conflict resolution. Exceptions to the ‘variable approach’ are evident in work that views conflict

Gender Studies

and conflict resolution as situated in a particular social system, such as patriarchy. This research then considers how a woman’s identity as female and her experience growing up as a female in a system of male dominance impact on her attitudes and approaches to conflict. There is also comparison in this approach of male and female views toward conflict situations and toward the possible range of solutions. A further step is to see that the very conflicts and any possible resolutions themselves are embedded in the system of power relations in a particular social structure. In many cases power is controlled mostly by men, by whites, by heterosexuals, and by the upper and middle classes. The ways in which dominant systems of gender shape our experiences of conflict are also apparent in research on communication. Deborah Tannen and others have argued that in the process of learning how to be masculine or feminine we also learn different styles of communicating. Women and men also develop different expectations for when and how communication should happen. These differences are thought to be an important source of conflict between men and women. Conflict styles also seem to differ, not for biological reasons but because of social messages that encourage women to please and to submit (and thereby women practice conflict-avoiding behavior), and that teach men that conflict is a contest of wills and that winning is what is ultimately important. But how we conflict and communicate is not only about gender. It is also about race and class and the many other social categories that place us either in positions of power or of dominance. The work of bell hooks in Feminist Theory from Margin to Center highlights that there are alternatives to the two major White Western models of dealing with power: (1) dominant/submissive relationships where someone must be in a position of superior power, or (2) a separatist model in which the answer to power inequalities is for the submissive party to exclude the oppressor. As a woman who lives at intersections of race, class, and gender oppressions, she rejects the White feminist claim that gender oppression is the root of all other oppressions and calls for a multifaceted understanding of power relations. In the early 1980s an important contribution was made by feminist theoreticians to the field of conflict resolution. Early writings on mediation as an alternative to litigation had extolled its promise for resolution of conflict in a way that achieved win-win solutions rather than winner take all outcomes. With the development of the literature of feminist jurisprudence, new critiques emerged that broke down the dominance of male-centric theory and practice in the field. One important critique shared by feminists and critical legal theorists recognized that the private and non-precedent setting nature of alternative dispute resolution made it inappropriate for addressing conflicts arising over the rights of women and other oppressed

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groups, who deserved their day in court and place in the legal record. Another concern was that existing power imbalances between men and women in US patriarchal culture were not being recognized in practice by mediators, who assumed a level playing field and equal negotiating ability on the part of the parties in conflict. These inequities emerging in conflict resolution practice led to a rethinking of the meaning of the requirements of neutrality and impartiality on the part of mediators. Maintaining neutrality between unequally socially situated parties might not mean treating them the same, but rather recognizing differences in their interest in and competence to negotiate. Particularly telling examples of gender power imbalances arose in mediation of divorce and custody cases, where women’s submissiveness to the men in their lives often resulted in their surrendering their interests in mediation. As Deborah Kolb suggests in her 1988 book Her Place at the Table, having learned different negotiation styles and having different levels of power, women may be at a disadvantage in current practices of mediation and arbitration. Knowing what we do about cultural differences in handling conflict and the power implications of race and class, it is likely that our options for negotiating and solving problems are really much wider than current literature and practice suggests. Thus we might treat the facility for particular styles of communication and negotiation among women and other marginalized groups as a resource rather than as a liability. If women and people of non-Western cultures prefer and are good at transformative approaches to conflict resolution that aim as much at preserving relationships as at maximizing interests, a wider role should be found for these approaches in not only domestic and local conflicts, but international ones as well. The study of how social categories (e.g., race, class, gender) and cultural factors may deeply change how we relate to, define, enact, and resolve conflicts is a desperately needed area of research. Gender and Nonviolence One of the more interesting debates to emerge from the intersection of gender analysis and the study of peace, violence, and conflict is whether women are more peaceful than men. Some in society carve out a particular place for women as peacemakers. They claim that by nature and through the experience of mothering, women are more apt to oppose violent responses to conflict. In a sense peacemaking is a niche that women can claim. Sara Ruddick provides an analysis that transcends simple gender distinctions. Instead she argues that women engage in caring labor and thus view negatively the impact of war on society. So the explanation is that women are socialized to nurture and thus prefer peaceful means of settling conflict. That said, she also points to the

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ways that women have participated in and supported wars. The question in gender analysis then is not a static association of women with peace or men with war; rather, it is to ask whether the gender system in any way shapes our relations to violence or nonviolence. In this regard, the theoretical understanding of women’s relationship with peace parallels the development of other areas of gender theory. Feminist theorists in the 1970s and 1980s tended to give essentialist accounts of women’s experience and capabilities, rooting their analyses in innate differences between men and women. As feminist theorists subjected one another’s work to critique, they moved to more nuanced and multiple understandings of women’s experiences, based on similarities in socialization processes across historical periods and cultures. Looking at women’s participation in nonviolence provides an example of more deeply integrating gender analysis into the study of peace. Ruddick proposes the concept of maternal nonviolence. Other women work on the historical reclaiming of memories about women’s nonviolent actions. There are hundreds of books and articles that document the nonviolent actions of women around the world, throughout history. But there is minimal recognition of gender as a means of analyzing the philosophy of nonviolence or the specifics of nonviolent action. The small group that works on the latter project exists among the margins of theorists in the field. The system of gender assignment often teaches women to be passive and to solve conflicts by avoiding violence to others and by absorbing the consequences themselves. Because of this, women’s passivity is often seen as nonviolence. But nonviolence, as Barbara Deming so often pointed out, is active, not passive. Some women’s silence is a form of violence either to themselves or others. Nonviolence teaches respect and boundaries. Deming describes it as the two-hand method, protecting my needs while offering you what you need. For those without social power (e.g., women or people in post-colonial societies) the first step towards nonviolence is awareness and rage. Often this rage has to be expressed and then can be constructively shaped into a very powerful nonviolent force – such as the tree-hugging movement in India or the Greenham Common protests of the 1980s. There are many critiques of the ‘woman is peaceful’ motif. Critics point out that historically women have played all sorts of roles in society and many of them have perpetuated violence. Another problem with the ‘woman as peaceful’ analysis is that it marginalizes women who participate in violence, such as members of liberation armies, into the category of bad women. It makes essential a particular approach and experience of being a woman. And that approach emerges predominantly from the experiences of the colonizers rather than the colonized.

Women intellectuals have extensively considered the relationships of women, peace, war, and international politics and roundly rejected the assumption that women are naturally peaceful or nonviolent while at the same time reserving a special place in society for women doing peacemaking work. Another approach suggested is to view the act of gendering war and peace as a product of a patriarchal system. Assigning certain activities to each gender helps to establish a sense of difference between male and female. That sense of difference is exploited into definitions of masculinity and femininity. So rather than attributing women’s participation in peacemaking to the fact that they have the resources and the power to make it their responsibility it is instead attributed to their gender. At the same time the violence of men is made more acceptable because it is argued that it is in the nature of the male to solve problems in this way. Christine Sylvester argues that one perspective is to see that the war system and the peace system are really two halves of a whole. To affix a gender association to war and to peace is actually to reify patriarchal definitions of world politics and systems of power relations. Peace Movement Organizations The work of peace-building stretches well beyond the processes of caring for returning soldiers or working for human rights. While many aspects of international politics have been closed to women until recently, peace movement organizations have long benefited from the efforts of women as both members and leaders. Women have participated both in single-gender peace organizations and in mixed gender groups. Peace has been defined in a variety of ways by women. In many parts of the world it is related directly to issues of development and daily survival. For example, Mertus shows the importance of postwar economic development in improving the situation of women in Bosnia and Afghanistan. Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan environmental activist who won the Nobel Prize for peace in 2004 for her role in creating the Green Belt movement, insists that there can be no peace unless we care for the environment and provide for appropriate development. Women have often been able to use their groups to press for peace and the end of war or conflict. The Women’s International League of Peace and Freedom (WILPF) was critical in the formation of the initial League of Nations, a precursor to the United Nations. Because it had formed alliances with many different groups the Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition was central to the formulation and success of the talks that in 1998 produced a peace agreement. In Argentina, women who were seen as outside of politics used their social role as mothers to bring local and global awareness of the government’s policy of ‘disappearing’ activists and critics.

Gender Studies

Antiwar groups have also utilized women’s identities to criticize foreign policy. In 2003, the group Code Pink was established in the United States with the purpose of opposing the Iraq War and related wars on terrorism. The group uses the highly gendered symbolism of pink but plays on it to give leaders the ‘pink slip’ or to suggest the absurdity of color coding security (yellow, orange, red). The organization Women In Black utilizes the image of women in mourning dress to protest the impact of war throughout the world. They stand in silent protest in places where violence tears apart society. The group Raging Grannies juxtaposes the wisdom of the elder with the power of rage to provide political commentary at public protest – usually through song. And a popular bumper sticker reads ‘‘well-behaved women rarely make history.’’ Even within peace movement organizations women have found it necessary to address systems of sexism and to push for positions of leadership. Antiwar posters from the Vietnam War era provide an example of the problem: some against a military draft read ‘‘Women say yes to men who say no.’’ These are no longer considered acceptable because women spoke up. And women are more often now in leadership positions in mixed-gendered peace organizations. Yet even so there continue to be moments of re-creation of gendered roles within peace movement organizations and women find themselves working on both sexism and anti-militarism simultaneously.

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Conclusion: Viewed through a Gendered Lens Bringing gender studies into research on violence, peace, and conflict is essential. A gender analysis helps to show that even the most basic systems that we may assume are ‘natural’ are in actuality socially constructed and culturally embedded, and serve to perpetuate larger systemic values. In the case of gender analysis it makes the institutional structures of patriarchy more apparent. If gender is approached from a view of the intersectionality of privileges and oppressions, then it also becomes apparent that male privilege connects to White privilege, to class privilege, and to heterosexual privilege. Noticing these intersections may complicate analytic work, but it gives us a more complete view of the issues and events that we study. A preliminary picture of how gender analysis might shape the work of the field of peace studies is charted in Table 1. On a theoretical level, gender analysis requires that we renegotiate the meaning of several concepts: violence, power, justice, difference, and social movement theory. The typologies listed in Table 1 suggest that gender studies expands the traditional definition of violence studied in peace research. Thus, issues of personal violence and structures that perpetuate violence against women are defined as types of violence that are socially unacceptable in our vision of peace and justice. Table 1

Table 1 Intersection of gender with violence, peace, and conflict Gender and. . .

Personal

National

Global

Economic Status

Glass ceiling

Sweatshops and Maquiladoras

Militarism

Misogynist military training

Violence

Domestic/family violence

Nonviolence

Nurturing approaches in families and neighborhoods

Conflict Transformation

Use of alternative styles of conflict resolution and communication

Social Change

Empowerment of women and girls through education, leadership development, and political participation Consumer choices, everyday conservation activities

Lower wages for comparable work; feminization of poverty Rape in war, military and prostitution, sex and torture Cultural images of violence toward women Collective protest (hunger strikes, witness for the disappeared . . . etc.) Influence on inclusion of affect and power relations into training for conflict intervention skills Policy making to insure infrastructure that supports the empowerment of women Advocating for policies that protect the health of children, reforestation projects, challenging environmental racism Making gender central to analyses of issues in peace and conflict

Making the links between healthy environment, appropriate development and peacebuilding

Environment

Theoretical

Feminist consciousnessraising

Women as refugees Female sexual slavery Women’s movements for peace

Recognizing and including women’s particular experiences of war and violence Creating and participating in coalitions with broad spectrum of marginalized peoples

Developing global scholarly community that utilizes theories about the intersections of race, class, gender, and sexual identity.

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also begins the project of de-centering Western experiences of violence and inequality by pointing to the connection of individual levels of gender inequality with global levels of social and economic inequality. Feminist scholarship and experience offer several ways of altering our traditional definition of power as the ability to control and to have or to own. This traditional definition of power focuses on the tangible accumulation of symbols of wealth, including money, women, land, industry, food, shelter, and slaves or employees. However, we can alter power by redefining what it means and who has it, recognizing that power has always existed – if unacknowledged – in the form of competence, passionate commitment, self-determination, and effective collaboration. While the academic study of violence, peace, and conflict has tended to focus on the nation-state, a gender analysis demands that analytic work be done across all levels of human interaction. Moreover, the definition of politics is extended to cover those whom it affects, not just those who have a voice. A gender analysis can help point out where other analytic frames have privileged the male perspective on a particular subject such as nonviolence theory or mediation training. A gender analysis demands that we ask in each moment of theory building: In what ways is gender influencing what is happening here? The emphasis is on realizing that gender is not natural, objective, or neutral. Rather, gender is always a product of dominant cultural systems and of the structure of power relations in a given society. See also: Conflict Management and Resolution; Family Structure and Family Violence; Feminist and Peace Perspectives on Women; Globalization: Its Diverse Actors and Spaces; Military Culture; Nonviolence Theory and Practice; Peace Culture; Power, Alternative Theories of; Sexual Assault; Social Control and Violence; Warriors, Anthropology of

Further Reading Allen, B. (1996). Rape warfare. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Belenky, M. F., Clinchy, B. M., Goldberger, N. R., and Tarule, J. M. (1996). Women’s ways of knowing. New York: Basic Books. Brownmiller, S. (1993). Against our will: Men, women, and rape. New York: Ballentine Books.

Bunch, C. (2000). Encyclopedia of women: Global women’s issues and knowledge: Women’s human rights, an introduction. New York: Routledge Press. Butler, J. (1999). Gender trouble. New York: Routledge Press. Cohn, C. (1987). Sex and death in the rational world of defense intellectuals. Signs 12(4), 687–719. Confortini, C. (2006). Galtung, violence and gender: The case for a peace studies/feminism alliance. Peace and Change 31(3), 333–367. Deming, B. (1981). Remembering who we are. Kansas City, MO: Naiad Press. Enloe, C. (2001). Bananas, beaches, and bases. Berkeley, CA: University of CA Press. Gilligan, C. (1982). In a different voice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Harding, S. (1998). Is science multicultural? Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press. Harris, A. and King, Y. (1980). Rocking the ship of state: Toward a feminist peace politics. Boulder, CO: Westview. Hooks, B. (1984). Feminist theory from margin to center. Boston, MA: South End Press. Kolb, D. (1988). Her place at the table. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Law School. McAllister, P. (1983). Reweaving the web of life: Feminism and nonviolence. Philadelphia, PA: New Society Publishers. Mertus, J. (2000). War’s offensive on women. Bloomfield, CA: Kumarian Press. Moghadam, V. (ed.) (1994). Identity politics and women. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Nussbaum, M. and Sen, A. (eds.) (1993). The quality of life. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Pateman, C. (1988). The sexual contract. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Reardon, B. (1996). Sexism and the war system. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. Ruddick, S. (1989). Maternal thinking: Towards a politics of Peace. New York: Ballentine. Shiva, V. (1989). Staying alive: Women, ecology and development. Atlantic Heights, NJ: Zed Books, Ltd. Smith, K. (2005). Prebirth gender talk: A case study in prenatal socialization. Women and Language 28(1), 49–53. Sylvester, C. (1995). Riding the hyphens of feminism, peace, and place in four (or More) Part cacophony. Women’s Studies Quarterly 23(3–4), 136–146. Tannen, D. (1990). You just don’t understand: Women and men in conversation. New York: Morrow. West, C. and Zimmerman, D. (1987). Doing gender. Gender and Society 1(2), 125–151.

Relevant Websites http://www.codepink4peace.org/ – Codepink Women for Peace. http://www.feminist.org/ – Feminist Majority. http://www.huntalternatives.org – The Initiative for Inclusive Security, Hunt Alternatives Fund. http://www.twnside.org.sg/ – Third World Network (TWN). http://www.womenforwomen.org/ – Women for Women. http://www.womenwarpeace.org/ – WomenWarPeace.

Genocide and Democide

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Genocide and Democide Allen D Grimshaw, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA Published by Elsevier Inc.

Introduction Some Complexities of Definition(s) A Goal-Oriented Typology of Democide A Sampling of Cases

Some Patterns in Democide, in Genocide, and in Other, Large-Scale Killing Intended Mass Extinctions of Human Beings at the Millennial Turn Further Reading

There is probably no area of contemporary scholarly research in the social historical disciplines and the social sciences that generates more bitter contention over facts, such emotional turmoil over theorizing on causes, motives, and intentions, or such barrages of conflicting ideological claims as the area addressing matters of statesponsored or -condoned large-scale killing of groups or categories of domestic or foreign civilian populations. Different constituencies have stakes in inflating or minimizing estimates of numbers killed in historical instances of such killing; there have been denials that the Holocaust and the Armenian genocide ever actually occurred. There are students of the Holocaust who insist that that terrible event was unique; other scholars disagree. Experts who read various drafts of the following article have taken sharp issue with this version of reported facts and with sources selected in this article. They have disagreed no less sharply with each other. Readers should keep in mind that the topic is profoundly controversial. The author simply hopes that they will be sufficiently stimulated/distressed by what is reported here and that they will look closely at more comprehensive and better-documented sources.

sponsored by their governments) as have died in war. The number of magnitudes of difference between democidal deaths and those in war has increased over time (three times as many in the earlier period and five times as many in the current century). At the same time, both have decreased with the increase in democratic governments; democidal killings in twentieth-century democracies are massively lower than those in totalitarian states of any period (Kressel). While there are no worldwide or over-time data on homicide, the numbers killed by governments must be massively greater than those murdered by individuals. The proportionate risks of dying by homicide or as a casualty of war, or as a victim of slaughter by the government to which one is subject, are not reflected in public attention to different ways of dying. Perhaps in part because of the mind-boggling enormity of the facts of genocide and other democide, there has been much less research on them than on other varieties of violence that have taken fewer lives. The Oxford English Dictionary gives 180 inches to war, 80 to murder (plus another 10 to homicide), and two and a half to genocide and genocidal (the terms democide and politicide have yet to make their way into standard references). Author’s local research library subject index lists fewer than 844 items under genocide, 3589 on murder, and 84 977 on war. Similar patterns exist in papers presented at professional meetings. In the following the author: (1) discusses some problematic dimensions of labels and definitions for large-scale government killing and identify criteria that should be considered in such discussion; (2) provides a synthesis of some goal-oriented typologies and a sample of exemplars from different historical periods and geographic areas; (3) focuses on select patterns in genocide and other state-sponsored large-scale killings; (4) directs attention to popular and scholarly interpretations of and explanations for genocidal and other democidal behavior, and to official reports about specific instances; (5) considers issues of forecasting and controlling democidal behaviors; and (6) comments very briefly on issues of morality and inevitability.

Introduction Rummel devoted three decades to compiling documentation of the numbers of victims of internal and international war and government killing in domestic and international democide (in their several manifestations) and to analyzing the causes of these behaviors and their differential distribution across nation states. After tracking down estimates for these behaviors from the beginnings of record-keeping, Rummel concluded that in every period, governments have killed more of their own subjects than they have foreign enemies by substantial margins (Table 1). Even low-end estimates suggest close to 400 million victims of large-scale killings by governments, and some estimates are considerably higher. Roughly four times as many people have been killed by their own governments (or in killing

870 Genocide and Democide Table 1 Democidal and war deaths, Pre-twentieth century and twentieth century

Period

Deaths by democidea (thousands)

War deaths (thousands)

Total killing by government (thousands)

Pre-twentieth century Twentieth century Total recorded historyb

133 147 169 198 302 345

40 457 34 021 74 478

173 604 203 219 376 823

a

Subsumes genocide and politicide, domestic and foreign. Extrapolated from 1900–87 figures. Source: Adapted from Rummel, R. J. (1994). Death by government. New Brunswick: Transaction and Rummel, R. J. (1997). Power hills: Democracy as a method of nonviolence. New Brunswick: Transaction. Rummel’s estimates are largely low to mid-range across multiple sources.

b

Some Complexities of Definition(s) Social violence is violence directed against individuals or their property solely or primarily because of their membership in a social category, whether that category be age, cohort, socioeconomic class, dependency status, educational attainment, ethnicity, nationality, native language, occupation, political affiliation, religion, veteran status, or a fan, or not, of a particular sports team. Fatal social violence sponsored or condoned by states is the topic of this article. For an initial working definition we can say that all murder of members of social categories by governments constitutes what Rudolph Rummel has called ‘democide’. Rummel includes in democide (1) mass murders and massacres such as reprisal, murder by quota, and the sack and rape of captured cities and (2) state terror such as death squads, purges, and ‘disappearances’. Democide where the group or category assaulted is ethnic, national, or religious (or possibly linguistic) constitutes a special subcategory called ‘genocide’. Politicide (Harff and Gurr) is government murder of people because of their politics or class status or for political purposes, and is manifested in assassinations as well as mass murder. (A government may be under attack, and both sides can be responsible for democide in civil wars, revolutions, uprisings, and so on.) It will be evident that conceptual boundaries are permeable. While it seems likely that there has been large-scale killing of subject populations by governments as long as there have been governments, terms for identifying different varieties of such slaughter are fairly recent (at least in English). The term genocide was coined by Lemkin, who, writing for the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, observed: New conceptions require new terms. By ‘‘genocide’’ we mean the destruction of a nation or ethnic group . . . . Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when it is accomplished by mass killing of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential

foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves . . . . Genocide is directed against the national group as an entity, and the actions involved are directed against the individuals, not in their individual capacity, but as members of the national group. (Lemkin 1944)

Lemkin was writing about events in Europe during World War II; his term gained widespread currency during the post-World War II war criminal trials and in 1948 was incorporated into international law in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of the United Nations (UNGC). Article II of the Convention reads: . . . genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. (Cf. Levy, two of whose four conditions which will terminate the existence of a society are (1) the biological extinction or dispersion of the members and (2) the absorption of the society into another society.)

The initial draft of the Convention contained language that would have extended protection to political groups and would have criminalized ‘cultural genocide’ via destruction of languages, religions, or cultures. These protections were never enacted because of resistance from countries of varying political structure and cultural diversity, who all likely believed they would not themselves practice genocide, but that other countries might try to infringe on their sovereign rights to restructure their political life or favor one or another language or religion (Reisman). A number of problems have contributed to dissatisfaction with the terminology of the UNGC (and therefore to the appearance of supplementary nomenclature) and

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disappointment with the UN’s inability to do anything about genocide (or other varieties of democide). Many observers were unhappy with (1) gaps in coverage and (2) the ambiguity of the notion of destroying a group ‘as such’. This vagueness along with a general unawareness of the pervasiveness of democidal phenomena historically and comparatively has contributed to both (1) the development of new terminology and typologies and (2) a contentious and continuing dispute over whether the Holocaust was a manifestation of a widespread phenomenon of the human species or whether, rather, the Nazi killings of the mid-twentieth century were somehow unique. This same vagueness, along with the specification that only states can invoke the Convention and the inability to provide means of enforcement, has meant that attempts to curb genocide and other democide in the 50 years since passage of the UNGC have been largely unsuccessful. Acceptance by the UN itself of the Genocide Convention did not come easily. Power reports that Lemkin, carrying a bulging briefcase filled with new proposals and answers to complaints about earlier versions, was a familiar figure, frequently avoided by delegates as he grew old in service of his dream. In the years immediately following UN passage of the Convention it was ratified by a substantial majority of member states, not including the United States of America. Ratification of the Convention by the Senate was pursued by Senator William Proxmire, who vowed to give a speech in favor of ratification everyday the Senate met until the Convention was ratified and fulfilled the vow, by an increasing number of senators of widely varying political persuasions, ultimately by a President Reagan somewhat chastened by widespread negative reaction to his visit to Bitburg, and, finally, by increasingly strong support from citizens and citizen organizations of a general liberal bent, and by opinioninfluencing print and electronic media. There was strong resistance from The Liberty Lobby, the John Birch Society, and other arch-conservative organizations, from a small but implacable rear-guard of Senators with coherent ideological positions opposed to ratification, and their media allies. Those opposed argued that US sovereignty would be lost, US citizens would be subjected to UN rule, and the US could be accused of genocide for its treatment of current and past domestic and foreign minorities. When the Senate finally ratified the Convention it did so with a: stringent Senate ‘‘sovereignty package that included RUDs,’’ or reservations, understandings and declarations. These interpretations of and disclaimers about the genocide convention had the effect of immunizing the

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United States from being charged with genocide but in so doing they also rendered the US ratification symbolic. (Power, 2002)

The net effect of the RUDs in the three decades since ratification has been to completely hamstring any efforts by ‘any’ US administration to act effectively against ongoing genocides anywhere in the world.

What Genocide Is Not The term genocide is often used for behaviors and events that meet neither the formal definition of the UNGC nor the more global characterization that this article is intended to convey. Three usages are particularly problematic because they apply the term to behaviors or events that, however unsavory, cannot be accurately characterized as, ‘‘committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group as such.’’ First, pogroms and punitive raids are not genocide, even though there may be large numbers of fatalities; their aim is not to destroy a group but rather to intimidate members or perhaps even to have some fun bullying the weak (Brass). (Such events may be democidal.) Self-destruction by cult members may be intended to destroy a ‘religious group’; it is not state sponsored and thus does not meet the UNGC definition. Horowitz also argues for a different status for ethnic riots, semispontaneous attacks by civilian members of one group on civilian members of another. Nor do government shootings of political protesters meet the genocide standard; the victims are not members of the kinds of groups listed. Second, while many millions died in the African slave trade (in Africa itself, in the Middle Passage, and in an often brutal socialization into slavery), they were not victims of genocide. The intent of those who enslaved them was not to ‘‘destroy any national, ethnical, racial or religious group’’ or any social or political category. The motivation of participants in the slave trade was profit – slaves themselves were viewed as a (too slowly) renewable resource. Slavers were not indifferent to the health of their human cargo; illness on board threatened slave and slaver alike. Slave owners in the new world were generally similarly motivated to keep their property healthy and productive. Third, teaching immigrant or minority children in a majority language with the end of enhancing their success in the majority-dominated society is not genocide. Nor is provision of birth control education and devices to poor women who are members of minorities. Nor is criminal law (e.g., on drugs), which disproportionately imprisons members of a minority population. Nor is revocation of affirmative action. While such actions may make life more difficult for subordinated populations, their intent is at least putatively benign.

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Uses of the term genocide for nongenocidal events allows publics to disattend reports of actual genocide/ democide on grounds that many behaviors so characterized are aberrations, not very significant, or even benignly intended. In the remainder of this section on definition, this article comments briefly on (1) active and passive methods of democide, and (2) variations in killing by scope, a sort of scalar approach. Active and Passive Democide The most visible and obvious killing by governments is active killing (sometimes after assembling large numbers of victims) of known or identifiable members of target social categories. Killing is done by asphyxiation, beating, bombing, burning, burying alive, crucifixion, decapitation, defenestration, and other pushing or throwing from high places (including aircraft), disembowelment, dismemberment, drowning, electrocution, explosion, exposure, gassing, hanging, impalement, lapidation (stoning or burying under stones), mines (land and other antipersonnel mines as well as marine mines), poisoning, ‘putting to the sword’, shooting, strangling, torture, and various combinations of ‘punishments’ from this unfortunately incomplete listing. Readers may think some of these methods are archaic; there is documentation that all are currently in use. Other methods, such as the largescale use of ‘weapons of mass destruction’, including biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons, are in only limited use at this writing, but they are ready for use at any time. Some scholars include the sterilization or other prevention of births to members of social categories, or rape of women members with intention of denying the group new members. Some of these methods, such as the large-scale gassing associated with Nazi ‘death camps’, require a substantial infrastructure; large numbers of people can be forced to cooperate in their own slaughter by having them dig their own mass graves with little more equipment than shovels and firearms (or even axes and swords). Or, victims may simply be marched to the banks of swiftly flowing streams, murdered, and dumped in. The choice of methods of killing reflects the size of the job to be done – a few hundred indigenes ordinarily constitute a lesser logistical challenge than millions of members of racial, ethnic, or religious categories. All of these methods have been used for both genocide and politicide. Those responsible for killing may be more willing to acknowledge using more ‘respectable’ methods, such as hanging or firing squads, but all are used. Large numbers have been killed without the benefits of modern technologies. The active killing just described is clearly intentional. The intended effects of other actions by governments (including inaction) are often unclear. Still, they result

in deaths of millions of their own subjects and those of other countries; these are example of passive democide. Widespread death from starvation results from wartime blockades (Biafra, Bosnia, Congo, Eritrea, Somalia, and some of the post-Soviet states are late twentieth-century examples), from ‘scorched earth’ tactics of armies that are retreating in transit, from government seizure of harvests, levies of agricultural supplies, and collectivization or other reorganization of agriculture. Tens of millions died in the one-time Soviet Union and in the People’s Republic of China as a consequence of governmental policies reorganizing agriculture; smaller numbers have died elsewhere. Millions have also died from famines in which governments have failed to move available food to where it was needed and the effects of famine and epidemic have been exacerbated by ‘withholding’ of food, shelter, medical assistance, clothing, and so on. Millions of people have died ‘incidentally’ as a result of forced labor (often with minimal sustenance) ranging from galley slavery to heavy toil in miasmic plantation swamps or always dark and noisome mines or dangerous factories. ‘Incidental’, too, were at least some of the millions of deaths that resulted from fatigue and exposure of populations, particularly the very young or old and weak and disabled, and so on, on marches (or trips on densely crowded trains) of expulsion and forced relocation to Indian reservations in the United States or across Russia to Siberia or to defeated Germany (after World War II). Countless additional millions have died as the result of usually unintended introduction of disease – or failure to control known causes of disease. Epidemics often followed initial contact with Europeans, particularly in the Americas and the Pacific. Governments have often spent immense sums on arms instead of the provision of pure water, thereby ensuring continuing endemic status of cholera and other water-related diseases (Sivard). The United States is a major exporter of tobacco products in spite of known linkages to mortality. The extent to which these various causes of large-scale death can or should be considered as democide seems ultimately to come down to questions of intent. Four government perspectives can be identified: (1) the view that as many should die as needed to break a population’s spirit and will to resist (blockades, sieges, embargoes, etc.); (2) a position parallel to depraved indifference or disregard for life or criminal negligence in criminal law (some forced labor, some relocation, some collectivization); (3) the orientation that costs are inevitable, some will die but ‘‘you can’t make omelets without breaking eggs’’ (some collectivization, some relocation); and (4) a sort of fatalistic acceptance of impotence to prevent deaths (famine, environmental toxins, etc.). Individuals, bureaucracies, and entire governments may delude themselves; instances where massive killings are accompanied by the

Genocide and Democide

first two perspectives are candidates for characterization as (passive) democide. Some count as genocide attempts to insulate children from their native culture through quarantine away from home, often in boarding schools where they are forbidden to speak their native languages or engage in native cultural practices. Indeed, such action may constitute genocidal practice under the UNGC definition. Similarly, some members of minorities consider crossracial adoption as genocidal. The practices may result in ‘culturecide’; they do not involve killing. How Many at a Time, How Many Altogether There have been times and places where a glimpse of a lone member of some category, or a small party, would set a hunt in motion. We associate such ‘hunts’ (sometimes seen as ‘sport’) with settlers hunting and killing indigenes in the Americas, in Australia, and in South Africa. Many American ‘Westerns’ portrayed Indians as equally likely to track down and kill small parties or individual Whites. In more modern times sighting of members of minorities or stigmata associated with education or class (e.g., glasses or soft hands) have set off similar chases and precipitated similar deadly outcomes. Individuals have also been selected and slain (periodically) as religious sacrifices or to assure the health and vigor of tyrants or in reprisal or simply to intimidate subject populations. Many but not all ‘individuals’ killed are nonanonymous and perhaps even known to their killers. (Goldhagen writes of men, women, and children and their German executioners marching two by two, side by side, into the woods where killing was to be done.) Anonymity is more likely when governments (or their agents or allies) kill people in ‘batches’ in mass executions by gassing (as in Nazi Germany) or by firearms or sharpedge weapons or in siege warfare and subsequent sacking and slaughter of inhabitants. Even more ‘distancing’ is involved when large numbers of anonymous people are killed by so-called strategic bombing, ship sinkings, or the use of ‘weapons of mass destruction’. While it may seem that these last kinds of slaughter are behaviors associated only with war between foreign powers, it has been alleged that Iraq has used both bombs and chemical weapons against minority Kurds (attempted genocide?) and both sides used bombs in the Spanish and other civil wars. There are, finally, killings on a grander scale. Throughout history, some regimes have stated (and published) goals to exterminate peoples and social categories. The Nazis wanted to destroy Jews (and possibly Gypsies), and long-term accommodation of the handicapped and of homosexuals was not in the future of the Reich. The Soviet Communists wanted to exterminate old-style kulaks (a category for which they developed an extremely elastic definition) and other ‘enemies of the state’;

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Cossacks and other ethnic and nationality groups became defined as such enemies. The Romans hunted down Christians. Some United States Army officers would have liked to slaughter not only all adult Indians but children and infants as well. Most Americans of European origin in both hemispheres grew up hearing some version of the ‘‘The only good Indian is a dead Indian’’ mantra attributed to General Philip Sheridan. The difference among these last cases is that the Soviet and Nazi democides were explicit government policy, while the government of the United States, however much its officials may have condoned genocidal actions against Native Americans, did not enunciate any such policy. What does ‘how many’ mean? More than 60 million people were killed in the Soviet Union in the 70 years after 1917, about 55 million by various regimes in China in the 70 years after 1923, and more than 21 million by Nazi Germany in the shorter period of 12 years ending in 1945. Only two million were killed in Cambodia in the 4year Khmer regime (1975–79). Still, the Cambodian politicide was much greater proportionally; while more than 8% of the entire Cambodian population was killed annually during this period, the ‘rate’ of death in the USSR was less than one half of 1% during the various communist regimes between 1917 and 1987. In the USSR one person in 200 was being killed, in Cambodia one in about 11. The totals are staggering, but the distinction between absolute and relative numbers should be kept in mind. The percent of Jews who became victims varied across countries under Nazi influence or domain, and urban and rural Khmer had different likelihoods of victimization in Cambodia.

A Goal-Oriented Typology of Democide In a later section, this article reviews a number of behavioral science perspectives that seek to explain social violence, whether manifested in atrocity, massacre, rioting, varieties of democide, or war. Most students of genocide have limited their explanatory efforts to eclectic invocation of elements of various general theories to account for specific genocidal events, or have developed classification schemes that try to make sense of these behaviors in terms of apparent goals of perpetrators. In the following proto-taxonomy, the author draws on typologies developed by a number of scholars of genocide. The terms they use overlap, are sometimes contradictory, and vary, as does what gets included in a specific type. Economic There are at least three varieties of economically based democide. ‘Predatory’ democide occurs when a victim

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population is in possession of valuable commodities (precious minerals of the Aztec, Maya, and Inca) or land (North American natives), or are themselves potentially valuable as slaves. ‘Developmental’ democide occurs when conquerors convert land use or otherwise alienate resources necessary for indigenous ways of life. This has occurred everywhere colonial powers have initiated latifundiary economies. Related to this is ‘structural’ democide, where similar disruptions occur to already established societies, as by the introduction of cotton culture and the subsequent desiccation of the Aral Sea or damage to Native American and Black populations in the United States through the presence of reservations and ghettoes.

Members of elites and of police and the military are no more insulated from risk than are slaves, peasants, merchants, or the intelligentsia. Villages or neighborhoods can be destroyed because of inconvenience suffered in passage through them, or extended families wiped out because of imagined plots, or individuals regularly forced to kill one another in fights to the death, and so on (Hinton). Killing goes on not because of any specific concern to instill terror but because, as Acton says, ‘‘Absolute power corrupts absolutely.’’ Ancient African and Asian empires and the USSR under Stalin and Hitler’s Third Reich are classic examples of such regimes; Amin’s Uganda and Haiti under Duvalier are among better-known examples in the second half of the twentieth century.

Retributive A first variety of retributive genocide occurs when a group which believes (frequently correctly) that it was victimized in the past, or is currently being victimized, gains power and takes revenge, or simply rebels against those who have power and control. Historical instances of such ‘subaltern’ genocide in the eighteenth century include the Haitian revolution led by Touissant L’Ouvreture and Dessalines, the Sepoy Mutiny in colonial British India, and a number of Native American insurgencies in the Americas (Robins). A second variety occurs when a dominant group visits massively disproportionate reprisals on minorities for delicts such as stock stealing or justified homicide by individual members of the group. Norton reports that during White settlement in Northern California in the 1850s entire bands of Native Americans were killed by Whites as punishment for what amounted to attempts by Native Americans to protect themselves. In the latter part of the twentieth century retribution has been visited by Serbs on Croats and Muslims, by Hutu on Tutu and the reverse, by Hindus and Muslims on each other in the Indian subcontinent, and by Tamils on Sinhalese and Sinhalese on Tamils. Memories are long; Serbs punished Croats for events during World War II, and Muslims for events that putatively occurred four centuries ago. While many events in the second half of the twentieth century have involved ethnic and national groups, retributive politicide has also occurred, as when the Chinese Communists successfully ousted the Nationalists (Kuomintang), or peasants rebelled against their masters. In at least some of these instances violence was certainly not official state policy and quite possibly not state-condoned. Despotic/Hegemonic/Repressive Subjects of despotic rulers are subject to abduction, enslavement, torture, and death at the whim of the tyrant.

Strategic-Tactical: Dominance Maintaining/ Intimidating/Threat Controlling Other despotic and totalitarian regimes are reputed to employ terror more deliberately. Reports on the Mongol hordes frequently express the belief that Ghengis Khan slaughtered all the inhabitants of cities which dared resist to intimidate rulers and residents of cities yet to be attacked, so that the latter would surrender easily in hopes of being spared. Nazi forces in conquered areas of Europe and the Japanese in Asia slaughtered hostages and potential leaders to reduce resistance and facilitate control. This sort of pragmatic democide also differs from the despotic variety in that it is likely to be foreign rather than domestic. Ideological The potency of ideological belief in motivating behavior is well established; three varieties of ideology closely associated with democide can be identified. ‘Political’ ideologies often combine elements of idealism and selfinterest as when it is anticipated that a new order will make everybody’s life better, including one’s own, or where protecting one’s position of privilege is equivalent to defending natural or god-ordained order. ‘Manifest destiny’, the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’, ‘death to the American imperialist infidels’, and the ‘thousand year Reich’ have all resonated, and have all been associated with democide. ‘Religious’ ideologies have been major factors in genocide from the first emergence of coherent religions. Pagan Romans killed Christians and Christians killed pagans and animists the world over for centuries. Major democide occurred between Christians and Muslims, particularly during the Crusades. Shortly afterwards, Protestant and Catholic Christians began killing each other. Hindus and Muslims engaged in mutual slaughter from the first appearance of Islam on the Indian

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subcontinent. Din (religion in danger) and jihad (holy war) have been rallying calls for Islam for more than a millennium (there have also been long periods of both local and national amity). Similar slogans reflect other religious ideologies and have been similarly invoked in largescale killing. Racial ideologies about the superiority of one or another group and the inferiority of others seem always to accompany contact between groups. In some cases, as in anti-Semitism, characterization of Jews as inferior has been comfortably accommodated with portrayals of them as successful schemers and exploiters. Slogans here include ‘final solution’ and ‘only good Indians’ and lead to colonialist open seasons on wogs and kaffirs, eliminationism in Nazi Germany, and the ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Yugoslavia as it dissolved in the 1990s. Habitual/Inertial/Institutionalized/Traditional There are many societies that have populations of minorities which constitute recognizable and more or less permanent underclasses. Blacks, Mexicans, and Native Americans constitute such categories in the late twentieth-century United States, as do Native Americans in some central and south American countries; even Western-educated Indians constituted such an underclass in British India along with Africans in British colonies in Africa and Filipinos in the American-controlled Philippines. In such circumstances members of the underclass are subject to social, economic, and political discrimination and are more likely to be subject to police brutality, execution, and killings classified as ‘justifiable police homicide’. While the killings are not large scale in the short term, they are in the aggregate. While racial ideologies are likely to be invoked in explanation for democide of this variety, but it is also likely to be explained as just ‘what happens’, in much the same sense that people have fights when they drink lots of alcohol and kill one another when weapons are part of the scene. Genocidal and Other Democidal Massacres Massacres minimally require that armed military or paramilitary units of some sort be co-present with members of a target population, and legitimated by governmental or subgovernmental authority. Sometimes massacres are the direct result of orders from higher authorities. In other instances the likelihood of massacre increases with fear among military (or quasi-military) units that they may themselves be attacked by the target population. The combination of arms, fear (and sometimes fatigue), and vulnerable populations can be a lethal one; whether killing actually occurs depends in part on actual policies and intentions of governments and military superiors and, particularly, on field commanders’ perception of policies

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and wishes. Massacres occur in the course of war. Toward the end of World War II in Europe SS troops slaughtered unarmed prisoners at Malmedy, and during the war in Vietnam US troops killed nearly all the Vietnamese of every age and gender in My Lai. While the Germans were engaged in the ‘Final Solution’, there is no evidence that either the military or civil authorities intended the elimination of American captives. Nor, however some senior officers in Vietnam may have encouraged high ‘body counts’, was there any American ‘policy’ of genocide. The shooting of hundreds of unarmed Indians at Jallianwala Bagh by General Dyer’s troops, which was a major impetus for the independence movement in India, did not reflect government policy, nor, again, did the shooting of Native American women and children at Wounded Knee reflect that of the US government. It has sometimes been the case that governments or government officials have acquiesced in or even encouraged vigilante killings, and there are instances where officials have joined mobs. In short, genocidal massacres can occur that are not expressions of government policies intended to encourage democide.

A Sampling of Cases Table 2 lists some of the major democides (including genocide but excluding war casualties) of the twentieth century. Rummel, from whom the table is adapted, has detailed lists and tables of democides of varying size both for this century and for the previous three millennia or so of recorded history. It will be seen from discussion elsewhere in this article that with the exception of efficiencies introduced by the availability of explosives and biological and chemical weapons, democide has not changed much over recorded history. Justification for killings is much the same, as are effects on victims, socialization of perpetrators, variations of in responses from bystanders, and so on. It cannot be argued, even ironically, that civilization has humanized democidal practice. There are, nonetheless, differences across cases of genocide, massacre, and other democide. Ten of the books included in the bibliography (Andreopoulos; Chalk and Jonassohn; Charny; Jongman; Markusen and Kopf; Rummel; Rummel; Staub; Totten, Parsons and Charny; and Uekert) each contain modest to quite detailed descriptions of four or more instances of democide; several also contain extensive bibliographies. Several of the books contain detailed personal and eyewitness accounts (as do others, e.g., Goldhagen). Stiglmayer focuses primarily on mass rape in a single location, Bosnia-Herzegovina; there is more than enough detail in the book to provide a sense of the phenomenon and its many dimensions of pain.

876 Genocide and Democide Table 2 Twentieth-century Democide (thousands)a Regimes

Years

Total

Domestic

Genocide

Megamurderers (10 000 000 and more) USSR China (PRC) Germany China (KMT) Lesser megamurderers (under 10 000 000) Japan China (Mao soviets)b Cambodia Turkey Vietnam Poland Pakistan Yugoslavia (Tito) Suspected megamurderers North Korea Mexico Russia Lesser murderers (100 000 to 999 999) Top five lesser murderers (China [warlords], Turkey [Ataturk], United Kingdom, Portugal [dictatorship], Indonesia) Lesser murderers (under 100 000) World total

1900–87 1900–87 1917–87 1949–87 1933–45 1928–49 1900–87

151 491 128 168 61 991 35 236 20 946 10 075 19 178

116 380 100 842 54 769 35 236 762 10 075 12 237

33 476 26 690 10 000 375 16 315 nil 6184

1936–45 1923–49 1975–79 1909–18 1945–87 1945–48 1958–87 1944–87 1900–87 1948–87 1900–20 1900–17 1900–87

5964 3466 2035 1883 1678 1585 1503 1072 4145 1663 1417 1066 14 918

nil 3466 2000 1752 944 1585 1503 987 3301 1293 1417 591 10 812

nil nil 541 1883 nil 1585 1500 675 602 Nil 100 502 4071

1900–87

4074

2192

1078

1900–87

2792

2335

1019

1900–87

169 202

129 547

38 556

a

Includes genocide, politicide, and mass murder; excludes war dead. These are most probably mid-estimates in low to high ranges. Figures may not sum due to rounding. b Guerrilla period. Source: Adapted from Rummel, R. J. (1994). Death by government. New Brunswick: Transaction.

It is not possible to convey the full diversity of democide over the millennia, by world regions or by characteristics of victims or offenders. This article only illustrates the diversity of democidal events (excluding war) by offering a sample varying on several dimensions and with features that make the chosen instances notable in some way. Examples from each of three bounded time periods are listed. Documentation of particulars and even of general magnitudes for each event is variably persuasive; that they occurred is undeniable.

Pre-Twentieth Century Documentation for the last four of five centuries is substantial. Surprisingly, a combination of archaeological records, contemporary inscriptions by rulers, complementary accounts by contemporaries with quite different stakes in event outcomes, and religious or mythological renderings where a deity is credited with democidal destruction has allowed historians to write with cautious confidence about a number of these earlier events. In the earliest records, democide is known

primarily from the boasts of rulers who claim to have killed many people and to have terrorized many more. Ancient middle east

According to self-reports ancient rulers, particularly the Assyrians, slaughtered foreign civilians during times of war, tortured and mutilated military and civilian captives, raped, pillaged, destroyed. Quotas for slaughter were set, with sliced off ears and noses as documentation. Captured nobles were thrown from towers, flayed alive, slow roasted. Populations were smaller, so killing was sometimes near total (some observers note that only elites may have been eliminated with serfs simply continuing to labor for new masters). Total destruction of cities and all within them was not limited to the Middle East. Schoolchildren learn about the destruction and leveling of Carthage and the slaughter of all survivors of its siege by the Romans. Indeed, similar events accompanied the Crusades, particularly those directed against heretics in Europe itself (Christian Crusaders also kept count with cutoff bits and pieces) and continued in European wars well into the late Middle Ages and occasionally later.

Genocide and Democide

Melos

The Athenians led the Greeks in their successful wars against the Persians. They demanded not only credit for that success but tribute and allegiance as well. Late in the fifth century BC the Athenians demanded assistance from the Melians (descended from Spartan colonists) in the Peloponnesian War against Sparta. They warned the Melians they would be annihilated if they did not cooperate. After debate between the parties the Melians declined the Athenian demand. The Athenians laid siege to Melos and after victory executed all the men on the island and enslaved the surviving women and children. Mongol Hordes, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries

While schoolchildren know little about democide, many remember tales about mounds of human heads/skulls outside of destroyed cities. Successive invasions of Mongol ‘hordes’ brought terror to those in their paths; they are memorable both for their magnitude and their alleged cruelty. Saunders (quoted in 1994 by Rummel) reported that every resident of an ancient Persian capital was murdered, ‘‘and even cats and dogs were killed in the streets.’’ Here and elsewhere, the few who escaped were tracked down and killed. Rummel estimates 30 million killed in successive sweeps across Asia, mostly killed one at a time with hand weapons. Native American empires

Just a short time after the Mongols and just years before Europeans began the large-scale slaughter of Native Americans throughout the hemisphere, the Aztec and Maya empires were engaged in democide, principally through widespread human sacrifice (Davies, Hassig). Similar practices were common throughout the world. The Aztec sacrifices were notable both because of their numbers (claims were made that thousands would be sacrificed for a single ceremonial) and their method (hearts cut out and offered to the gods while still beating). The purpose of Aztec warfare was putatively to take prisoners for sacrifice; it has been asserted that it was because of this that a small number of Spanish soldiers with better weapons and with no interest in taking prisoners was able to defeat them. (One commentator disputes the religious explanation and asserts that the Aztec intensification of sacrifice was merely part of a strategy of rule by intimidation.) The Spaniards, at the time in the midst of the horrors of the Inquisition, justified their slaughter of the Aztecs on grounds of the necessity of stopping the unChristian practice of human sacrifice. ‘American Holocaust’ (Churchill, Rummel, Stannard, Thornton)

There is no consensus on how many native Americans died from direct violence, disease, or despair after the

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arrival of Europeans. Stannard cites sources that depict precontact population of the Americas as greater than those of Europe and Africa. He reports that 8 million Native Americans died within 21 years of Colombus’ landing, and estimates that the numbers at the end of the fifteenth century declined from more than 100 million inhabitants to about 5 million a few hundred years later. Thornton reports that late twentieth century estimates for the earlier period ranged from 15 to 112 million; his own estimate is around 79 million, compared to a world total population of about 500 million. Churchill uniformly accepts higher estimates for this hemisphere. Rummel more cautiously estimates is a bit below 14 million deaths during the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries. The small numbers of Europeans, at least initially, means that a substantial proportion of the millions of deaths were caused not by direct violence but by disease (and as Stannard says, by despair). There is no consensus on numbers. Almost certainly more deaths resulted from disease than from democide. Killing on a massive scale ‘did’ occur, and Europeans (and their descendants) in many venues in the hemisphere have continued to engage in mass killing, mutilation, torture, and rape into the current century. Twentieth Century through 1945 Rummel estimates four democides in which more than 10 million were killed in the millennia of recorded history before the twentieth century. According to his calculations 34 million were killed in China between 221 BC and the end of the nineteenth century AD, 34 million were killed by the Mongols during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, 17 million died as a result of African enslavement (as noted above, democide but ‘not’ genocide), and 14 million died in the Western Hemisphere between the arrival of Europeans and the end of the nineteenth century. These four democides alone account for close to 100 million deaths. Between the end of World War I and the end of the twentieth century, four democides began in which more than 128 million people have already perished (two, those of Nazi Germany and of Kuomintang China, are over) (Table 2). Of all the democides between 1900 and the end of World War II, those of Turkey (Armenia) and Nazi Germany are probably best known; reports in recent years have informed people about the democides of Soviet and Chinese Communism and Japanese atrocities in Asia from 1936 onwards. Democide by the Nationalist Chinese (Kuomintang), by their antagonists (the Chinese Soviets), in Tsarist Russia, and in Mexico are largely unknown except for people whose lives were affected by them. For brief description here two lesser known instances, one small and one massive, have been chosen. They are: (1) the revolt of the Hereros (Bridgman) and

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(2) the multiple democides in China by warlords, the Nationalists, the Communists, and by the Japanese in the 1930s. The Hereros of German southwest Africa (contemporary Namibia)

In 1903 there were 80 000 Herero (a Bantu tribe) and something under 5000 German settlers in the German colony. Two years later there were somewhere between 15 and 20 thousand surviving Herero and a growing colonial population. The scenario was a familiar one: increasing encroachment by Whites, unheeded indigene complaints, discriminatory treatment, individual homicide, and rape. The Herero were promised that if they surrendered their weapons they would be protected from further abuses. They turned in their weapons, but abuses continued. In early 1904 they rose up and attacked Germans, primarily farmers and settlers distant from German population centers and German troops. They specifically told non-Germans that they intended them no harm. By late spring German troops were arriving in great numbers: in October the German commander published a ban of all Herero from the country on pain of being shot on sight. In a separate order he advised that German soldiers should not shoot at women and children – but only over their heads ‘to force them to run faster’. However, when Herero fleeing the country were caught they were shot and bayoneted with no recorded concern about age or gender. The German official historians remarked that ‘‘The Hereros ceased to exist as a tribe.’’ The Herero case is interesting primarily because the slaughter was neither ordered nor endorsed by the military high command in Berlin but was in large part the initiative of local commanders. Many Germans were temporarily embarrassed by the episode but no punitive action against the German military is recorded, and once over the episode was quickly forgotten. The combination of predatory and retributive democide was overshadowed by other events in Europe. 1930s China

While more than 60 million were killed in the USSR between 1917 and 1987 and while the absolute toll of Native Americans killed throughout the hemisphere may have been as large, the highest closely documented cumulative figure for democide in a single country is clearly that for China. Including pre-twentieth century deaths along with those killed in the twentieth century by warlords, the Nationalists, Mao (during the guerrilla period), the Communist regime, and the Japanese during their invasion, Rummel estimates somewhat more than 85 million killed, exclusive of combatants. During one span of two decades (1928–49) 35 million died (this figure

does include war dead), very roughly 40% of all the Chinese democides. Rummel succinctly summarizes what happened to these millions: They have been slaughtered because they happened to live where nationalists, warlords, communists, or foreign troops fought each other. They have been executed because they had the wrong beliefs or attitudes in the wrong place at the wrong time. They have been shot because they criticized or opposed their rulers. They have been butchered because they resisted rape, were raped, or tried to prevent rape. They have been wiped out because they had food or wealth that soldiers or officials wanted. They have been assassinated because they were leaders, a threat, or potential antagonists. They have been blotted out in the process of building a new society. And they have died simply because they were in the way. These poor souls have experienced every manner of death for every conceivable reason: genocide, politicide, mass murder, massacre, and individually directed assassination; burning alive, burying alive, starvation, drowning, infecting with germs, shooting, stabbing. This for personal power, out of feelings of superiority, because of lust or greed, to terrorize others into surrendering, to keep subjects in line, out of nationalist ideals, or to achieve utopia. (Rummel, 1991)

Twentieth Century after 1945 The USSR and the People’s Republic of China, the two largest and most populous Communist dictatorships, continued to be major contributors to democide after 1945. (Rates were declining in the USSR before the regime collapse and dissolution of the Union.) On a smaller scale, some states in the Americas continue to discriminate against, kill, rape, and torture Native American populations; in some places Native Americans have been victimizers as well as victims. The highest rate of democide (primarily politicide but including some genocide) ever calculated, over 8% annually of the population, occurred in this period in Cambodia, also a Communist state. While inaccessibility has made democide (largely politicide) in North Korea (a fourth totalitarian Communist state) difficult to document, reports characterize the state as being high both in absolute numbers of dead and in annual rate. For brief description here, two post-1945 democidal episodes – one in Poland and other areas of Eastern Europe occupied by the Germany during World War II, and the other in Pakistan, because they are little known and somewhat surprising – have been selected.

Genocide and Democide

Previously Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe

This section draws heavily on de Zayas and Wiskemann for historical reviews and on Rummel 1994 and 1997 and his multiple sources for numerical estimates. There were two waves of democidal actions in Eastern Europe at the end of World War II and immediately afterwards. First, as the Red army and its Polish allies drove toward Berlin they raped, tortured, mutilated, murdered, and pillaged Germans living in Nazi-occupied areas in the USSR, Poland, and other countries in Eastern Europe, both prewar residents and participants in the Nazi occupations. De Zayas estimates that 4–5 million Germans fled or were forced by the Nazis to evacuate and that as many as a million may have died. Some news of this filtered into the West, but awareness was low. After Germany fell many of those displaced earlier tried to return to their homes in the East. After the Potsdam agreement (July 1945) that Germans would be repatriated (humanely) they, along with millions who had not fled earlier, were subjected to evictions and confiscation of property along with murder, rape, and beatings throughout the region. Germans were forced to wear identifying armbands, just as Jews had been earlier, and they were subjected to much of the same treatment that had been meted out by the Nazis. Former forced laborers, national and local committees, militias, remnants of national armies that had been fighting alongside the Soviets, partisans and partisan armies, local gangs, and sometimes groups of neighbors joined in assaults on and eviction of Germans (and others as well, including occasionally Jews and other recently released concentration camp inmates). Expellees were marched to existing or hastily constructed concentration camps and packed into railway cars and taken long distances without food, water, or heat. Columns of old men and boys, women, and disabled German soldiers were driven on long marches from the Baltic States, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Yugoslavia, sometimes through frozen mountain passes. Adolescent boys and men were rounded up, held under life-threatening health conditions, and shot without justification. Rummel estimates roughly 15 million expelled in the second wave by postwar governments (or with tacit government assent) and somewhat less than 2 million killed; he notes that estimates for this genocide/ democide vary even more than most in an area of scholarship fraught with controversy. Some of this could be labeled ‘retributive’ genocide. Some in the new regimes tried to protect the victims, or at least provide due process. As elsewhere, there were rescues by neighbors and protection accorded by individual officers and soldiers. Senior officials in the Allied military and diplomatic establishment were aware of these activities and there were protests, intervention, and rescue, but there were limits to what they could (or would) do.

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Publics in the victorious countries were aghast at unfolding awareness of the Holocaust, concerned about their own recovery (and in western Europe, with pursuit and punishment of collaborators) and, in the United States, with the final agonies of the war with Japan. The reaction of distant observers if and when told about these events may well have been that imputed to American soldiers in Vietnam when told about My Lai, ‘‘it never happened and besides they deserved it.’’ East Pakistan/East Bengal/Bangladesh

The Indian subcontinent has witnessed substantial democidal violence during the latter part of the twentieth century. At the time of Independence and Partition in 1947, there were massive movements of population as Hindus sought safety in India, Muslims in the new state of Pakistan, and Sikhs with concentrations of their coreligionists. More than 15 million people became refugees and as many as a million may have been killed in communal violence in a short span, notwithstanding efforts by the new Indian government to control the violence. Violence continued on a smaller scale in the 1990s. The government of India was embroiled in attempts to pacify tribal peoples in Assam. Violence in Sri Lanka increased between the Hindu Tamil minority and the Buddhist Sinhalese majority, Bihari-Pathan violence was endemic in Pakistan; beatings, bombings, and riots were commonplace in the subcontinent (Tambiah). The greatest sustained violence, and that of the greatest magnitude, however, was that of the government of West Pakistan and its army against the population of its so-called Eastern Wing, now the country of Bangladesh (this account draws heavily on Payne (see also Chalk, Jonassohn, and Totten et al.)). During the two decades after Independence the Bengalis of East Pakistan became increasingly unhappy, and vocal, about their underrepresentation in government and the civil service and military, about denial of national status to the Bengali language, and about what they considered to be unfair shares of national development funds. Even their piety as Muslims was questioned. When in 1970 East Bengal was struck by a major cyclone (and associated floods) in which as many as half a million may have died, help from West Pakistan was slow and modest in extent. Outrage grew, ignited political mobilization and electoral action in which the Awami League of the dissident Easterners gained an absolute majority in the Pakistan National Assembly. The government postponed the Assembly, and Bengalis went on what amounted to a general strike. In 1971 West Pakistan moved to subdue the rebellious province. Initial targets were police (and the East Pakistan units of the military) and intellectuals, including college teachers and students, writers, newspaper journalists and editors, cultural leaders, the entire political establishment

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of East Bengal, and in many instances the families of these leaders. Students at the University of Dacca who survived point-blank shelling by American-built tanks were forced to dig mass graves and were then themselves shot. A slum area in Dacca, occupied mostly by Hindus, was set on fire and thousands of its inhabitants were shot. The industrial base was destroyed in order to assure the dependent status of the province. Rape, murder, beatings, mutilation, and torture spread from Dacca to outlying rural districts. There were death camps. Thousands of Bengalis were marched into a river, shot, and pushed into the current. By the time the blood bath was ended with the defeat of Pakistani forces by an intervening Indian army, about a million and a half were dead and 10 million Hindus had fled into India. A successful war of independence soon followed, and victorious Bengalis killed about 150 000 Bihari residents and about 5000 suspected collaborators in retributive genocide. Summary Democide and genocide have occurred on every inhabited continent and during every historical epoch into the present. Victims have included entire populations or categories within populations. Numbers of victims have ranged from a few thousands to tens of millions.

Some Patterns in Democide, in Genocide, and in Other, Large-Scale Killing With more than 300 million people killed, it should not be surprising that there are differences in occurrences of genocide and other democide. There are also patterns, both in democide itself and in differences from other varieties of social violence ranging from riot to war. This section identifies some patterns in democide, looking particularly at aspects of large-scale killing not discussed in other sections. Patterns in events leading up to democide will be discussed in the last section of this article. Ecological Patterns There are no particular venues in which democide is uniquely concentrated; there are few inhabited places where it has not occurred. It is neither an urban nor a rural phenomenon, for example, although some ‘types’ of genocide, such as that of indigenous populations, most often occurs in areas far away from metropolitan centers. Jews were herded into urban ghettoes during the Nazi Holocaust, and Einsatzkommandos went to towns and hamlets to kill Jews there. Indeed, one ecological pattern of democide has been the transport of victims to places where they are killed, often with stops at concentration

camps or other collection centers, and of executioners to places where victims are located. Victims are also driven on deadly forced marches to new locations. Unknown numbers have died in transport (Elkins calculated that only 5 of 15 million captured Africans survived the trip to slavery; see also Conquest on the USSR). Efforts may be made to collect victims at less visible times and places (e.g., in the early morning hours and at unfrequented railway sidings); the principal consideration most often is to cope with logistical problems. Temporal Patterns Riots usually occur during daytime hours and in good weather. Political disappearances usually occur at night. Genocide, in contrast, occurs continuously once begun, postponed only because of shortages of killing space or personnel or because of weather severe enough to disrupt transport. Killing is ordinarily limited only by technological and logistical constraints. Lifton found stages in the Nazi genocide, during which the variety and number of victims increased; there is too much diversity in instances of genocide and democide to say with what frequency such temporal stages occur. Participants A very considerable amount is known about victims, perpetrators, and bystanders (Hilberg) and, somewhat more recently, rescuers (Fogelman) and refusers (Goldhagen). There are available detailed studies of killing professionals and of professional executioners (Goldhagen), of rape victims (Stiglmayer), and of survivors. (With the exception of Stiglmayer these books focus on the Holocaust; there have not been specialized monographs on participants in other democides.) The numbing statistics of millions of casualties from contemporary democide (including genocide) are depressing; the eyewitness accounts and recountings of personal experiences (and occasional photographs) are truly unremittingly distressing. (Lifton writes with clarity, honesty, and remembered pain about the personal costs of research at the individual level.) Victims

When mass killing outside of military combat occurs, no category is spared by reason of weakness or age or handicap. (This is equally true, of course, of bombing in the course of so-called total war.) Distinctions are made, however, as when healthy and strong individuals or those with needed technical skills or perhaps physical attractiveness are temporarily spared. Additional distinctions are neither cheering nor comforting. Are individuals or families or extended families or communities killed or transported? Are there warnings, or do prospective

Genocide and Democide

victims wait in terror for knocks on their doors or lists of names? Are the criteria of selection predictable or not? Are all victims treated the same or can the rich, skilled, beautiful, sophisticated, or the simply determined buy time or even escape? What is the nature of assault? Immediate and efficient death? Arson with death coming as victims run from their burning homes? Incarceration in ‘camps’ or churches or public schools with minimal or no food or water punctuated (or not) by beating, torture, and rape? Primarily physical restriction of movement and starvation, or assault or execution? Primarily physical harm, or physical harm along with symbolic and psychological injury such as rape, forcing families to watch mothers and daughters and sisters raped, forcing males to rape or castrate one another, forcing parents to watch their children sexually assaulted and then killed, cutting fetuses from their mothers’ wombs and then slitting their throats? Stripping victims of all their possessions including, just before death, the clothing they wear? Cutting off their hair (or in the case of adult Jewish males, their beards)? Forced motherhood or forced prostitution and pornography followed by execution? All of these things and others have happened in the second half of the twentieth century and many continue today. An obvious question is, why don’t victims more often resist their attackers or at the very least attempt escape? There are variations here. Critical considerations include the disbursement of victimized groups, distance to possible safe havens, past traditions of resistance in the attacked community, prospects for assistance from within the perpetrating or bystander communities and, importantly, psychological denial of the possibility of what is happening. Many have feelings of powerlessness very similar to those experienced by civilians after massive (or nuclear) bombing or destruction of their homes and communities, by survivors of large-scale natural disasters, and by the bereaved. In some cases victims go beyond compliance and even cooperate or collaborate. In the case of ghetto Jews, particularly outside of Germany, community elders often discouraged resistance or escape on grounds that punishment would be visited on the rest of the community. Others are simply immobilized by the enormity of ongoing events or are unwilling to abandon their families. Motivations are obviously complex. Attempted and successful escapees and resisters, there are always some, are overwhelmingly young, healthy, and without dependents; some older resisters engage in sabotage in camps and in factories where they are forced to work. Fein reviews studies of victims’ attempts to cope and concludes that those able to recreate social bonds were most successful. Perpetrators

Perpetrators are generally young postadolescent males. During full mobilization older males are recruited, some

881

women become enthusiastic participants, and even children sometimes participate. Smith discusses women’s active participation in genocides. There are numerous reports of training youth to engage in torture and mass killing and of gradual socialization from being punished, to watching torture, to participating in torture and execution. Perpetrators ordinarily are members of the dominant group engaged in democide; when the killing is international, volunteers are frequently found. In the case of the Holocaust, volunteers and their effectiveness varied sharply from one Nazi-occupied country to another. Participants in Nazi genocide have been most studied. Hilberg distinguishes among reluctants (who approached their work with reservations and misgivings), evaders, volunteers (who sought participation in democide for personal advantage (sometimes because of hopes to punish particular Jews and/or acquire their property) because of hatred for victim categories, perhaps even because the ‘action’ seemed exciting), vulgarians (nonideological bullies and sadists), perfectionists (who set standards for others to follow), and zealots (who embraced both the ideology and its implied responsibilities). There are careerists and draftees. Responses to orders to kill included dutiful obedience, withdrawal and avoidance (sometimes permitted by superiors), enthusiasm, and frenzied overachievement. There are few studies of the psychology or sociology of participation of perpetrators. Lifton studied the recruitment, socialization, and accommodation of physicians who participated in the Nazi genocide, and Goldhagen studied executioners of various sorts. It appears that the defense ‘following orders’ was not even germane in some cases; there is documentation that some perpetrators declined opportunities to avoid participation. The reasons for this are complex and apparently include a feeling of obligation to peers, fear of later reprisals, and a certain amount of opportunism. There are also reports, from both victims and perpetrators, of occasional kindnesses. Grossman studies the psychological aftermath of participation on perpetrators. Both Lifton and Goldhagen, studying quite different populations, reported that many years after their participation, many of their interviewees did not deny participation but justified it on ideological (anti-Semitic) grounds. Similarly, ideology was invoked in characterization of ‘kulaks’ in the USSR and the middle-class and intellectuals as enemies of revolutions (Melson). In the German and Turkish/Armenian cases, there have been manifestations of denial, of guilt, and of adherence to ideological justification. Corporate bodies, such as manufacturers who employ slave labor or judicial bodies that confiscate the possessions of victims or hospitals that sterilize or ‘euthanize’, are also perpetrators. So are legislative bodies that pass enabling laws.

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Bystanders

Only individual homicide is likely to ever be completely anonymous and unwitnessed. Countries are bystanders to war and democide, and majority populations are bystanders to domestic democide. Domestic educational, healthproviding, financial, information, and other institutions also witness governmental actions. The governments, institutions, and people of other countries are, to varying degrees, witnesses and bystanders. Domestic and international bystanders at all levels play various roles. Some, discussed briefly below, become helpers or rescuers or even defenders. Some act opportunistically to obtain gain from the vulnerability and weakness of the victims. Just as some neighbors and pastors have sought to protect victims, some neighbors have blackmailed victims and stolen their possessions, and some ministers have closed their eyes. At the most, very few large-scale twentieth-century democides have been secret from the world. The United States refused entrance to Jews, Swiss banks accepted Nazi deposits of Jewish gold and financial instruments, art stolen from Jews is in museums the world around, and the UN and major world powers looked on as Nigeria starved secessionist Biafra into submission (Jacobs). And, there are local onlookers, bystanders much like the ‘sidewalk superintendents’ who stop to watch buildings going up or passersby who stop to watch children’s ball games. The variety of responses reflects diversity in democidal events, patterns of prejudice and racism in bystander societies, cultural traditions of helping and privacy, socioeconomic characteristics of observers, perceptions of own danger and of potential economic advantage or disadvantage. The individual level responses to reports of democide include: approval (‘‘It’s about time’’), cupidity, cynicism, denial, ennui, horror, hyperidentification, immobilization, impotence, inability to act because of legal constraints, and indifference. Institutional, national, and international (e.g., the UN and the International Red Cross) reactions parallel a number of the individual responses, particularly those claiming inability to act.

Helpers and rescuers

Some people give water to victims awaiting execution or transport, some give fleeing victims directions, some snatch children from the arms of dead family members and take them home to raise, some smuggle food to those being starved, some take strangers into their homes and hide them, some provide false papers, some smuggle those about to be arrested to safety abroad. Some help but are unable to save a single life, others save hundreds. Some help is transitory, surreptitious, and risk free. Some is perduring and riskier. Some is particularistic (only for known others), some is universal. Some help is given only when requested and then perhaps reluctantly,

while some is volunteered and even insistently so. Some is done by individuals, some is collective effort. Some helpers and rescuers are caught and become victims. Deniers

People in any of the categories just listed may deny that democide is going to happen, is happening, or has happened. Members of victimized groups often claim that reports are not true, or that law will prevail, or that they are not really members of the group being attacked. As the situation worsened in Nazi Germany in the 1930s, some Jewish intellectuals, including government civil servants, clung to the belief that Jews could not become a target victim population because ‘‘Germany is a society ruled by law.’’ Some of these people had to be almost kidnapped by less optimistic family members. Similar denial has been reported for most cases of democide for which there is more than the most superficial record. When democide is actually going on, it seems likely that fewer and fewer victims can cling to the belief that they are experiencing an aberration, a bad dream from which they will wake up. When, as in Germany, the actual killing is physically remote, transportation of victims is minimally public, and other preoccupations draw attention (such as combat deaths of family members, bombings of homes, and dire food shortages and illnesses), it is possible that some proportion of citizens either did not know or knew very little about ongoing democide. Similar claims of justifiable preoccupation are less persuasive in societies like Rwanda or Bosnia, where killing was local and visible. There are governments whose representatives deny that large-scale killing is occurring. There are perpetrators and government spokesmen who acknowledge that killing is being done, but characterize the democide as a social good for which enquirers should be grateful rather than critical. There are bystanders, individuals, and countries, that prefer to accept perpetrator denials than the evidence of their own eyes and ears. There are governments that acknowledge that terrible things are happening, but judiciously find that formal criteria for democide/genocide are not present. The latter has been the case with many of the governmentally condoned large-scale killing which have occurred and are occurring at the beginning of the new millennium.

Causes of Genocide, Politicide, and Other Forms of Democide While there are exponentially larger literatures on war, riots, lynching, and murder, there is no dearth of explanations for the social violence manifest in the variety of behaviors labeled democide. There is more literature on the Holocaust of World War II than on other genocide

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and probably more on genocide than on politicide. (There is a substantial literature on class violence in both capitalist and communist or socialist states (historical and contemporary).) The amount of attention given to various democidal events in the second half of the twentieth century has varied with their visibility to North American and European audiences; that visibility has been determined in part by actual physical remoteness and by perceived significance in terms of ‘national security’ of far-off events. That perceived significance is substantially influenced by media coverage and policymaker’s perceptions of interests and electorates. There are popular interpretations of democide, explanations by behavioral scientists, and findings of investigative bodies of various sorts. While there are some common threads, these have often given quite different conclusions and recommendations for solutions. Popular explanations

Popular explanations come from (1) individuals engaged in everyday interaction; (2) formal organizations of various sorts, including not-for-profit relief organizations, some professional associations, and human rights and related activist groups that attempt to prevent or stop large-scale killing in governments, increase political awareness, or lobby governmental and nongovernmental organizations; (3) apologists of the political right and left; (4) emergent spokespersons or experts who have opinions, share them freely, and come to be asked as social violence continues; (5) representatives of affected corporations, governments, or populations, and other lobbyists; and (6) the print and electronic media. Immediately or potentially affected governments provide interpretations supportive of victims or perpetrators. As democide has become both more commonplace and more widely reported toward the end of the twentieth century, popular explanations have increasingly incorporated elements of behavioral science theories and the conclusions of various investigative bodies (and, to some extent, claims and interpretations of groups with interests in forming public opinion). Folk explanations are variously favorable and/or sympathetic to victims or perpetrators. Perspectives appear to reflect social identities and location in the social structure, and to some degree the extent to which individuals and groups themselves feel threatened (‘‘It could [never] happen here’’); sympathies for victims in the abstract obviously affect some interpretations. Space constraints allow me to do no more here than list some popular explanations and interpretations for largescale killings by governments in the twentieth century: (1) human nature; (2) victims deserved it or ‘brought it on themselves’; (3) denial (it never happened); (4) it never happened and besides they deserved it; (5) such events are the work of criminal groups, criminal states, and so on; (6) such behaviors are the result of prejudice and hate; (7) it’s

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all economic; (8) progress has costs (‘‘You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs’’ – a French proverb sometimes attributed to Lenin); (9) ‘‘what can you expect from such people?’’; (10) God demands the destruction of the wicked, of dissenters, of unbelievers, and so on. Some find an explanation in (11) the wickedness of individuals of great power (i.e., remarkable individuals) such as Genghis Khan, Hitler, Pol Pot, or Stalin. The kinds of ‘theories’ noted have appeared and reappeared over time; they have been applied in various forms to the whole range of violent behaviors, and they have been invoked (or rejected) with widely varying sophistication by the full range of those involved in democide and at all levels of society. Biological and behavioral science perspectives

My coverage of biological perspectives will be perfunctory. Given space limitations it is suggested that there are two major behavioral science perspectives on democide and its component behaviors: (1) those focusing on the individual, associated primarily with psychology and related disciplines, and (2) those focusing on groups and the social structure. Economic perspectives, including Marxist structuralism, are treated separately. Two excellent volumes, The Myth of the Madding Crowd (1991) and Theories of Civil Violence (1988), contain comprehensive discussions which together cover most of the theoretical perspectives mentioned below. Fein, Gamson, Kuper, du Preez, Rummel, Stannard (see, especially, appendix II), and Staub, among others, (1) review explanations more specifically focused on large-scale killing, (2) address questions of whether specific instances they discuss constitute genocide (or politicide or democide, etc.), and occasionally (3) suggest their own explanatory frameworks. Biological and sociobiological interpretations

Most scientists today deny that humans have an instinct for war, that humans are genetically programmed for war, or that human evolution has selected for aggressiveness. Some scientists find Wilson’s more sophisticated version of sociobiology with its emphasis on adaptive behavior whereby aggressiveness might be optimal in the short term (e.g., in driving other, genetically unrelated, humans from scarce land, or killing them and taking the land) more persuasive. Others question that war and democide can ever be adaptive for the species. None of this denies that there are humans who might not start wars or democide but who seem to enjoy destructiveness and slaughter once they get started, nor that we can be socialized into aggressive behavior and our inhibitions against killing dampened. The ultimate argument against human nature explanations of war and democide, including genocide, is that even ‘warlike’ societies have long periods of peace and some societies do not participate in wars at all.

884 Genocide and Democide Economic explanations

There are essentially two economic interpretations of genocide and other large-scale killings. The first is that of pragmatism or what has been called ‘rational choice’ theory, an interpretation which says that people (and groups) engage in behaviors perceived as optimal paths to preferred worlds, for example, worlds without a disvalued minority, or where land or other resources previously possessed by a collectivity becomes available, or where the previously downtrodden become masters (Kaufman). Homer-Dixon’s perspective on environmental scarcity and violent conflict with its (unexplicated) implications for democide is congenial with such an interpretation. The second view consists of a collection of sometimes disparate Marxist and neo-Marxist interpretations. A Marxist perspective suggests that large-scale killing associated with colonial expansion or assaults on domestic minorities results from the greed of capitalists, and that killings of internal ethnic minorities (e.g., Cossacks or Ukrainians, or Jews in the erstwhile Soviet Union) or of class or occupational groups (nobility, kulaks, intelligentsia, and so on) are necessary for completion of the struggle of the proletariat against feudalism or capitalism. One Marxist scholar (Cox) enriched his interpretation of large-scale killings (and individual discrimination or lynching) by incorporating a notion of race as caste into his identification of capitalism as culprit. Individually oriented perspectives

These perspectives generally look for explanations of violence in the personality characteristics or past experiences of violent individuals or some dynamic combination of the two. A view that human nature is at least predispositionally aggressive has been discussed earlier in this article. The psychoanalyst looks for violence proneness, rooted perhaps in early traumatic experiences but clearly the consequences of uniquely personal experiences in molding an individual psyche. Freud believed that all of us have aggressiveness in our makeups as well as a predisposition to ‘narcissistic rage’ and that whether or not we act aggressively depends on differential success in socialization for repression or control. Storr locates the propensity for mass outbreaks of cruelty in the imagination – as shaped by aggressive personality disorders, sadomasochism, and paranoid delusion. Lifton offers an explanation for individual participation in genocide as facilitated by ‘doubling’ – a process through which individuals develop a second self capable of demoniacal behaviors while retaining an earlier, more humane self. Proponents of the notion of ‘authoritarian personality’ assert that childhood socialization experiences transform relatively undifferentiated initial personalities so that some people become tolerant and others authoritarian and prejudiced. Authoritarian personalities are more

likely to agree to and participate in democide. Other psychologists simply postulate prejudiced personalities and then look at differences in their behaviors from the nonprejudiced. Fromm developed a theory according to which exposure to functionally debilitating social conditions generated ‘individual’ alienation and disconnectedness leading in turn to ‘malignant aggression’, including, presumably, enhanced likelihood of participation in genocide and other large-scale killing. Clinical psychologists focus less on the individual personality than on the dynamics of the individual’s interaction with his/her environment. The frustration– aggression hypothesis has been attractive to both psychological psychologists and psychological political scientists, particularly quantitative scholars. Social psychologists have looked for explanations of violence in constellations of individual attitudes and have attended particularly to structural features of society fostering one or another attitude. ‘Relative deprivation’ or a ‘search for identity’ become independent variables related to specific attitudes, for example, isolation, powerlessness, and anomie, which in turn are linked to participation in group violence. Other social psychologists and anthropologists have drawn attention to the differences in societal socialization for aggression that result in ‘societies’ that are more or less prone to war and in which individuals are more or less prone to aggressive behavior. Some investigators, predicating a link between ideologies and behavior, note that we tend to share the ideologies of those around us and that some ideologies are more favorable to chauvinism or to democide of various sorts. Lifton discovers in the Turkish-Armenian and Nazi genocides national ideological narratives of diseased societies cured by purification (destruction of the disease source) and regeneration. Hayden argues that exclusionary ideological justifications for ‘ethnic cleansing’ were written into the constitutions of the postdissolution republics of former Yugoslavia. Du Preez argues for an interaction between social events (wars, famines, and so on) and individual events (fear, insecurity, and so on), which serially and in parallel culminate in individual and collective readiness for social violence. Melson hypothesizes that democidal killing is often a consequence of successful labeling of victim groups as enemies of ideological revolutions. Staub has argued an incremental acceptance of evil, specifically including genocide. Part of such incremental acceptance results from processes of dehumanization, distancing, bureaucratization, and so on, persuasively described by Sanford and Comstock and their colleagues, and from ‘psychic numbing’. Related too, are notions of ‘spirals of aggression’ parallel to arms races. Some studies of war have observed that participation is massively satisfying for some. Men may feel that in fighting for a just cause they are doing something truly

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worthwhile; they may be exhilarated by actual fighting, or feel their masculinity enhanced by control over powerful weapons or the lives of others. Numerous investigators have documented the gratifications that result from bonding experiences in combat and wartime experiences more generally. The obvious question is, are such positively valued outcomes likely from participation in genocide, politicide, and democide? Do mass murderers bond? Frenzied participation in slaughter of noncombatant men, women, and children in colonial assaults on natives, in Mongol devastation of medieval Asian cities, and the Japanese rape of Nanking (Chang) suggest that the answer must minimally be ‘at least to some degree’. Importantly, while early studies were primarily focused on describing attitudinal structures of individuals, more recent studies have looked at sets of attitudes associated with membership in social categories. Interpretations that focus on prejudice alone or that invoke concepts such as de-individuation or emotional contagion have waned; they have not sustained empirical test. Structural and processual perspectives

In recent years research on social conflict has become increasingly interdisciplinary as behavioral scientists in anthropology, cultural and social geography, economics, political science, psychology, and sociology, along with historians and philosophers, have very frequently borrowed from one another in their attempts to make sense out of social conflict and social violence. The resulting literature is too rich to even outline/summarize, let alone discuss, in a short encyclopedia piece. These wide-ranging interpretive theories generally come in about a dozen (the number is essentially an arbitrary artifact of how notions are divided up) varieties, most of which were developed in studies of other manifestations of social violence: (1) theories of the middle range or empirical generalizations based on empirical studies (e.g., that social conflict and violence increase in intensity to the degree that societal cleavages are superimposed (Coleman on community conflict, Lambert on communalism in India, Williams, et al., on race relations)); (2) theories that emphasize the explanatory utility of different versions of ‘culture’, ranging from anthropological notions of class or regional ‘cultures of violence’ to the Marxian use of the term as synonymous with ideology; (3) theories that find the roots of collective violence in the structural arrangements of hierarchy and social differentiation in societies (e.g., Marx on exploiting and exploited classes, the Tillies on structures of urbanization, industrialization, and state authority, Gamson on the criterial structural relation between authorities and potential partisans, or Grimshaw on ‘accommodative’ structures); (4) theories that focus on social processes/forms of interaction and/or social acts/behaviors (e.g., Coser, Dahrendorf,

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and Simmel on conflict as a social form or process or Tilly on repertoires of collective action or of collective behavior) or on social control as a societal structure and process (e.g., Janowitz); (5) perspectives that give special attention to social violence (usually rioting in incidents used as documentation) as rational (in the means-end sense of that term – or even in the special ‘rational choice’ sense) and intentional behavior and as a successful agent for social change; (6) what Rule has labeled ‘value integration theory’, the quintessential exemplary of which is Smelser’s ‘value-added’ theory with its five stages of: (i) structural conduciveness; (ii) structural strain; (iii) growth and spread of a generalized belief; (iv) precipitating factors; and (v) mobilization of participants; (7) theories that focus on the nature of the state, for example, Andrzejewski on military organization and society or Rummel on state power as a criterial variable in probabilities of participation in war or democide (cf. however, Krain’s argument that opportunity better predicts genocide and politicide than level of power concentration), and Freeman on bureaucracy, modernization, and genocide; (8) Actonian theories on the availability of power and its corrosive effects; (9) theories that weapons for large-scale murder, just as those for individual homicide, will be used if available; (10) collective behavior theories such as Turner and Killian’s conceptualization of ‘structurally emergent collective definitions’; (11) McPhail’s integration of Mead on purposive problemsolving with Powers’ feedback perspective in which rational, autonomous, problem-solving individuals in difficult situations cooperate and coordinate their behaviors in attempts to achieve shared goals. Riots, or war, or lynchings, or democide, could all result from such a process. (12) Donald Black is developing an ambitious theory that may have important explanatory implications for large-scale killing by governments. Black’s premises for his ‘paradigm of pure sociology’ for the field of conflict often differ sharply from those reviewed in the paragraphs above, including the principles that: (i) conflict is not a clash of interests but of right and wrong and a matter of morality and justice; (ii) understanding individuals qua individuals, or personalities, will not provide understanding of social conflict and violence; (iii) conflict relations are determined by relations of spatial, social, and cultural distance; and (iv) conflict relations can be propositionally specified and are susceptible to quantification. Campbell applies these idea to genocide specifically. All of these theoretical perspectives seem reasonable on first reading and all have been shown to be compatible with some facts of some events. Sorting out which theories are truly falsifiable and which are most powerful will require considerable comparative research. The unfortunate likelihood is that there will continue to be opportunities for such research.

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Judicial and Other Archives, Investigations, and Reports There have probably been written reports on social violence, including large-scale killing, for as long as there have been written narrative reports of any sort. Largescale killing in the name of maintaining the public order, or in retribution, or to put down revolt, has been employed by civil authority from its first establishment. Local officials and resident military commanders will have been asked to keep their superiors in metropolitan centers informed of local disruptions, particularly those that might be seen as harbingers of threats to the regime; it is reasonable to believe that private intelligence on democide of all sorts has an equivalently respectable antiquity. Accounts of pre-twentieth century democide are based on government reports (often undistinguishable from myths and religious writing in earliest documents), biblical stories, despots’ boasts inscribed on desert cliffs, and, in the last half millennium, increasingly on accounts of contemporaries and the scholarship of historians. During the modern period official reports on wars and rebellions have become more or less routinized; in the second half of the twentieth century the same has become true of democidal events. At the international level the League of Nations and UN agencies have produced reports, as have organizations of victorious allies. Accused and accusing nations have also generated reports: Turkey defended its actions with its Armenian minority, the Vietnamese have reported on American atrocities. Neutral governments appoint bodies such as the British and Finnish Enquiry Commissions on Kampuchea. Organizations such as the International Red Cross report on their activities or, in some instances, defend themselves against accusations of neglect or timorousness (e.g., against charges that they had abandoned the people of Biafra during the Nigerian civil war). Countless ad hoc and self-designated international commissions exist, such as the East Timor Defense Committee or the Lawyers Committee on Human Rights. Organizations such as Amnesty International, Cultural Survival, and Human Rights Watch (initially Americas Watch Committee) publish regular and special reports on variously labeled manifestations of democide. Research institutes such as the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research have counterparts in many other countries, as do university-based research centers. In the United States there have been Senate, House, State and Defense Department, Agency, and military commissions, boards, and reviews, at least part of whose findings are made public. These bodies, which sit from periods of weeks to periods of years or in some cases continuously, receive from no funding at all to millions of dollars. They are variously charged with finding facts of events (sometimes

particular versions of facts), causal explanations, solutions, modes of prevention, and with assessing responsibility. Factual details, interpretations, and recommendations in reports of these various bodies reflect (1) the factual and interpretive biases and the social and political agendas of appointing and sponsoring entities; (2) the political climate when investigating bodies are appointed; (3) the composition of the commissions (or other investigative bodies) and their staff; (4) the extent to which investigators are able to gain access to relevant documents, evidence, and witnesses; (5) the support, both moral and financial, provided; (6) the time allowed for the body’s investigation and report writing; (7) whether or not there were open hearings, particularly hearings in which public participation was invited; and (8) what sort of dissemination of findings was projected. Curiously, contemporaneous reporting practices may inflate the extent of democide ‘documented’ in later investigations, as when military officers or bureaucrats inflate the number of enemy casualties or those of ‘enemies of the people’ (e.g., ‘body counts’ in Vietnam and ‘quotas’ during democide in Stalin’s USSR). More accurate accountings can be equally damning, of course, as in Nazi records of their large-scale killings of civilians. Also curious, perhaps, is the fact that later governments of countries that have practiced democide have in some instances documented and apologized for the slaughter. At least tens of thousands of pages have been published (and perhaps millions written – see, for example, Goldhagen on his sources) about the extent, causes, and prevention of democide. Commissions, nongovernmental investigative bodies, and activist organizations have made basically two varieties of recommendations for prevention of genocide. The first set of recommendations aims at reducing what are seen as root causes of democidal phenomena by eradicating poverty and injustice and reducing prejudice. The second emphasizes social control through successful application of law, or increasing the control capabilities of international social control agencies such as UN peace-keeping units and changing sovereignty law so that peacekeepers can intervene in domestic democide. Additional suggestions are sometimes made, such as bans on certain kind of weapons or the invention of governmental structures which will allow at least partial autonomy for minorities, none of which have made much headway.

Intended Mass Extinctions of Human Beings at the Millennial Turn Whatever hopes there may have been that the end of Nazi Germany would also mean the end of what had come to be labeled as genocide were dashed by events that occurred as a new millennium approached and arrived.

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In the years immediately preceding and following the millennial year there were large-scale democidal events in Bosnia, Chad, Cambodia, Eastern Timor, Croatia, Gujarat, Iraq, Kosovo, Nigeria, the Sudan [Darfur], Rwanda, and many more government approved or condoned mass killings in African, Asian, and other venues. It will not be possible to provide details on any of these killings – in the small space remaining this article briefly identifies and discusses some recent developments, namely, (1) the appearance, identification, and labeling of ‘ethnic cleansing’; (2) occurrence of government or quasigovernmental policies approving and (reportedly encouraging) policies of wholesale rape as an instrument in ‘ethnic cleansing’, (3) increasing public awareness of genocidal events (not necessarily accompanied by effective public demands for governmental action at any level); (4) broadening efforts to forecast/predict and (perhaps) prevent genocidal events; (5) attention to how democides are ‘remembered’.

Ethnic Cleansing The Bassiouni Report to the United Nations observed: The expression ‘‘ethnic cleansing’’ is relatively new. Considered in the context of the conflicts in former Yugoslavia, ‘‘ethnic cleansing’’ means rendering an area ethnically homogenous by using force or intimidation to remove persons of given groups from the area. Ethnic cleansing is contrary to international law.

‘Ethnic cleansing’ itself is not a recent phenomenon. Consider three documented instances from twentiethcentury United States, that is, segregation of Native Americans in ‘reservations’, quotas for Jews in both undergraduate and graduate programs at elite American universities (and quite likely others as well (though Gentile summer resorts in the Catskills did not use quotas, they practiced total exclusion)), and the incarceration of United States citizens of Japanese origin in concentration camps during World War II – along with confiscation of their property. Many white Americans enthusiastically supported Marcus Garvey’s back to Africa movement; today many Americans of widely varying ethnicity support attempts of municipalities to purge themselves of Spanish-speaking ‘illegals’ (an emergent pattern pioneered in Pennsylvania). In Germany accelerating exclusion from prestigious and well-paying professions antedated transport to the death camps by several years.

Rape ‘Recreational’ rape of women of all ages, particularly women deemed attractive or perhaps insufficiently

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cowed, has been an accompaniment of all democides about which detailed information is available; intimidation and/or ‘breeding’ of subject populations may be supplementary motives. Rape of target populations in transit (Armenians) and of conquered populations (Koreans forced to become ‘comfort women’ by the Japanese) has occurred, and concentration camp inmates were forced to become mistresses of camp personnel. However. governmental policies condoning, encouraging, or ordering rape appear to be recent developments in ‘ethnic cleansing’. Allen’s first words on rape in Bosnia-Herzegovina are apposite here; these are quoted here at length: Genocidal rape: a military policy of rape for the purpose of genocide currently practiced in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia by members of the Yugoslav Army, the Bosnian Serb forces, Serb militias in Croatia and BosniaHerzegovina, the irregular forces known as Chetniks, and Serb civilians. Three main forms exist: (1) Chetniks or other Serb forces enter Serb, Bosnian Serb, and Croatian Serb Bosnian-Herzegovinian or Croatian villages, take several women of various ages from their homes, rape them in public view, and depart. The news of this atrocious event spreads rapidly throughout the village. Several days later, regular Bosnian Serb soldiers or Serb soldiers from the Yugoslav Army arrive and offer the now-terrified residents safe passage away from the village on the condition they never return. Most accept, leaving the village abandoned to the Serbs and thus furthering the genocidal plan of ‘‘ethnic cleansing’’; (2) Bosnian-Herzegovinian and Croatian women being held in Serb concentration camps are chosen at random to be raped, often as part of torture preceeding death; (3) Serb, Bosnian Serb, and Croatian Serb soldiers, Bosnian Serb militias and Chetniks arrest Bosnian Herzegovinian and Croatian women, imprison them in a rape/death camp, and rape them systematically for extended periods of time. Such rapes are either part of torture preceding death or part of torture leading to forced pregnancy. Pregnant victims are raped consistently until such time as their pregnancies have progressed beyond the possibility of a safe abortion and are then released. In the first case, the death of the victim contributes to the genocidal goal; in the second, the birth of a child does, for the perpetrator – or the policy according to which he is acting – considers this child to be only Serb and to have none of the identity of the mother. ... Rape/death camps: buildings or other enclosures where Bosnia-Herzegovinian and Croatian girls and women are kept and systematically raped for weeks or months at a time. These are restaurants, hotels, hospitals, schools, factories, peacetime brothels, or other buildings;

888 Genocide and Democide they are also animal stalls in barns, fenced-in pens, and arenas. Testimony indicates that more than thirty such rape/death camps are currently in use. (Allen, 1996, vii–viii)

According to the 1948 UN convention, all of these constitute the crime of genocide. Public Awareness of Democide As the democides in Nazi Germany intensified in the 1930s, little was known about them outside of Germany and not much more inside; when foreign ministries and intelligence agencies of other countries learned of the increasing and increasingly systematic killing, the news seldom made its way to other governmental agencies, nor to media and publics at large. The situation was sharply different as the twentieth century moved toward its close. Democidal behaviors in Rwanda, in Bosnia, Croatia, in Kosovo, and most recently in Darfur have all been widely reported in the media and have been the topical focus of fiction and nonfiction books, films, and television documentaries. Presidents and Secretaries of State, freed from the constraints of actually having to do anything about democide/genocide other than decrying it, now use the ‘G word’ almost promiscuously. As the catastrophe in Darfur dragged on in the first decade of the twenty-first century, multicolor advertisements which would ordinarily have cost millions of dollars appeared in national media such as Time and The New Yorker. The advertisements were sponsored by the Save Darfur Coalition, an umbrella organization constituted by possibly hundreds of ameliorative and activist groups. The coalition has not publicly reported how much money it has raised or the expenditure of those funds. At the time of this writing, efforts by individual governments, by most philanthropic organizations, by the African Union, and by the United Nations have had some modest successes in delivering relief to some victims – but have not been able to reduce the rape, torture, and slaughter of targeted populations (Reeves). In 2006 even the conservative mass-circulation magazine National Geographic published an article on the Rwandan genocide and the mass murders perpetrated by the Iraqi Hussein regime, and about problems with findings and assessing evidence for such crimes. Forecasting, Predicting, Preventing, Ameliorating Democide Fear and loathing of members of a despised group (or category of people) in a shared space does not fully explain democidal social violence against them. In 1998, in response to President Clinton’s policy initiative on

genocide early warning and prevention, Barbara Harff was asked to undertake research to establish an empirically grounded data-based system for risk assessment and early warning of genocidal violence. Harff lists six factors that jointly differentiate with 76% accuracy the 36 serious civil conflicts that led to episodes of genocidal violence in 1955–2004, and 93 other cases of serious civil conflict since 1955 that did not eventuate in democidal episodes. The six factors are as follows: genocides and politicides since 1945; • prior political the magnitude of political upheaval • (ethnic andupheaval: revolutionary wars plus regime crises dur-

• • • •

ing the previous 15 years, excluding the magnitude of prior genocides); ethnic character of the ruling elite (is elite a minority communal group?); ideological character of the ruling elite: a belief system that identifies some overriding purpose or principle that justifies efforts to restrict, persecute or eliminate certain categories of people; regime type: autocratic regimes are more likely to engage in severe repression of oppositional groups; and trade openness (export þ imports as % of GDP): openness to trade indicates state and elite willingness to maintain the rule of law and fair practices in the economic sphere.

Harff scrutinized the apparently deviant cases and concluded that accuracy increased to nearly 90% when temporal and other inconsistencies in the data were taken into account. Harff’s study locates her firmly within the quantitative social science tradition. Stanton, in contrast, appears to have generated his ‘‘8 Stages of Genocide’’ from close readings of a wide variety of sources, including print and television journalism (both local and international), UN and other commission reports, personal documents and documentaries (see Table 3). Forecasting democidal events has vastly increased in accuracy in the past several decades. Unfortunately, it is not at all clear that preventive actions, such as those suggested by Stanton, could prevent genocide. These include steps such as prohibiting and punishing hate symbols and speech; outlawing membership in relevant militias and embargoing governments; isolating perpetrators by banning travel and freezing finances; supporting moderates and human rights groups; providing humanitarian and military support to victims groups; establishing safe areas and escape corridors for refugees; and, finally, conducting international trials. Others run campaigns to pressure investors to divest from companies involved in genocide. In addition, governments are often reluctant to take these steps.

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Table 3 The eight stages of genocide Stage

Description

1. Classification 2. Symbolization 3. Dehuminization 4. Organization 5. Polarization 6. Preparation 7. Extermination 8. Denial

Categorization into ‘‘us and them.’’ Symbols are associated with specific groups. Members of one group are equated with animals, diseases, etc. Training and drafting of plans: may be state-led, directly or through militias, informal, or decentralized. Extremists use hate groups and laws to drive groups apart with propaganda and segregating policies. Victims are identified and isolated, death lists are made. Killing of one group; reciprocal/revenge killing may develop. Evidence concealed, witnesses blamed, investigations blocked.

Source: Adapted from Stanton, G. H. (1998). The 8 Stages of Genocide. Yale Genocide Studies Paper GS-01, http://www.genocidewatch.org/18 stages1996.htm (accessed on Nov 2007).

Casual Remembrances, Unforgettable Memories, Vague Recollections We are all aware that what we remember of an event (or a thing or person) is influenced profoundly by more variables than can be easily identified or labeled – one party’s genocide may be another’s ‘necessary social control’, one party’s terrorism another’s ‘liberation struggle’. Levy and Sznaider, using contemporary political events and memories of the Holocaust in Germany, the United States, and Israel, raise critical issues about how historical and contemporary contexts influence perceptions and judgments of genocidal events and of how politicians and social movements use such events to advance their own agendas. Explicit comparisons are made of memories of the Holocaust in the three countries from immediately after World War II to contemporary times. They attend to the changing role and influence of various media, which have expanded in range and at the same time have been affected by both global trends toward homogenization and local anti-entropic and differentiating forces. Older readers will recall the quite different memories of the American Civil War among mid-twentieth century residents of former Confederate states and residents of other states. Still older readers will recall how warmth for Finland survived even after that country had become an ally of the Third Reich. Denial will continue to thrive; there will be new events to deny.

Further Reading Allen, B. (1996). Rape warfare the hidden genocide in BosniaHerzegovina and Croatia. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Andreopoulos, G. (ed.) (1994). Genocide: The conceptual and historical dimensions. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Andrzejewski, S. (1954). Military organization and society. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Barash, D. P. (1991). Introduction to peace studies. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Black, D. (1989). The social structure of right and wrong. New York: Academic Press. Brass, P. R. (1996). Introduction. In Brass, P. R. (ed.) Riots and pogroms, pp. 1–55. New York: New York University Press.

Bridgman, J. (1981). The revolt of the Hereros. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Campbell, B. (2005). Genocide as social control. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Southern Sociological Society, Charlotte, NC. Chalk, F. and Kurt, J. (1990). The history and sociology of genocide: Analyses and case studies. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Chang, I. (1997). The rape of Nanking: The forgotten holocaust of World War II. New York: Basic Books. Charny, I. W. (ed.) (1988). Genocide: A critical bibliographic review. New York: Facts On File Publications. Charny, I. W. (ed.) (1991). Genocide: A critical bibliographic review, vol. 2. New York: Facts on File Publications. Churchhill, W. (1997). A little matter of genocide. San Francisco, CA: City Lights Books. Conquest, R. (1986). The harvest of sorrow: Soviet collectivization and the terror famine. New York: Oxford University Press. Coser, L. A. (1998). The functions of social conflict. London: Routledge & K. Paul. Cox, O. C. (1948). Caste, class, and race: A study in social dynamics. New York: Doubleday. Dahrendorf, R. (1959). Class and class conflict in industrial society. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Damrosch, L. F. (ed.) (1993). Enforcing restraint: Collective intervention in internal conflicts. New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press. Davies, N. (1981). Human sacrifice in history and today. New York: William Morrow. De Zayas, A. M. (1994). A terrible revenge: The ethnic cleansing of the east European Germans, 1944–1950. New York: St. Martin’s Press. (trans. Koehler, J. A.,1993, The German expellees: Victims in war and peace). du Preez, P. (1994). Genocide: The psychology of mass murder. London: Boyars/Bowerdean. Elkins, S. (1959). Slavery: A problem in American institutional and intellectual life. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Fein, H. (1979). Accounting forgenocide: National responses and Jewish victimization during the Holocaust. New York: Free Press. Fein, H. (ed.) (1992). Genocide watch. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Fein, H. (1993). Genocide: A sociological perspective. London: Sage. Fogelman, E. (1994). Conscience and courage: Rescuers of Jews during the holocaust. New York: Anchor. Freeman, M. (1995). Genocide, civilization and modernity. British Journal of Sociology 46, 207–225. Fromm, E. (1941). Escape from freedom. New York: Rinehart. Gamson, W. A. (1995). Hiroshima, the holocaust, and the politics of exclusion. American Sociological Review 60, 1–20. Goldhagen, D. J. (1996). Hitler’s willing executioners: Ordinary Germans and the holocaust. New York: Knopf. Gottlieb, G. (1993). Nation against state: A new approach to ethnic conflicts and the decline of sovereignty. New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press. Grossman, D. A. (1995). On killing: The psychological cost of learning to kill in war and society. New York: Little, Brown and Company. Hale, C. R. (1997). Consciousness, violence, and the politics of memory in Guatemala. With commentary by Arturo Arias, Ricardo Falla, Jorge

890 Genocide and Democide Ramon Gonzalez Ponciano, David McCreer and David Stoll. Current Anthropology 38, 817–838. Harff, B. and Gurr, T. R. (1989). Victims of the state: Genocide, politicides, and group repression since 1945. International Review of Victimology 1, 23–41. Hassig, R. (1988). Aztec warfare: Imperial expansion and political control. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. Hayden, R. M. (1996). Imagined communities and real victims: Selfdetermination and ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia. American Ethnologist 23, 783–801. Hilberg, R. (1992). Perpetrators, victims, bystanders: The Jewish catastrophe 1933–1945. New York: Harper-Collins. Hinton, A. L. (1996). Agents of death: Explaining the Cambodian genocide in terms of psychosocial dissonance. American Anthropologist 98, 818–831. Homer-Dixon, T. (1994). Environmental scarcities and violent conflict: Evidence from cases. International Security 19, 5–40. Homer-Dixon, T. F. (1991). On the threshold: Environmental changes as causes of acute conflict. International Security 16, 76–116. Horowitz, D. L. (2001). The deadly ethnic riot. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Jacobs, D. (1988). The brutality of nations. New York: Paragon House. Janowitz, M. (1996). On social organization and social control. In Burk, J. (ed.) Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Jongman, A. (ed.) (1996). Contemporary genocides: Causes, cases, consequences. Leiden: Interdisciplinary Research Program on Root Causes of Human Rights Violations. Kaufman, S. J. (1996). Spiraling to ethnic war: Elites, masses, and Moscow in Moldova’s civil war. International Security 21, 108–138. Kaufman, S. J. (2006). Symbolic politics or rational choice? Testing theories of extreme ethnic violence. International Security 30(4), 45–86. Krain, M. (1993). State-sponsored mass murder: The onset and severity of genocides and politicides. Journal of Conflict Resolution 41, 331–360. Kressel, N. J. (1996). Mass hate: The global rise of genocide and terror. New York: Plenum Press. Kuper, L. (1985). The prevention of genocide. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Lemkin, R. (1944). Axis rule in occupied Europe. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Levy, M. J. (1952). The structure of society. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Levy, D. and Sznaider, N. (2005). The holocaust and memory in the global age (trans. Oksiloff, A.). Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Lifton, R. J. (1982/1967). Death in life: Survivors of Hiroshima. New York: Random House. Lifton, R. J. (1986). The Nazi doctors: Medical killing and the psychology of genocide. New York: Basic Books. Markusen, E. and Kopf, D. (1995). The holocaust and strategic bombing: Genocide and total war in the 20th century. Boulder, CO: Westview. Mazian, F. (1990). Why genocide? The Armenian and Jewish experiences in perspective. Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press. McPhail, C. (1991). The myth of the madding crowd. New York: Aldine de Gruyter. Melson, R. (1992). Revolution and genocide: On the origins of the Armenian genocide and the Holocaust. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Norton, J. (1979). When our worlds cried: Genocide in Northwestern California. San Francisco, CA: The Indian Historian Press. Payne, R. (1973). Massacre. New York: Macmillan. Power, S. (2002). A problem from hell: America and the age of genocide. New York: Basic Books. Reeves, E. (2006). Watching genocide, doing nothing: The final betrayal of Darfur, Dissent, Fall: 5–9. Reisman, W. M. and Antoniou, C. T. (eds.) (1994). The laws of war: A comprehensive collection of primary documents of international law covering armed conflict. New York: Vintage. Robins, N. A. (2005). Native insurgencies and the genocidal impulse in the Americas. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Rule, J. B. (1988). Theories of civil violence. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Rummel, R. J. (1990). Lethal politics: Soviet genocide and mass murder since 1917. New Brunswick: Transaction. Rummel, R. J. (1991). China’s bloody century: Genocide and mass murder since 1900. New Brunswick: Transaction. Rummel, R. J. (1994). Death by government. New Brunswick: Transaction. Rummel, R. J. (1997). Power hills: Democracy as a method of nonviolence. New Brunswick: Transaction. Rummel, R. J. (1997). Statistics of democide: Genocide and mass murder since 1900. Charlottesville, VA: Center for National Security Law, University of Virginia. Sanford, N. and Comstock, C. (eds.) (1971). Sanctions for evil. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Schwartz, B. and Zerubavel, Y. (1986). The recovery of Masada: A study in collective memory. The Sociological Quarterly 27(2), 147–164. Simmel, G. (1908). Conflict (trans. Wolff, K. H., 1955). Glencoe, IL: Free Press. Sivard, R. L. (1991). World military and social expenditures 1991. Washington, DC: World Priorities. Smith, R. W. (1994). Women and genocide: Notes on an unwritten history. Holocaust and Genocide Studies 8, 315–334. Stannard, D. E. (1992). American holocaust: Columbus and the conquest of the new world. New York: Oxford University Press. Stanton, G. H. (1998). The 8 Stages of Genocide. Yale Genocide Studies Paper GS-01, http://www.genocidewatch.org/ 8stages1996.htm (accessed on Nov 2007). Staub, E. (1989). The roots of evil: The origins of genocide and other group violence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stiglmayer, A. (ed.) (1994). Mass rape: The war against women in Bosnia–Herzegovina. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. Storr, A. (1991). Human destructiveness. New York: Grove Weidenfeld. Tambiah, S. J. (1996). Leveling crowds: Ethnonationalist conflicts and collective violence in south Asia. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Tilly, C. (2006). Regimes and repertoires. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Thornton, R. (1942). American Indian holocaust and survival: A population history since 1492. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. Totten, S. E., Parsons, W. S., and Charny, I. W. (1997). Century of genocide: Eyewitness accounts and critical views. New York: Garland Publishing. Uekert, B. K. (1995). Rivers of blood. Westport, CT: Praeger. Wiskemann, E. M. (1956). Germany’s eastern neighbours: Problems relating to the Oder-Neisse Line and the Czech frontier regions. London: Oxford University.

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Globalization: Its Diverse Actors and Spaces Saskia Sassen, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

IMF Programs and the Need for Alternative Survival Circuits Labor Migrations and Remittances: One Survival Option

Glossary GDP Gross Domestic Product IMF International Monetary Fund HIPCs Highly Indebted Poor Countries GNP Gross National Product

Across the centuries there have been a variety of translocal circuits for the mobility of people, goods, information, and capital. These circuits have varied considerably across time and space, shaped at least partly by the specific constitution of labor and capital, but also by religion and war. Many of these older circuits continue to exist today, but there are often new dynamics that feed them, and there are new types of circuits as well. One outcome is the emergence of novel global geographies, which cut across the old North–South divide. They are constituted through a variety of familiar processes: the increasingly globalized operations of firms and markets; through the multiplication of firms’ affiliates and partnerships; through labor migrations; and through people-trafficking networks. These new geographies are also constituted by far less familiar dynamics, such as new types of mobility through digitization and virtual outsourcing and, perhaps at the other end, global peddling. There are sites with multiple intersections among diverse global circuits. Here the focus is on three such sites, one each in the global south and north, and the third that connects them. One site for such intersections is the global city; specifically the 40-plus global cities that today constitute a kind of organizational platform for the global economy. The other site is a set of global south countries subject to the international debt-financing regime, which puts governments, firms, and households under enormous constraints to survive. In this context; global labor migrations emerge as a process that connects both. It is a survival strategy for people in heavily indebted countries, and for governments increasingly dependent on migrants’ remittances. But global migrations also become a source for low-wage workers in the rich global cities, where

The New Labor Demand in Global Cities Further Reading

IADB Inter-American Development Bank (aka IDB) OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development POEA Philippine Overseas Employment Administration

we see a growing demand for both very highly paid and very lowly paid workers. These are the themes examined here.

IMF Programs and the Need for Alternative Survival Circuits Debt and debt-servicing problems have become a systemic feature of the developing world since the 1980s. Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) became a new norm for the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on grounds that they were a promising way to secure longterm growth and sound government policy. Yet all of these countries have remained deeply indebted, with 41 of them now considered as Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs). The purpose of such programs is to make states more ‘competitive,’ which typically means sharp cuts in various social programs. By 1990, there were almost 200 such loans in place. In the 1990s, the IMF got an additional number of indebted countries to implement Adjustment programs. Most of this debt is held by multilateral institutions (the IMF, the World Bank, and regional development banks), bilateral institutions, individual countries, and the Paris group. Much research on poor countries documents the link between hyperindebted governments and cuts in education, healthcare, infrastructure, and a whole range of components clearly necessary to ensure a better future. Even before the economic crises of the mid-1990s, the debt of poor countries in the South had grown from US$ 507 billion in 1980 to US$ 1.4 trillion in 1992. Debt service payments alone had increased to US$ 1.6 trillion, more than the actual debt. According to some estimates, from

892 Globalization: Its Diverse Actors and Spaces

1982 to 1998 indebted countries paid four times their original debts, and at the same time their debt stocks went up by four times. These countries had to use a significant share of their total revenues to service these debts. Thirty-three of the 41 HIPCs paid US$ 3 in debt service payments to the North for every US$ 1 in development assistance. Many of these countries pay over 50% of their government revenues toward debt service, or 20% to 25% of their export earnings. Today, before the debt cancellations of early 2006, these debt-servicing levels remain high for most of these countries, as proportion of the GDP. The debt burden inevitably has large repercussions on a state’s spending composition. This is well illustrated in the case of Zambia, Ghana, and Uganda, three countries that have been seen as cooperative and responsible by the World Bank as well as effective in implementing SAPs. In Zambia, for example, the government paid US$ 1.3 billion in debt but only US$ 37 million for primary education; Ghana’s social expenses, at US$ 75 million, represented 20% of its debt service; and Uganda paid US$ 9 per capita on its debt and only US$ 1 for healthcare. In 1994 alone, these three countries remitted US$2.7 billion to bankers in the North. Africa’s payments reached US$5 billion in 1998, which means that for every US$ 1 in aid, African countries paid US$ 1.4 in debt service. In many of the HIPCs, debt service ratios to GNP exceed sustainable limits; many are far more extreme than what were

considered unmanageable levels in the Latin American debt crisis of the 1980s. Debt to GNP ratios are especially high in Africa, where they stood at 123%, compared with 42% in Latin America and 28% in Asia. Generally, the IMF asks HIPCs to pay 20– 25% of their export earnings toward debt service. By contrast, in 1953 the Allies cancelled 80% of Germany’s war toward debt and only insisted on 3–5% of export earnings toward debt service. Similar conditions were applied to Central European countries in the 1990s. By 2003 (see Table 1), debt service as a share of exports only (not overall government revenue use) ranged from extremely high levels for Zambia (29.6%) and Mauritania (27.7%), to significantly lowered levels compared with 1990s for Uganda (down from 19.8% in 1995 to 7.1% in 2003) and Mozambique (down from 34.5% in 1995 to 6.9% in 2003). These features of the current situation suggest that many of these countries cannot get out of their indebtedness through such strategies as SAPs. Generally, using IMF policies to manage the crisis can be shown to have worsened the situation for the unemployed and poor. The 1997 financial crisis in the rich and dynamic countries of Southeast Asia shows us that accepting the types of loans offered, and indeed pushed, by private lenders can create unmanageable debt levels even among rich and highgrowth economies, bringing bankruptcies and mass layoffs to a broad range of enterprises and sectors. Even a powerful

Table 1 Highly indebted poor countries: Exports, Foreign Investment, and Debt Service as Share of GDP, 1995–2003/04

1. Benin 2. Bolivia 3. Burkina Faso 4. Ethiopia 5. Ghana 6. Guyana 7. Honduras 8. Madagascar 9. Mali 10. Mauritania 11. Mozambique 12. Nicaragua 13. Niger 14. Rwanda 15. Senegal 16. Tanzania 17. Uganda 18. Zambia a

Trade exports of goods and service (% of GDP)

Net foreign investment (% of GDP)

Dept service total (% of exports)

1995

2003–04

1995

2003

1995

2003

20.2 / 12.4 13.6 / / / 24.1 21.1 49.1 15.2 / 17.2 5.2 34.5 / – 36.0

13.7 / 8.6 16.9 / / / 28.4 26.4 40.2 22.8 / 15.5 8.6 27.8 / – 20.9

0.4 / 0.4 0.2 / / / 0.3 4.5 0.7 1.9 / 0.4 0.2 0.7 / 2.1 2.8

1.4 / 0.3 0.9 / / / 0.2 3.0 18.1 7.8 / 1.1 0.3 1.2 / 3.1 2.3

6.8 / 12.2a 18.4 / / / Table 13.4 22.9 34.5 / 16.7 20.4 16.8 / 19.8 47c

6.9 / 11.2 6.8 / / / 6.1 5.8b 27.7 6.9 / – 14.6 8.7 / 7.1 29.6

1994. 1998. c 1997. ‘/’ denotes countries eligible for HIPC, but not listed by World Bank and UNDP as least developed countries. Note: There are an additional 20 countries eligible for HIPC, but have not yet met the necessary conditions. Sources: World Bank (2005a); UNDP (2005a). BBC: G8 reaches deal for world’s poor. b

Globalization: Its Diverse Actors and Spaces

economy such as South Korea found itself forced into SAPs, with attendant growth in unemployment and poverty due to widespread bankruptcies of small- and medium-sized firms catering to both national and export markets. The US$ 120 billion rescue package brought with it the introduction of SAP provisions, which reduced the autonomy of the governments. On top of that, most of the funds went to compensate the losses of foreign institutional investors, rather than to help address the poverty and unemployment resulting from the crisis. Countergeographies of Globalization It is in this context that alternative survival circuits emerge. The context can be specified as a systemic condition comprising a set of particular interactions among high unemployment, poverty, widespread bankruptcies, and shrinking state resources (or allocation of resources) to meet social needs. Heavy government debt and high unemployment have brought with them the need to search for survival alternatives not only by people, but also by governments and enterprises. Moreover, a shrinking regular economy in a growing number of poor countries has brought with it a widened use of illegal profit-making by enterprises and organizations. Thus we can say t+hat through their contribution to heavy debt burdens, SAPs have played an important role in the formation of ‘countergeographies’ of survival, of profit-making, and of enhancement of government revenue. The actual structure of these debts, their servicing, and the way they fit into the economies of debtor countries, suggest that under current conditions, most of these countries will not be able to pay their debt in full. SAPs seem to have made this even more likely by demanding economic reforms that have added to unemployment and the bankruptcy of many smaller, national market-oriented firms. One indicator of the failure of these adjustment programs to do what they were meant to do is the fact that in early 2006, the leading economies voted formally to cancel the debt of the poorest 18 countries, and proposed to extend debt cancellation to several more poor countries. The use of the term ‘countergeographies’ captures the fact that economic globalization has provided an institutional infrastructure for cross-border flows and global markets, which can be used for ends other than they were originally intended for. For instance, traffickers of people can use the transport and financial systems that have been set up for global firms. Thus, the components of corporate economic globalization have facilitated the development of these ‘countergeographies’. Further, once there is an institutional infrastructure for globalization, various processes that may in the past have operated at the national or regional level can scale up to the global level. This would contrast with processes that are by their

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very nature global, such as the network of financial centers underlying the formation of a global capital market. The key implication is that the struggle for survival extends to firms and governments besides households. The violence these SAPs have inflicted on whole economies have engendered a range of profit-making and government revenue-making possibilities built on the backs of migrants, and women and children for global sex trades. The profits generated by these forms of trafficking as well as more generally by immigrant remittances are examined next. These mechanisms are one lens (and only one) into the broader subject of the formation of alternative political economies of survival, often marked by distinctive forms of violence against people.

Labor Migrations and Remittances: One Survival Option Immigrants enter the macrolevel of development strategies through the remittances they send back home. These represent a major source of foreign exchange reserves for the government in a good number of countries. While the flows of remittances may be minor compared to the massive daily capital flows in global financial markets, they can matter enormously to developing or struggling economies. The World Bank (2006) estimates that remittances worldwide reached US$ 230 billion, up from US$ 70 billion in 1998; of this amount, US$ 168 billion went to developing countries, up 73% over 2001. Firms in the immigration country can also benefit. Thus the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) estimates that in 2003, immigrant remittances generated US$ 2 billion in handling fees for the financial and banking sector on the US$ 35 billion sent back home by Hispanics in the United States. The Bank also found that for Latin America and the Caribbean as a whole, the 2003 remittance flows exceeded the combined flows of all foreign direct investment and net official development assistance. To understand the significance of these figures, they should be related to the GDP and foreign currency reserves in the specific countries involved, rather than compared to the global flow of capital. For instance, in the Philippines, a key sender of migrants generally and of women for the entertainment industry in particular, remittances were the third largest source of foreign exchange over the last several years. In Bangladesh, another country with a significant number of its workers in the Middle East, Japan, and several European countries, remittances represent about a third of foreign exchange earnings. In Mexico, remittances are the second source of foreign currency, just below oil and ahead of tourism, and are larger than the foreign direct investment.

894 Globalization: Its Diverse Actors and Spaces

Table 2 provides an overall distribution of remittance flows by economic development level and by region. Overall, it becomes clear that remittances are not a particularly significant factor for most countries. This, once again, underlines the specificity of the geographies of migration; this is a critical fact in this interpretation of these processes because of its political implications: most people do not want to move to another country. As an aggregate for all countries in each category, we can see that remittances are between

0.2% in high-income OECD countries to 3.7% for middleincome countries and 4.1% in the Middle East and North Africa. The figures change dramatically when we rank countries by remittances as a share of GDP (see Table 3). Remittances account for over a fourth of GDP in several poor or struggling countries: Tonga (31.1%), Moldova (27.1%), Lesotho (25.8%), Haiti (24.8%), Bosnia and Herzegovina (22.5%), and Jordan ( 20.5%). However, if we rank countries by total value, the picture again changes

Table 2 Remittance inflows by level of development and region, 2002–05 (US$ million)

All developing countries Low-income countries (LICs) Middle-income countries (MICs) Lower MICs Upper MICs High-income OECD East Asia and Pacific Europe and Central Asia Latin America and Caribbean Middle-East and North Africa South Asia Sub-Saharan Africa World

2002

2003

2004 (estimate)

2005 (estimate)

Remittances as a share of GDP, 2004 (%)

113 416

142 106

160 366

166 898

2.0

33 126

41 789

43 890

45 064

3.7

80 290

100 317

116 476

121 834

1.7

57 305 22 985 52 076 27 168 13 276 28 107

72 520 27 797 57 262 35 797 15 122 34 764

83 475 33 001 64 260 40 858 19 371 40 749

88 021 33 813 64 260 43 138 19 892 42 419

2.2 1.1 0.2 1.7 1.1 2.0

15 551

18 552

20 296

21 263

4.1

24 155 5 159 166 217

31 109 6 762 200 216

31 396 7 696 225 810

32 040 8 145 232 342

3.6 1.5 0.6

Source: Global Economic Prospects 2006: Economic Implications of Remittances and Migration, World Bank.

Table 3 Countries with highest remittance inflows as share of GDP 2002–05 (US$ million)

Country

2002

2003

2004 (estimate)

2005 (estimate)

Remittances as a share of GDP, 2004 (%)

1. Tonga 2. Moldova 3. Lesotho 4. Haiti 5. Bosnia/Herzegovina 6. Jordan 7. Jamaica 8. Serbia/Montenegro 9. El Salvador 10. Honduras 11. The Philippines 12. The Dominican Republic 13. Lebanon 14. Somoa 15. Tajikistan 16. Nicaragua 17. Albania 18. Nepal 19. Kiribati 20. Yemen, Republic

66 323 194 676 1 526 2 135 1 260 2 089 1 954 718 7 381 2 194 2 500 45 79 377 734 678 7 1 294

66 486 288 811 1 745 2 201 1 398 2 661 2 122 867 10 767 2 325 2 700 45 146 439 889 785 7 1 270

66 703 355 876 1 824 2 287 1 398 4 129 2 564 1 142 11 634 2 471 2 700 45 252 519 889 785 7 1 283

66 703 355 919 1 824 2 287 1 398 4 650 2 564 1 142 13 379 2 493 2 700 45 252 519 889 785 7 1 315

31.1 27.1 25.8 24.8 22.5 20.4 17.4 17.2 16.2 15.5 13.5 13.2 12.4 12.4 12.1 11.9 11.7 11.7 11.3 10.0

Source: Global Economic Prospects 2006: Economic Implications of Remittances and Migration, World Bank.

Globalization: Its Diverse Actors and Spaces Table 4 Top 20 remittance-recipient countries, 2004 (US$ billions) India China Mexico France Philippines Spain Belgium Germany United Kingdom Morocco Serbia Pakistan Brazil Bangladesh Egypt, Arab Republic Portugal Vietnam Colombia United States Nigeria

21.7 21.3 18.1 12.7 11.6 6.9 6.8 6.5 6.4 4.2 4.1 3.9 3.6 3.4 3.3 3.2 3.2 3.2 3 2.8

Source: Author’s calculations based on IMF BoP Yearbook, (2004), and World Bank Staff Estimates.

sharply, as shown in Table 4. The top remittance recipient countries in 2004 included rich countries such as France, Spain, Germany, and the United Kingdom. The top recipients are India (US$ 21.7 billion), China (US$ 21.3 billion), Mexico (US$ 18.1 billion), France (US$ 12.7 billion), and the Philippines (US$ 11.6 billion).

The Feminization of Survival Women have emerged as a major force in these processes, both in that they tend to absorb the biggest share of the impact of SAPs and are a critical component of the new global trafficking circuits. We are beginning to see a feminization of survival for households, but also for trafficking enterprises and government revenue. This feminization of survival of households is mediated through the particular features of government debt (rather than the fact of debt per se). Among these, particular features are cuts in specific government programs aimed directly or indirectly at women and children, at social programs, and at programs supporting households generally. Further, we see a tendency for households to have to absorb the costs of male unemployment. There is by now a large literature on this subject in many different languages; it also includes a vast number of limited-circulation items produced by various activist and support organizations. Older literature on women and debt during a first generation of SAPs in the 1980s in several developing countries in response to growing government debt also documents the disproportionate burden these programs put on women.

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Unemployment, both of women themselves but also more generally of the men in their households, adds to the pressure on women to find ways to ensure household survival. Subsistence food production, informal work, emigration, and prostitution have all become survival options for women and by extension often for their households. When States Export Their Workers Governments often see exporting workers and receiving their remittances as means of coping with unemployment and foreign debt. While the second might be a fact, the first is not; further, emigration may be contributing to a slow-down in development as the most entrepreneurial, and often well-educated, leave. Some countries have developed formal labor export programs. Systemically this fits into the reorganizing of the world economy that began in the 1970s and took off in the 1980s. Probably the strongest examples are South Korea and the Philippines. In the 1970s, South Korea developed extensive programs to promote the export of workers as an integral part of its growing overseas construction industry, initially to the Middle Eastern OPEC countries and then worldwide. As South Korea entered its own economic boom, exporting workers became a less necessary and attractive option. In contrast, the Philippine government, if anything, expanded and diversified the concept of exporting its citizens as a way of dealing with unemployment and securing the needed foreign exchange reserves through their remittances. Thailand started a campaign in 1998 after the 1997–98 financial crisis to promote migration for work and recruitment of Thai workers by firms overseas. The government sought to export workers to the Middle East, the United States, Great Britain, Germany, Australia, and Greece. Sri Lanka’s government has tried to export another 200 000 workers in addition to the 1 million it already has overseas; Sri Lankan women remitted US$ 880 million in 1998, mostly from their earnings as maids in the Middle East and Far East. In the 1970s, Bangladesh was already organizing extensive labor export programs to the OPEC countries of the Middle East. These efforts continue, and along with the individual migrations to these and other countries, notably the United States and Great Britain, is a significant source of foreign exchange. Bangladeshi workers annually remitted an estimated $US 1.4 billion in the second half of the 1990s. The Philippines is the country with the most developed labor export program. The Filipino government has played an important role in the emigration of Filipino women to the United States, the Middle East, and Japan, through the Philippines Overseas Employment Administration (POEA). Established in 1982, it organized and oversaw the export of nurses and maids to highdemand areas in the world. High foreign debt and high

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unemployment combined to make this an attractive policy. In the last few years, Filipino overseas workers send home almost US$ 1 billion on average every year. The various labor-importing countries welcomed this policy for their own specific reasons. The OPEC countries of the Middle East saw the demand for domestic workers grow sharply after the 1973 oil boom. Confronted with a shortage of nurses, a profession that demanded years of training yet garnered rather low wages and little prestige or recognition, the United States passed the Immigration Nursing Relief Act of 1989 which allowed for the import of nurses; about 80% of the nurses brought in under the new act were from the Philippines. The Philippines’ government also passed regulations that permitted mail-order bride agencies to recruit young Filipinas to marry foreign men as a matter of contractual agreement.There is growing evidence of significant violence against mail-order brides in several countries, regardless of nationality of origin. In the United States, the INS has recently reported that domestic violence towards mail-order wives has become acute. Again, the law operates against these women seeking recourse, as they are liable to be detained if they do so before two years of marriage. In Japan, foreign mail-order wives are not granted full equal legal status, and there is considerable evidence that many are subject to abuse not only by the husband but by the extended family as well. The rapid increase in this trade was due to the organized effort by the government. The Philippine government approved most mail-order bride organizations until 1989, but under the government of Corazon Aquino, the stories of abuse by foreign husbands led to the banning of this business. However, it is almost impossible to eliminate these organizations, and they continue to operate in violation of the law. Among the major clients of such businesses were the United States and Japan. Japan’s agricultural communities were a key destination for these brides; There were enormous shortages of people, and especially young women, in the Japanese countryside. When the economy was booming and demand for labor in the large metropolitan areas was extremely high, municipal governments made it a policy to accept Filipino brides. The largest number of Filipinos going through these channels work overseas as maids, particularly in other Asian countries. The second largest group, and the fastest growing, is entertainers, who go largely to Japan. In the 1980s, Japan passed legislation, which permitted the entry of ‘entertainment workers’ into its booming economy marked by rising expendable incomes and strong labor shortages. The rapid increase in the number of migrants going as entertainers is largely due to over 500 ‘entertainment brokers’ in the Philippines operating outside the state umbrella, even though the government still benefits from the remittances of these workers. These brokers provide women for the sex industry in Japan, where it is

mostly supported or controlled by organized gangs rather than a government-controlled program for the entry of entertainers. These women are recruited for singing and entertaining, but frequently (perhaps mostly) they are forced into prostitution.

The New Labor Demand in Global Cities Globalization has also produced sites that concentrate on a growing demand of particular types of labor supplies. Strategic among these are global cities, with their sharp demand for top-level transnational professionals, and for low-wage workers, often women from the global south. These are places that concentrate on some of the key functions and resources for the management and coordination of global economic processes. The growth of these activities has in turn produced a sharp growth in the demand for highly paid professionals. Both the firms and the lifestyles of their professionals generate a demand for low-paid service workers. Thus global cities are also sites for the incorporation of large numbers of lowly paid immigrants into strategic economic sectors. This incorporation happens directly through the demand for poorly paid clerical and blue-collar service workers, such as janitors and repair workers. It happens indirectly through the consumption practices of high-income professionals, both at work and in their households, practices that generate a demand for low-wage workers in expensive restaurants and shops as well as for maids and nannies at home. In this way low-wage workers get incorporated into the leading sectors, but under conditions that render them invisible, thereby undermining what had historically functioned as a source of workers’ empowerment – being employed in growth sectors. This mix of circuits for labor supply and demand is deeply imbricated with other dynamics of globalization: formation of global markets, intensifying of transnational and translocal networks, and geographic redeployment of a growing range of economic and financial operations. The strengthening and, in some of these cases, formation of new global labor circuits, is embedded in the global economic system and its associated development of various institutional supports for cross-border markets and money flows. These circuits are dynamic and changing in their locational features. Some of these circuits are part of the shadow economy, but they use some of the institutional infrastructure of the regular economy. Most of these circuits are part of the formal economy and service leading economic sectors and places worldwide. This mix of labor supply and demand circuits is dynamic and multilocational. Major changes in the organization of economic activity since the 1980s are contributing to the growth of low-wage jobs in today’s most developed and strategic

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economic centers in both the global north and south. Such trends, in turn, contribute to general economic insecurity and new forms of employment-centered poverty among workers, even when employed. This is a broad subject, and importantly, such strategic economic centers are emerging fast in the global south as well, though not in the poorest economies. Questions of racism, colonialism, and resistance all are at work in some of these configurations in both the south and the north. There are at least three processes in these strategic economic centers that are constituting new forms of inequality within which we can situate the growing demand for low-wage workers, including a large share of foreign-born women. While not necessarily mutually exclusive, it is helpful to distinguish them analytically and include the following: (1) the growing inequality in the profit-making capacities of different economic sectors and in the earnings capacities of different types of workers and households; (2) socioeconomic polarization tendencies resulting from the organization of service industries and the casualization of the employment relation; and (3) the production of urban marginality, particularly as a result of new structural processes of economic growth rather than through decline and abandonment. Inequality in Profit-Making and Earnings Capacities Inequality in the profit-making capacities of different sectors of the economy and different types of workers has long been a feature of advanced economies. But what we see happening today takes place on a magnitude that distinguishes current developments from those of the post-War decades. The extent of inequality and the systems in which it is embedded and through which these outcomes are produced are engendering massive distortions in the operations of various markets, from investment to housing and labor. Two of the major processes lying behind the possibility of the increased inequality in profit-making and earnings capacities are an integral part of the advanced information economy. One is the ascendance and transformation of finance, particularly through securitization, globalization, and the development of new telecommunications and computer networks technologies. The other is the growing service intensity in the organization of the economy generally, which has vastly raised the demand for services by firms and households. This is a whole subject in itself, with a rapidly growing research literature. It is impossible to develop the subject here beyond a few summary statements. In my reading, the growth in the demand for service inputs, and especially bought service inputs, in all industries is perhaps the most fundamental condition creating a change in advanced economies. The

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same measure can be found in the value of bought service inputs in all industries. For this purpose, an analysis of national accounts data over different periods beginning with 1960 for several industries in manufacturing and services was done. The results showed clearly that this value increased markedly over time. It has had pronounced impacts on the earnings distribution, industrial organization, and the patterns along which economic growth has spatialized. It has contributed to a massive growth in the demand for services by firms in all industries, from mining and manufacturing to finance and consumer services, and by households, both rich and poor. Insofar as there is a strong tendency toward polarization in the technical levels and prices of services as well as in the wages and salaries of workers in the service sector, the growth in the demand for services contributes to polarization and, via cumulative causation, to reproduce these inequalities. The super-profit making capacity of many of the leading service industries is embedded in a complex combination of new trends: technologies that make possible the hypermobility of capital on a global scale; market deregulation that maximizes the implementation of that hypermobility; financial inventions such as securitization that liquify hitherto unliquid or relatively unliquid capital and allow it to circulate faster and hence make additional profits; and the growing demand for services in all industries along with the increasing complexity and specialization of many of these inputs which has contributed to their valorization and often overvalorization, as illustrated in the unusually high salary increases beginning in the 1980s for top level professionals. For instance, data analyzed by Smeeding for 25 developed and developing countries showed that since 1973, the incomes of the top fifth percentile have risen by nearly 50% , while the bottom fifth have declined by approximately 4%. According to the US Bureau of the Census, from 1970 to 2003, the share of aggregate national income the top 5% in the United States went up from 16% to 21%, and for the top 20% from 41% to 48%. All these figures will tend to underestimate inequality insofar as the top earners also have nonsalary-based gains in wealth, and the bottom fifth measure will tend to exclude many of the poor who lack any source of income and are dependent on friends and family, or become homeless and dependent on charities. Globalization further adds to the complexity of these services, their strategic character, their glamor, and therewith to their overvalorization. The ascendance of finance and specialized services, particularly concentrated in large cities, creates a critical mass of firms with extremely high profit-making capabilities. These firms contribute to escalation of prices of commercial space, industrial services, and other business needs, and thereby make survival for firms with moderate profit-making capabilities increasingly precarious.

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Among the latter, informalization of all or some of a firm’s operations can emerge as one of the more extreme responses, further contributing to polarization in the urban economy. More generally, we see a segmentation between high profit-making firms and relatively modest profit-making firms. One of the key outcomes of this transformation has been the ascendance of expertise and specialization in the organization of the economy. This ascendance of expertise in economic organization in turn has contributed to the overvalorization of specialized services and professional workers. It has also contributed to mark many of the ‘other’ types of economic activities and workers as unnecessary or irrelevant to an advanced economy. As author has sought to show at length elsewhere, many of these ‘other’ jobs are in fact an integral part of internationalized economic sectors, but not represented as such nor valued (i.e., waged) as such. This contributes to create a vast number of both low- and very high-income households. Among the major systemic tendencies in the organization of the service sector contributing to polarization is the disproportionate grouping of service industries at either end of the technology spectrum. Service industries that can be described as information- and knowledgeintensive have generated a significant share of all new jobs created over the last 15 years in developed economies while most of the other jobs created in the service sector fall at the other extreme. Cities are a nexus where many of the new organizational tendencies come together. They are also the sites for disproportionate concentration of both the top and the bottom level of the occupational distribution. The new employment regimes that have emerged in major cities of highly developed countries since the 1980s have reconfigured the job supply and employment relations. Much analysis of postindustrial society and advanced economies generally posits a massive growth in the need for highly educated workers. This suggests sharply reduced employment opportunities for workers with low educational levels in general, and for immigrants in particular. Yet detailed empirical studies of major cities in highly developed countries indicate ongoing demand for low-wage workers and a significant supply of old and new jobs requiring little education and paying low wages. Producing a Demand for Low-Wage Workers In the day-to-day work of the leading sectors in global cities, a large share of the jobs involved are lowly paid and manual, many held by immigrant women. Even the most advanced professionals will require clerical, cleaning, repair workers for their state-of-the art offices, and they will require truckers to bring not only the software but also the toilet paper. Although these types of workers and

jobs are never represented as part of the global economy, they are in fact part of the infrastructure of jobs involved in running and implementing the global economy, including such an advanced form as international finance. The specific trends discussed ahead are part of a larger reconfiguring of employment in global cities of the North, and increasingly also in those of the global south. High-level corporate services, from accounting to decision-making expertise, are not usually analyzed in terms of their work process. Such services are usually seen as a type of output, that is, high-level technical knowledge. Thus insufficient attention has gone to the actual array of jobs, from high-paying to low-paying, involved in the production of these services. A focus on the work process brings to the fore the labor question. Information outputs need to be produced, and the buildings, which hold the workers, need to be built and cleaned. The rapid growth of the financial industry and of highly specialized services generates not only highlevel technical and administrative jobs but also lowwage unskilled jobs. In research on New York and other cities, the author has found that between 30% and 50% of the workers in the leading sectors are actually low-wage workers. These trends are part of a larger reconfiguring of employment in global cities of the north, and increasingly also in those of the global south. Further, the similar state-of-the-art lifestyles of the professionals in these sectors have created a whole new demand for a range of household workers, particularly maids and nannies. The presence of a highly dynamic sector with a polarized income distribution has its own impact on the creation of low-wage jobs through the sphere of consumption (or, more generally, social reproduction). The rapid growth of industries with strong concentration of high- and low-income jobs has assumed distinct forms in the consumption structure which, in turn, has a feedback effect on the organization of work and the types of jobs being created. The expansion of the high-income work force in conjunction with the emergence of new lifestyles have led to a process of highincome gentrification that rests, in the last analysis, on the availability of a vast supply of low-wage workers. As for the consumption needs of the growing low-income population in large cities, these are also increasingly met through labor-intensive rather than standardized and unionized forms of producing goods and services: manufacturing and retail establishments which are small, rely on family labor, and often fall below minimum safety and health standards. Cheap, locally produced sweatshop garments and bedding, for example, can compete with lowcost Asian imports. A growing range of products and services, from low-cost furniture made in basements to ‘gypsy cabs’ and family daycare, are available to meet the demands of the growing low-income population. There are numerous instances of how the increased inequality in

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earnings reshapes the consumption structure and how this, in turn, has feedback effects on the organization of work, both in the formal and informal economy. Highprice restaurants, luxury housing, luxury hotels, gourmet shops, boutiques, hand laundries, and special cleaning services, are all more labor-intensive than their lower price equivalents. This has reintroduced – to an extent not seen in a very long time – the whole notion of the ‘serving classes’ in contemporary high-income households. Some of these issues are well illustrated in the emergent research literature on domestic service and in the rapid growth of international organizations catering to various household tasks discussed later. The immigrant woman serving the white middle class professional woman has replaced the traditional image of the black female servant serving the white master. All these trends give these cities an increasingly sharp tendency towards social polarization. Emergent Global Labor Markets We are beginning to see the formation of global labor markets at the top and the bottom of the economic system. At the bottom much of the staffing occurs through the efforts of individuals, largely immigrants, though we see an expanding network of organizations getting involved. Outsourcing of low-level manual, clerical, and service jobs happens largely through firms. Recruitment satisfying the demand for household work happens through the migration process, but also increasingly through agencies. Finally, a sector that is growing is global staffing companies, which provide firms with a rather broad range of types of workers for mostly standardized jobs. Some of these have expanded into household work to help the transnational professional workforce. For instance, Kelly Services, a Fortune 500 services company in global staffing, which operates offices in 25 countries, has now added a homecare division, which provides a full range of help. It is particularly geared to people who need assistance with daily living activities and also for those who lack the time to take care of the household which in the past would have been taken care of by the ‘mother/wife’ figure. Homecare services include assistance with bathing and dressing, food preparation, walking and getting in and out of bed, medication reminders, transportation, housekeeping, conversation, and companionship. While less directly related to the needs of high-income professional households, many of these tasks used to be in the care of the typical housewife of the global north. More directly pertinent to the professional households under discussion here are a growing range of global staffing organizations whose advertised services cover various aspects of daycare, including dropping off and picking up, as well as in-house tasks, from child-minding to cleaning

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and cooking. Very prominent in this market are the International Nanny and Au Pair Agency, headquartered in Britain; Nannies Incorporated, based in London and Paris; and the International Au Pair Association (IAPA) based in Canada. One international agency for nannies and au pairs (EF Au Pair Corporate Program) advertises directly to corporations urging them to make the service part of their employment offers to potential employees to help them address household and childcare needs. Increasingly, the emergent pattern is that the transnational professional class can access these services in the expanding network of global cities where they are likely to circulate. At the top of the system, several major Fortune 500 global staffing companies provide firms with experts and talent for high-level professional and technical jobs. In 2001, the largest of these was the Swiss multinational Adecco, with offices in 58 countries; in 2000 it provided firms worldwide with 3 million workers. Manpower, with offices in 59 different countries, provided 2 million workers. Kelly Services, mentioned earlier, provided 750 000 employees in 2000. More important, there is an emergent system that protects the rights of the new transnational professional and managerial workforce. This system is embedded both in today’s major free trade agreements and a series of new types of visas issued by governments. It is, thus, both at the top and at the bottom of the occupational distribution that labor market internationalization is beginning to happen. Mid-level occupations, even though increasingly handled through temporary employment agencies, have been less likely to internationalize their supply. These mid-level occupations include a broad range of professional and supervisory jobs, many subject to automation but many sufficiently specific to a country’s larger culture and politico-economic organization to be unlikely candidates for outsourcing. They also include a range of mid- and high-level government jobs, notably in the civil service. It should be noted that while the supply of government staff is not getting internationalized, there are two emergent trends that constitute a kind of internationalization. One is the recruitment into high government office of distinguished foreigners who have served at high levels in their government. A well-known example is London’s recruitment of a former top-ranked public transport government official in New York City to handle the public system in London. The other is the intensifying global networks of specialized government officials, whether competition policy, antiterrorism, or immigration government officials. These networks can be quite informal or go beyond the formal institutional arrangements. The types of occupations involved both at the top and the bottom are, in very different yet parallel ways, sensitive to global dynamics. Firms need reliable and hopefully somewhat talented professionals, and they need them

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specialized but standardized so they can use them globally. And professionals want the same in the workers they employ in their homes. The move of staffing organizations into provision of domestic services signals both the emergence of a global labor market and efforts to standardize the service delivered by maids and nannies and homecare nurses across the globe. The top end of the corporate economy—the highlypaid professionals and the corporate towers that project engineering expertise, precision, ‘techee’—is far easier to recognize as necessary for an advanced economic system than are truckers and other industrial service workers, or maids and nannies, even though all of them are a necessary ingredient. Firms, sectors, and workers that may appear as though they have little connection to an urban economy dominated by finance and specialized services, can in fact be an integral part of that economy. They do so, however, under conditions of sharp social, earnings, and often sex, racial, and ethnic segmentation. They become part of an increasingly dynamic and multifaceted lower circuit of global capital that partly parallels the upper circuit of professionals and leading corporate service firms—the lawyers, accountants, and telecommunications experts that service global capital. See also: International Relations, Overview; Social Equality and Inequality; Structural Violence; Trade, Conflict, and Cooperation Among Nations; Trade Wars (Disputes)

Further Reading Alarcon-Gonzalez, D. and McKinley, T. (1999). The adverse effects of structural adjustment on working women in Mexico. Latin American Perspectives 26(3), 103–117. Ambrogi, T. (1999). Jubilee 2000 and the campaign for debt cancellation. National Catholic Reporter (July). Aneesh, A. (2006). Virtual migration: The programming of globalization. Durham: Duke University Press. Bada, X., Fox, J., and Selee, A. (2006). Invisible no more: Mexican migrant civic participation in the United States. Washington, DC: The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Beneria, L. and Feldman, S. (eds.) (1992). Unequal burden: Economic crises, persistent poverty, and women’s work. Boulder, CO: Westview. Bonilla-Silva, E. (2003). Racism without racists: Color-blind racism and the persistence of racial inequality in the United States. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Bose, C. E. and Acosta-Belen, E. (eds.) (1995). Women in the Latin American development process. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Bryson, J. R. and Daniels, P. W. (eds.) (2007). The service industries handbook. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Buchmann, C. (1996). The debt crisis, structural adjustment and women’s education. International Journal of Comparative Studies 37(1–2), 5–30. Buechler, S. (2007). Deciphering the local in a global Neoliberal Age: Three favelas in Sao Paulo, Brazil. In Sassen, S. (ed.) Deciphering the global: Its scales, spaces, and subjects, pp 95–112. New York: Routledge. Chossudovsky, M. (1997). The globalization of poverty. London: Zed/ TWN.

Datz, G. (2007). Global-national interactions and sovereign debtrestructuring outcomes. In Sassen, S. (ed.) Deciphering the global: Its spaces, scales and subjects, pp 321–350. New York: Routledge. Ehrenreich, B. and Hochschild, A. (2003). Global woman: Nannies, maids, and sex workers in the new economy. New York: Metropolitan Books. Fernandez, K. M. P. and Shefner, J. (2005). Out of the shadows. College Station, PA: Penn State University Press. Gugler, J. (2004). World cities beyond the west. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hagedorn, J. (ed.) (2006). Gangs in the global city: Exploring alternatives to traditional criminology. Chicago, IL: University of Illinois at Chicago. Hindman, H. (2007). Outsourcing difference: Expatriate training and the disciplining of culture. In Sassen, S. (ed.) Deciphering the global: Its scales, spaces and subjects, pp 153–176. New York: Routledge. International Migration Office (2006). (Annual Quarterly). Trafficking in migrants. (Quarterly Bulletin). Geneva: IOM. Khotari, U. (2006). A radical history of development studies: Individuals, institutions and ideologies. London: Zed Books. Kirsch, M. (ed.) (2006). Inclusion and exclusion in the global arena. New York: Routledge. Koval, J. P., Bennett, L., Bennett, M. I. J., et al. (2006). The new Chicago. A social and cultural analysis. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Kyle, D. and Koslowski, R. (2001). Global human smuggling. London: Johns Hopkins University Press. Lardner, J. and Smith, D. A. (2005). Inequality matters. The growing economic divide in America. New York: The New Press, in collaboration with Demos Institute. Lewis Mumford Center For Comparative Urban and Regional Research (2000). Segregation and income in US cities. http:// mumford.albany.edu/census/index.html (accessed January 2008). Lucas, L. (ed.) (2005). Unpacking globalisation: Markets, gender and work. Kampala, Uganda: Makerere University Press. Mamdani, M. (1996). Citizen and subject: Contemporary Africa and the legacy of late colonialism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Munger, F. (ed.) (2002). Laboring under the line. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Natalia, R.-M. (2005). The mediterranean in the age of globalization: Migration, welfare, and borders. Somerset, NJ: Transaction. Orozco, M., Lowell, L. B., Bump, M., and Fedewa, R. (2005). Transnational engagement, remittances and their relationship to development in Latin America and the Caribbean. Washington, DC: Institute for the Study of International Migration, Georgetown University. OXFAM, (1999). International submission to the HIPC debt review. (April). http://www.caa.org/au/Oxfam/advocacy/debt/hipcreview.html. Parrenas, R. S. (ed.) (2001). Servants of globalization: Women, migration and domestic workers. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Pyle, J. L. and Ward, K. (2003). Recasting our understanding of gender and work during global restructuring. International Sociology 18(3), 461–489. Revista Internacional de Filosofia (2006). Inmigracion, estado y ciudadania. Simposio. Revista Internacional de Filosofia 27 (July). Robinson, S. (2004). Towards a neoapartheid system of governance with IT Tools, SSRC IT & Governance Study Group. New York: SSRC http://www.ssrc.org/programs/itic/publications/ knowledge_report/memos/robinsonmemo 4.pdf (accessed January 2008). Roulleau-Berger, L. (ed.) (2003). Youth and work in the postindustrial cities of North America and Europe. Leiden: Brill. Safa, H. (1995). The myth of the male breadwinner: Women and industrialization in the Caribbean. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Sassen, S. (1988). The mobility of labor and capital: A study in international investment and labor flow. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sassen, S. (2001). The global city: New York, London, Tokyo, 2nd edn. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Sassen, S. (2006). Territory, authority, rights: From medieval to global assemblages. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Sassen, S. (2006). Cities in a world economy, 3rd edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press.

Guerrilla Warfare Sennett, R. (2003). Respect in an age of inequality. New York: Norton. Smeeding, T. (2002). Globalization, inequality, and the rich countries of the G-20: Evidence from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS). Luxembourg Income Study Working Paper No. 320. Prepared for the G-20 Meeting, globalization, living standards and inequality: Recent progress and continuing challenges, Sydney, Australia, 26–28 May 2002. Taylor, P. J. and Derudder, B. (eds.) (2006). Cities in globalization: Practices, policies, and theories. London: Routledge. Tinker, I. (ed.) (1990). Persistent inequalities: Women and world development. New York: Oxford University Press. UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) (2005). A time for bold ambition: Together we can cut poverty in half. UNDP Annual Report 2005. US Department of State (2004). Trafficking in persons report, released by the office to monitor and combat trafficking in persons. Washington, DC: US Department of State. Venkatesh, S. A. (2006). Off the books: The underground economy of the urban poor. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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Ward, K. (1991). Women workers and global restructuring. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. World Bank (2005). Global economic prospects 2005: Trade, regionalism and development. Washington, DC: The World Bank. World Bank (2005). Increasing aid and its effectiveness. In Global monitoring report: Millennium development goals: From consensus to momentum, pp 151–187. Washington, DC: The World Bank. http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTGLOBALMONITORING/ Resources/ch5_GMR2005.pdf (accessed January 2008). World Bank (2006). Global economic prospects: Economic implications of remittances and migration. Washington, DC: The World Bank. Yamamoto, S. (2006). Democratic governmentality: The role of intermediaries in the case of Latino day laborers in Chicago. Presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, August 13, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Zlolniski, C. (2006). Janitors, street vendors, and activists: The lives of Mexican immigrants in Silicon Valley. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Group Emotions See Collective Emotions in Warfare

Guerrilla Warfare Anthony James Joes, Saint Joseph’s University, Philadelphia, PA, USA ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

How Guerrillas Fight Defeating Guerrillas

Glossary Guerrilla A term of Spanish origin; literally, ‘little war’. First used in English to describe the local Spanish forces opposing Napoleon’s efforts to rule Spain, in the Peninsular War of 1808–14. Now generally applied to any irregular military force carrying on a protracted conflict at the local level against a ruling or occupying government and its superior conventional military forces. Infrastructure Civilians who provide active support to guerrilla organizations.

Guerrilla warfare is a form of struggle carried on by those who seek to wage a protracted conflict against greatly superior forces. This article examines the general principles of guerrilla warfare as well as methods employed to defeat it, and then presents case studies illustrating those principles and methods.

Some Major Guerrilla Conflicts Further Reading

Policy of Attraction A method for undermining a guerrilla movement’s appeal to the population by ameliorating negative social conditions that create support for the guerrilla cause in the first place. Pyrrhic Victory A victory achieved at great cost to the victor; a triumph that is a virtual defeat. (From Pyrrhus, an ancient Greek king who is said to have remarked after inflicting a costly defeat on the Romans, ‘‘Another such victory and I am ruined.’’ Sanctuary A safe haven across an international border used by guerrillas as a refuge or base of operations.

How Guerrillas Fight In the decades following World War II, the term ‘guerrilla’ became widely associated with communism. Certainly, some of the most notable guerrilla movements, as those in China, Greece, and Vietnam, were communist-directed.

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But in Eritrea, Ukraine, Tibet, and most spectacularly Afghanistan, guerrillas fought ‘against’ communist regimes. In those countries, as in the Vendean resistance to the French Revolution and the Spanish insurgency against Napoleon, guerrilla war was the instrument of popular movements of nationalist, religious, and/or conservative orientation. By definition, guerrillas are the weaker party in a struggle. They lack the numbers, training, and equipment of a conventional army. That is precisely why they fight as guerrillas. Their first duty therefore is self-preservation; it is no disgrace for guerrillas to retreat in the face of superior force, indeed it is mandatory. Guerrillas must seek to protract the conflict: if it is quickly over, it will be because the guerrillas have been destroyed. A protracted conflict means that government forces cannot eliminate or disperse the guerrillas; this will weaken the morale of the government troops. It also provides time: for the guerrillas to train and test leaders, for foreign help to arrive, to prove the superiority of their will, most of all for the guerrillas to develop themselves into conventional forces, which is their true objective. Well-led guerrillas are always on the tactical offensive, searching out opportunities for action: attacking small outposts, convoys, and patrols, or damaging bridges, railways, and roads. They will never attack except when certain to win. This requires that they greatly outnumber the enemy at the point of contact. And that in turn requires the ability to assemble, strike, withdraw, and disperse with great speed. Speed, in attack and in withdrawal, is the essence of guerrilla combat. Here the guerrillas’ lightness of armament is an advantage (the Roman word for the equipment of a regular army was impedimenta). That is why the great philosopher of war Carl von Clausewitz advised guerrillas to operate in rough country. Thus, guerrillas are combatants who seek to wage a protracted conflict against superior forces by emphasizing speed and deception, whereby they win small victories through their numerical superiority at particular points. To survive, guerrillas need high morale, accurate intelligence, and if possible, a secure base. Guerrilla life involves much physical hardship, and the taking of life and destruction of property. Hence maintaining good morale becomes essential. Morale can be kept high by recruiting only volunteers and by constantly winning small victories; but most of all, good morale requires a good cause. Sometimes the good cause is obvious, as in Afghan resistance to Soviet invasion; sometimes the cause needs to be explained through political indoctrination. Intelligence – knowledge of the location, numbers, equipment, and morale of the enemy – is equally vital. Such intelligence can derive from penetration of the enemy police and armed forces. It can also come from sympathetic civilians (hence, it is a good idea for guerrilla

bands always to include at least some natives of the area in which they are operating). Besides high-quality intelligence, guerrillas need food, medicine, and recruits. These come from their organized civilian supporters, called the ‘infrastructure’. Guerrillas operate outside settled life, the civilian infrastructure operates inside. A secure base means an area where the guerrillas can store supplies, train members, nurse their wounded, and rest in safety. Normally that place will be in a remote or inaccessible part of the country, as was the case in Mao’s China. Today, perhaps few if any areas are really inaccessible to a government equipped with helicopters and specialized aircraft. In substitution for, or in addition to, a secure base, guerrillas may possess a ‘sanctuary’, that is, a refuge across an international frontier, as the Viet Cong possessed in Laos and Cambodia. The main problem with a sanctuary is that the host country may withdraw its use, which happened to the Greek Communist guerrillas of the late 1940s. Well-led guerrillas can survive on human and material resources from inside the country of their operations. To win, however, they need foreign assistance, because usually guerrillas cannot accumulate the kind of armament necessary for them to field conventional units if they lack outside aid. Experience strongly suggests that it is very difficult to defeat guerrillas who have an attractive cause and outside help. On the other hand, even if the guerrillas enjoy both foreign aid and a sanctuary, it will do them little good in the end if they pursue a bad strategy, as in the case of the Greek insurgents (see below). Finally, operating in tandem with allied conventional forces is immensely helpful to guerrillas, for this makes it dangerous for the enemy to maintain strongpoints and/or to send out small units to hunt guerrillas.

Defeating Guerrillas An analysis of guerrilla conflicts both ancient and contemporary produces a set of principles by which a government can hope to defeat guerrillas. First and foremost, the government must control the conduct of its troops toward civilians. Brutality or looting in the villages legitimizes the guerrillas, makes recruits for them, and interferes with the government’s gathering of intelligence. Even the most resource-poor government can make sure that the arrival of its troops in a village does not resemble the descent of a plague of locusts (or worse). Rectitude on the part of the authorities is worth many battalions. Confirming this principle in a negative sense are the experiences of the Japanese in China, the Germans in Yugoslavia, and the Soviets in Afghanistan, and in a positive sense the British in Malaya, the Americans against Aguinaldo, and Magsaysay against the Huks (see below). Two additional and quite effective means by

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which a government can undercut the appeal of guerrillas are (1) addressing some major popular grievance(s), and (2) offering a peaceful road to change, in the form of honest elections or some sort of traditional assembly. It is often observed that the ballot box is the coffin of insurgencies. (For both of these approaches, see section ‘The Huks’ below.) Other inexpensive tactics for the government to pursue include: encouraging defection by the offer of amnesty and resettlement (surrendered or even captured guerrillas often provide valuable intelligence); buying up guns from civilians in or near guerrilla areas, no questions asked; offering large rewards for the apprehension of specific guerrilla leaders accused of specific criminal acts; and sending small, well-trained hunter groups into guerrilla territory on long-term patrols. If the guerrillas have a sanctuary, great effort should be made to shut it down, through either diplomatic or military means. In the Algerian struggle, the French quite effectively closed off the Tunisian frontier, while during the Afghanistan war the Soviets utterly failed to control the Pakistan border. If, however, the guerrillas are clearly losing, the sanctuary problem will probably solve itself. In the last analysis, victory over guerrillas consists not in killing them (usually a difficult thing to do) but in separating them from civilians from whom they derive sustenance. Resolving some popular grievance(s) is one effective way to accomplish this, because almost invariably civilians, especially rural folk, who support guerrilla movements do so for concrete and finite reasons, as contrasted to the often ideological and open-ended goals of the insurgent leadership. Another method is to gather scattered or nomadic populations into easily-guarded settlements. This procedure requires a good deal of planning and money if it is not to thoroughly alienate the regrouped civilians; resettlement was successful in Malaya, but in general it is inadvisable. Better than removing the civilians is removing the guerrillas. This can be done through ‘clearing and holding’: government forces inundate a given area, driving the guerrillas out and identifying and detaining their sympathizers (clearing); a local militia is trained and armed to prevent the return of the guerrillas (holding). Then a neighboring area is cleared, and so on until the guerrillas are pushed into remote and poorly-inhabited areas. This is definitely a low-casualty strategy, but it requires time, patience, coordination, and well-disciplined troops. One cannot wage successful counterinsurgency on the cheap. The country undertaking to defeat a serious guerrilla movement must be prepared to make a substantial commitment of troops, or else find some other way to deal (or not to deal) with the insurgency. Many authors have maintained that for a government to defeat guerrillas, the ratio of its forces to the guerrillas needs to be 10:1. In Malaya, the ratio of soldiers and paramilitary to guerrillas

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reached 29:1; in French Algeria, 18:1. In contrast, the ratio of French forces to the Viet Minh was 1.7:1; and for the Americans and South Vietnamese against the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army, 1.6:1. Yet wars are not won by favorable ratios alone: shortly before Fidel Castro’s triumphant march into Havana, the regime’s army overmatched the Fidelistas 15:1. The role of geography in guerrilla warfare is complex. The British waged a successful counterinsurgency in faroff Malaya, as did the Americans in the far-off Philippines, while the Soviet debacle in Afghanistan and the Napoleonic disaster in Spain both took place just across the border. But geography is primary and decisive for the all-important question of foreign assistance to guerrillas.

Some Major Guerrilla Conflicts The American Revolution Every American schoolchild once knew that the climax of the American Revolution was the surrender of General George Cornwallis at Yorktown. But why was Cornwallis there? The army available to the British Crown during the Revolution was small; hence the notorious ‘Hessian mercenaries’. This army enjoyed no great technological advantages over the troops of the Continental Congress. Much of its food and munitions had to come from Britain by sailing ship across the treacherous North Atlantic, with crossings taking up to 2 months. The Royal Navy had deteriorated since its victory in the Seven Years War, and the watchful French were ready to cause whatever mischief they could for their British rivals. In October 1777, the battle of Saratoga (in New York) convinced the French to help the Americans. It also turned British strategy toward the southern colonies, supposedly rich in food and full of loyalists. Their plan was to conquer South Carolina and then proceed methodically northward. A large British force captured Charleston in May 1780 and then destroyed the last regular American army in the southern colonies. The British and their vengeful loyalist allies began burning private homes and Presbyterian churches, and the whole of Georgetown, South Carolina. These acts provoked the predictable response: guerrilla leaders like the Swamp Fox (Francis Marion) and the Gamecock (Thomas Sumter) kept the torch of resistance burning. Their well-mounted bands pushed small British outposts back to Charleston, harried communications between Charleston and Camden, and attacked British detachments trying to gather food. The Swamp Fox led bands varying in size between 50 and 250 men; the born guerrilla chieftain, ‘‘fertile in stratagems, he struck unperceived.’’

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Deciding that the true source of the South Carolina guerrilla war lay in North Carolina, in October 1780 Cornwallis led an army there. He soon fell victim to guerrillas operating symbiotically with the small, newlyarrived American army of Nathanael Greene. If Cornwallis were to subdivide his army into numerous, fast-moving groups to hunt the guerrillas, they would be in danger from Greene’s forces; but by concentrating on the pursuit of Greene, the British fell victim to harassment day and night by the guerrillas. Cornwallis’s victory over Greene at Guilford Court House (March 1781) was Pyrrhic: of his force of 1900 he lost 500, which he could not replace. Meanwhile, guerrillas wore out his remaining troops with alarms and chases and sudden small encounters. Simply getting enough food became a major problem. In tacit admission that the Carolina enterprise had been a mistake from the beginning, Cornwallis crossed the line into Virginia, to keep his rendezvous with destiny at Yorktown. The Vendee In 1793 the French Revolution was entering its most radical phase. It would take the lives of the King and Queen and thousands of ordinary Frenchmen, assault the Church, and plunge France into war against all Europe. These policies evoked profound and widespread domestic opposition: revolt swept Brittany, Lyons, and the southern provinces. But the most famous of the uprisings against the radical regime in Paris took place in the Vendee, an Atlantic province the size of Connecticut, with a pre-revolutionary population of 800 000. Persecution of religion and the imposition of the draft upon the peasantry (from which town officials exempted themselves) were the principal grievances of the Vendeans. Over 120 000 of them, including women and youths, joined the insurgent forces. They captured several sizeable towns, notably Saumur. From there they might have marched to Paris, but did not, owing to their narrow regional perspective and the absence of both professional military leadership and strict discipline. But most of all they lacked good arms, because England, though nearby, declined to help. The Paris regime employed the most extreme methods to crush the Vendean peasantry, including mass executions preceded by mass rape, the deliberate killing of children, the drowning of prisoners, the burning of villages, the poisoning of wells, even experiments with poison gas. It was ‘the first ideological genocide’ in human history. The distinction between combatant and noncombatant disappeared; supporters of the regime were slaughtered along with its opponents. The regime overwhelmed the Vendee with 130 000 troops, compared to 180 000 fighting all of France’s enemies on the northern and eastern frontiers. The war was brought to an end, for a while, by the young General Louis-Lazare Hoche. He isolated the Vendee by gridding its eastern section with

little forts, moving slowly westward so that the insurgents would have no place to go. Civilian hostages were taken until weapons were handed over. But Hoche also strove to re-establish discipline among the government troops who had hitherto raped and burned at will; he also restored a measure of religious freedom. These latter policies went far to calm the desperate peasantry. To suppress the guerrilla risings in the Vendee and neighboring Brittany cost 150 000 French lives, more than the disastrous Russian campaign of 1812. The once prosperous Vendee had been reduced to ruin. But the Vendeans had their revenge: in May 1815, at the return of Napoleon from Elba, they rose again in hostility to the heir of the Revolution. The 30 000 soldiers Napoleon sent to the Vendee would have made all the difference to him at Waterloo. Spain In 1808, Emperor Napoleon invaded Spain. It was this act, not the invasion of Russia a few years later, that was the real undoing of his precarious empire. The fundament of this Spanish disaster was the national uprising of the Spanish people, from which our word ‘guerrilla’ derives. The invasion of their country, followed by French outrages – systematic rape, routine sacrilege, the looting of cathedrals and the burning of churches – aroused the fury of the Spanish people. Economically underdeveloped, crossed by several mountain chains, Spain provided an ideal setting for guerrillas. With widespread popular support, the insurgents always enjoyed timely and abundant intelligence. Their rapidity of movement baffled, exhausted, and finally overwhelmed the French. The French regime in Madrid often found itself isolated from France and even from the rest of Spain. Shipments of food and mail required large and expensive convoys, often as many as 2000 soldiers, as protection against guerrillas. French cavalry horses, overworked and underfed, died in droves. French generals behaved like independent powers, indifferent or hostile to the claims of neighboring commanders. British sea power brought guns and supplies to the insurgents. At the same time, Wellington’s small Anglo–Portuguese army both supported and was supported by the insurgents, a symbiotic relationship between regular troops and guerrilla bands like the one in Revolutionary Carolina. And throughout the war the port of Cadiz remained in the hands of a regular Spanish army. French numbers in Spain proved inadequate to the multidimensional struggle, even though by the time of the Russian campaign they reached 230 000, including Polish and Italian allied units. They regrouped into large, immobile city garrisons, abandoning the countryside to guerrillas. By the summer of 1813, Napoleonic Spain had ceased to exist.

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Their lost struggle in Spain cost French and Imperial forces between 200 000 and 300 000 casualties, of whom perhaps 180 000 died. By destroying the myth of French invincibility, the Spanish insurgency encouraged renewed European resistance to the French imperium. But even if the French had achieved victory in Spain it would have represented little more than a strategically irrelevant diversion of valuable forces from more important fronts. Napoleon himself grasped this strategic truth, saying ‘‘I am the heir of Charlemagne, not of Louis XIV,’’ meaning that France’s destiny lay across the Rhine, not the Pyrenees. But he ignored his own words, and in the end, the Spanish adventure must rank as Napoleon’s greatest mistake. The American Civil War Confederate guerrillas played a prominent role in the American Civil War, notably in Missouri and Virginia. Even after Lee surrendered at Appomattox, 100 000 Confederates remained under arms. Upon the defeat of their regular armies, the American colonials, the Spanish, and the Boers had all resorted to guerrilla resistance. But a similar eruption in the defeated Confederacy, so feared by Lincoln and Grant, did not occur. The reasons for this nonoccurrence provide many insights into what guerrilla war requires. Many southerners had had deep misgivings about secession. Then, the war turned out to be much longer and much harder than predicted. The Confederate conscription law aroused widespread bitterness. Furious quarrels between President and Congress and between the Richmond government and the States wracked the Confederacy. Nor was there any stirring ideology to sustain the rebellion: at bottom, secession had been about holding millions of human beings in slavery, an institution condemned in most of the civilized world. The moral problem of slavery weighed heavily on the consciences of many Confederates, and besides, 90% of white southerners owned no slave. And in the war’s last hour, the Confederate Congress had authorized the enrolling of 300 000 slave soldiers, promising them freedom at war’s end. In any event, by early 1865 all could see that the Confederates had been thoroughly and irredeemably beaten. If Confederates turned to guerrilla war, what were the prospects for success? They could not realistically hope for outside aid: no foreign state had openly helped the Confederacy in its flower, and none was likely to do so after its defeat. And what, indeed, would the fearsome destructiveness of guerrilla struggle be for? Slavery was finished. The leaders and soldiers of the Union were not foreigners committing systematic sacrileges (as the Spanish guerrillas faced). They indulged in no mass rapes and mass murders (as occurred in the Vendee).

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Confederates faced no prospect of concentration camps, firing squads, mass expulsions; on the contrary, with malice toward none, Lincoln and Grant were offering an easy peace. The embodiment of the southern cause, Robert E. Lee himself, advised his people to take the path of reconciliation. Thus, after Appomattox, guerrilla conflagration did not consume the prostrate south. The Boers The Boer Republics of southern Africa were about the size of Kansas and Nebraska combined. Their inhabitants, today called Afrikaners, were the descendants of religious refugees from seventeenth-century Europe. Fulfillment of the British grand design for an African empire stretching from the Cape to Cairo required the subjugation of the Boer Republics. Between October 1899 and June 1900, British forces easily defeated the regular Boer armies. But the Boers (literally ‘farmers’) fought on as mounted guerrillas. In a pre-aircraft age, the vast spaces of southern Africa offered them shelter and scope. Civilian leaders emerged displaying real talent for guerrilla war. But the contest grew ugly, as prisoner-killing and farm-burning became common on both sides. To subdue these farmers-turned-guerrillas, the British sent an army of 450 000 men, the biggest British force in history to that time, far larger than anything they had fielded against Napoleon. Their commander, General Horatio Kitchener, deprived the Boers of their sheltering space: he chopped up the Veldt with 8000 blockhouses connected by barbed wire, close enough to each other for mutual protection with searchlights and rifle fire. Beyond these blockhouse lines Kitchener flushed out guerrillas with huge drives, consisting of mounted soldiers, one every 10 yards, sometimes for 50 miles across. To isolate the guerrillas, he concentrated much of the scattered civilian population into huge camps. By the beginning of 1902, although 20 000 Boer guerrillas were still in the field, it was clear that they had suffered irredeemable strategic defeat. They were hopelessly outnumbered, and foreign help (mainly from Kaiser Wilhelm’s Germany) had evaporated. Under such conditions, and with the British offering amnesty, selfgovernment, and compensation for damaged property, most of the Boer leaders signed peace accords in May 1902. Imperial losses, from battle and disease, totaled 22 000; 7000 Boers died in battle, and several thousand civilians perished from unsanitary conditions in the camps. The Philippines: Aguinaldo The Philippine Archipelago consists of 7000 islands, over 160 000 square miles, about the size of Arizona. Philippine guerrillas had been active against their Spanish rulers for

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2 years before the Spanish–American War broke out. After Commodore Dewey smashed the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay (1 May 1898), United States forces entered that city. Believing that the islands could not govern themselves and would soon fall prey to either German or Japanese imperialism, the McKinley Administration decided to retain possession of the archipelago for the time being. But meanwhile Emilio Aguinaldo, a leader of the anti-Spanish insurgents, had proclaimed himself provisional president of the Republic of the Philippines. Armed clashes between Aguinaldo’s followers and American troops began in February 1899. With his forces soon dispersed, Aguinaldo reluctantly decided to carry on the struggle through guerrilla war. His men dug pits with sharpened stakes and arranged booby traps with poisoned arrows. Avoiding combat except when they had overwhelming superiority, at other times they assumed the guise of peaceable civilians. They also killed local officials who cooperated with the Americans, and set the torch to entire villages that were unenthusiastic for the insurgent cause. American forces in the islands suffered from a variety of tropical diseases, which diminished their already inadequate numbers, only 20 000 in early 1899, 70 000 by early 1901. Nevertheless, the Americans embarked on a systematic program of social improvement in the backward islands. The US Army built and staffed free schools, cleaned up the most unsanitary aspects of city life, reformed the benighted penal system, fought malaria, and provided free inoculation against smallpox. No Filipino could deny that American rule was incomparably better than that of the Spanish. This preemptive ‘policy of attraction’ profoundly undermined the already limited appeal of Aguinaldo’s movement. At the same time, the Americans reduced guerrilla contact with the civilian population by gathering small settlements into large protected areas. They aggravated the weapons shortage among the insurgents by offering either cash or release of a prisoner of war to anyone who would turn in a gun, no questions asked. Although they enjoyed much sympathy in Japanese naval circles, Aguinaldo’s guerrillas had no real prospects of foreign assistance, thanks to the newly-victorious US Navy. Nor could they effectively raise the banner of nationalism: Philippine society encompassed many religious, linguistic, and ethnic groups, often living in mutual hostility, but most of the insurgent leaders were Tagalog. The Americans were able to take advantage of these internecine conflicts by recruiting among the minority peoples of Luzon; over 5000 of these served as scouts or police, and eventually a 3000-man mounted Philippine constabulary was operating under American officers. Aguinaldo’s only real card to play was that of independence. Fewer and fewer Filipinos, however, were willing to risk death for that cause because the United States

government had promised repeatedly and in writing that it too intended that the Philippines should one day be independent. And then in March 1901 American soldiers captured Aguinaldo himself. During March and April 1901 nearly 13 000 guerrillas surrendered. On 4 July 1902, the Americans proclaimed an amnesty for all remaining guerrillas except a few accused of specific felonies. The suppression of Aguinaldo’s insurgency cost 4200 Americans lives, more than in the Spanish–American War itself. The Americans were limited in numbers and culturally alien: very few could speak any Philippine language. They had neither aircraft nor tanks. But by combining effective small-unit tactics with astute political measures, they not only won the war but did it in a way that allowed all sides to live afterwards with each other and with themselves. Years later, Aguinaldo himself wrote that the American triumph had been to the advantage of the Philippine people. Greece The Communist insurgency in Greece was the first armed confrontation between the newly-formed Communist bloc and the emerging Western alliance. It called forth the proclamation of the Truman Doctrine, and hence set out the basis of Containment that would guide US foreign policy for the next three decades. German forces invaded Greece in April 1941. Eventually several guerrilla resistance groups formed, the largest being the Communist-dominated ELAS, which appeared in December 1942. The Germans did not engage in a vigorous repression of guerrillas, and ELAS wished to save its strength for the inevitable postwar struggle for power. With Soviet armies entering the Balkans, the Germans evacuated Greece in the latter half of 1944. While war raged across Europe, ELAS attempted an armed seizure of Athens in December 1944. British forces defeated this effort in heavy fighting. National elections took place in March 1946, which the Communists boycotted. Shortly thereafter they launched a guerrilla war, under the name of the Democratic Army. The Communist insurgency enjoyed many advantages. Covered with mountains and crossed by few roads, Greece was ideal territory for guerrillas. The German occupation had left the country in a desperate economic condition. The Greek Royal Army was completely demoralized. The Communists were linked to the prestige of the victorious, close, and powerful USSR. Most importantly, the Communist governments of Greece’s northern neighbors – Albania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia – were ready and willing to furnish supplies and sanctuary to the guerrillas. And amidst these perils the parliamentarians in Athens devoted their time to political machinations and mutual hostilities.

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In the spring of 1947 the British cabinet informed Washington that it could no longer afford to sustain the Greek government. Accordingly, in a memorable address to Congress, President Truman declared that the United States would henceforth assist Greece, and other countries threatened with Communist subversion. The United States gave substantial financial help to the Greeks, which enabled them to enlarge their armed forces without unduly upsetting their economic recovery. And the Greek Royal Army received American military advisers, but no US ground combat troops, due mainly to the opposition of the US Chiefs of Staff. In late 1948 the Democratic Army (the Communists) abandoned guerrilla tactics for conventional warfare, a conversion which it was not strong enough to sustain. It had also thoroughly alienated much of the peasantry, reflecting the predominantly urban petit bourgeois and non-Greek composition of the guerrilla movement. By 1949 the Greek government was deploying 150 000 regular troops and 75 000 paramilitary personnel. The guerrillas numbered about 25 000, an increasing proportion of whom consisted of Macedonian separatists and kidnapped civilians forced to fight under duress. In July 1949, Marshal Tito closed the Yugoslav border, the coup de grace for the all-but-finished insurgents. The defeat of the Greek guerrillas had several causes, but came because above all they had violated the two most important principles of guerrilla war: do not engage in combat unless certain to win, and do not antagonize the surrounding population. China The Chinese revolutions of this century, Nationalist and Communist, have been attempts to bring China into the modern world, so that it could resist Western, Russian, and Japanese intrusion and aggression. Mao Tse-tung’s rise to power was a symbol and consequence of these attempts. During the 1920s, the Kuomintang (KMT) regime ruled China under Chiang Kai-shek, heir to Sun Yat-sen’s republican revolution. In the eyes of contemporary observers, the KMT was making real progress in modernizing the country. In contrast, the Chinese Communist Party was in serious trouble. In 1934, after years of continuous and damaging attacks by the KMT, the Communists had fled into the remote interior of the country in the disastrous Long March. The KMT was planning the final destruction of the Communists when Japanese aggressions culminated in open war in 1937. The war brought domestic reform within KMT territory to a halt as attention shifted towards resisting the Japanese. It also gave new life to the Chinese Communist Party and its efforts at armed revolution. Having in the mid-1930s solidified his control over the Communist Party, Mao Tse-tung set

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forth the thesis that for a revolution to succeed in a peasant country like China, it must have peasant support; power would come as the result of protracted rural conflict, not a Petrograd-style coup. Now the Japanese would provide Mao the peasant support he needed. Japanese forces in China had two key characteristics. First, they possessed neither the training, the discipline, the equipment, nor the numbers to bring the war to a successful conclusion or even to maintain order in occupied areas (the number of troops Japan committed to China were equivalent to President Lincoln trying to subdue the Confederacy with an army of 19 000). Second, their behavior toward the Chinese was absolutely appalling; as a consequence, normally peaceful peasants were driven into the arms of Maoist guerrilla bands. Mao placed great stress on the following points: maintaining guerrilla morale through ceaseless political indoctrination; building good relations with the peasantry (in marked contrast to every other army in China), because ‘‘the guerrilla moves among the people as fish move in the water;’’ treating prisoners well and then releasing them, to dissuade the enemy from resisting to the end; engaging in combat only when victory was assured by overwhelming numbers; achieving surprise through mobility; establishing secure bases, not difficult in a big country like China, rich in mountains and poor in communications. After the surrender of Japan, the war between Chiang and the Communists became predominantly a conventional one. Of the many errors made by the KMT, perhaps the most significant was holding on to all the major cities of China, thus allowing the Communists to defeat their forces piecemeal. Preoccupied with the Marshall Plan, NATO, and the crisis in Greece, the United States government regretted the slow defeat of Chiang but did not act to prevent it. In considering Mao’s rise to power the following points are very important. First, the Japanese severely mauled the armies and the prestige of Chiang Kai-shek to the supreme benefit of the Communists. Second, it was the Americans who defeated Japan, not the Chinese. Third, Mao beat the KMT by deploying large conventional armies, not guerrilla bands. Thus the popular paradigm of Maoist ‘‘people’s war’’ – hardy peasant guerrillas defeating first the Japanese and then the KMT – is quite misleading. That is mainly why almost all subsequent attempts to imitate it met disaster. The Philippines: The Huks During the Japanese occupation of the Philippines (1942–45) several guerrilla groups appeared, some organized by the Americans and some by the Philippine Communist Party. The latter came to be known as the Huks (from the acronym Hukbalahap, People’s Army

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Against Japan). By 1945 the Huks were well-armed with weapons taken from the Japanese or shipped in from the United States. In late 1946 open fighting flared between the Huks and the newly independent Philippine Republic. The Huk stronghold was on Luzon, the size of Kentucky, among the long-exploited sugar workers. The Philippine constabulary was poorly armed and poorly trained; abuse of civilians was common. The elections of 1949, which produced the re-election of President Quirino and the Liberal Party, were corrupt even by Philippine standards of the day, lending credibility to Huk claims that violent revolution offered the only path to change. By the time the Korean war broke out (June 1950), the Huks numbered 25 000 fighters, and were engaging in spectacular raids in the very outskirts of Manila. Nevertheless, the tide was about to turn. The Communist-dominated Huks failed to reach out to other alienated groups and form a broad front. The numerous common criminals among their ranks frightened the peasantry, and they suffered a public relations disaster from the murder of the daughter of former President Quezon. But the most important event of the conflict was the appointment, in September 1950, of Ramon Magsaysay, member of Congress and former guerrilla, as Secretary of Defense. Magsaysay greatly improved the armed forces’ treatment of civilians, flying around rural areas in a little plane to see that his orders were carried out. He sent the constabulary into Huk food-growing areas, forcing the guerrillas back into the swamps and cutting them off from the civil population. He sowed distrust among the Huks by offering fabulous rewards for the capture of specific Huk leaders accused of criminal acts. He began a program of resettlement for guerrillas who accepted amnesty. And he used troops to ensure the honesty of the 1951 congressional elections, reopening a peaceful road to reform. The government forces waged a low-tech campaign that minimized civilian casualties. Meanwhile, the Huks obtained no help from abroad. And the return of honest elections undermined the appeal of violence. Nor could the Huks invoke nationalist sentiments: the Philippine Republic was already independent, and the United States, although emotionally involved with the Philippines, was preoccupied with events in Greece, Korea, and French Indochina. Besides, both the State Department and the Pentagon believed the fundamental problems in the Philippines were political, not military. Hence the Americans sent financial assistance to Manila, and a military advisory mission of 58 personnel, but no combat troops. In May 1954 the military leader of the Huks, Luis Taruc, surrendered; for practical purposes the insurgency

was over. From 1946 to 1954, 10 000 Huks had been killed, 4000 captured, and 16 000 surrendered.

Malaya In Malaya, predominantly foreign forces waged a successful and inexpensive counterinsurgency against Communist guerrillas. In 1948, Malaya’s area was 51 000 square miles, the size of Alabama, and contained 2.7 million Malayan Muslims, 2 million Chinese, and 700 000 Indians; the three communities lived in isolation from one another. The Japanese occupation which began in 1942 provided an opening for the small Communist Party to organize guerrilla bands. The Japanese troops in Malaya were not first quality, and the jungle was ideal terrain for the insurgents. Nevertheless, Japanese soldiers killed by Communist guerrillas between 1942 and 1945 amounted to less than 2 per day; the guerrillas in fact killed more anticommunist Chinese. By December 1945, the guerrillas, calling themselves the Malayan People’s Anti-Japanese Army, counted 10 000 members, with good weapons, many of which had been given to them by the Japanese-sponsored Indian National Army. For obscure reasons the Communists did not try to seize power in August 1945, their best opportunity. But by June 1948, in the face of growing terrorist attacks on civilians, the British administration proclaimed an Emergency. In homage to the Maoists, the insurgents changed their name to the Malayan Races Liberation Army. They attacked small police posts, ambushed civilian vehicles, damaged bridges, slashed rubber trees, and burned the huts of rubber workers. They also killed their prisoners, especially if Chinese. The few half-hearted efforts by the almost exclusively Chinese leadership of the guerrillas to reach out to the Malays were not successful. In summer 1950, General Sir Harold Briggs inaugurated closer coordination of the army and the police, and began methodically clearing the country province by province from South to North. But the centerpiece of the Briggs Plan was the resettlement of landless Chinese squatters: by 1954, 570 000 lived in new villages and received title to land. The British were draining the water in which the fish had to swim. All this formed part of a general food denial program: rice convoys were heavily guarded, canned goods were carefully controlled, and guerrilla food-growing areas were searched out and destroyed. In February 1952 Sir Gerald Templer took overall command. He emphasized good intelligence, for which he offered impressive monetary rewards. Surrendered or captured guerrillas were excellent intelligence sources, often turning in their comrades for cash. The British used few aircraft, and rarely employed artillery; instead

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small, well-trained jungle-fighting units harried the guerrillas ceaselessly. In retrospect it is hard to see how the guerrillas could have won. The Malay half of the population was against them from the start; instead of the Chinese guerrillas reaching out to them, on the contrary the British successfully trained and armed a Chinese militia; and independence was clearly approaching. Militarily, the insurgent position was hopeless. They received no outside help: Malaya’s only land border is with Thailand, whose government was hostile to the guerrillas. And the British assembled overwhelming force: by 1954 they had 40 000 regular troops (British, Gurkha, Commonwealth, and Malayan), plus 24 000 Federation police, 37 000 Special constables, and 250 000 Home Guards (militia). From 1946 to 1958, the guerrillas killed 512 government soldiers and 3000 civilians. Over 6700 guerrillas were killed, 1300 were captured, and 2700 surrendered. Cuba, Castro, and Guevara Some have described Fidel Castro’s coming to power as the first Communist revolution in the Western Hemisphere. This is erroneous: Castro did not come to power as a Communist, nor had he led a revolution. Cuba was a peculiar, invertebrate country. Those pillars of Latin American society – the Church, the army, and the landowning aristocracy – were either absent from Cuba, or present in a distorted form. The Batista regime that ruled Cuba in the 1950s was a mafia in khaki, antagonizing all segments of Cuban society. On 2 December 1956, Fidel Castro, a law school graduate and landowner’s son, came ashore in Cuba with 80 armed followers. Most were apprehended, but a few escaped with Castro into the Sierra Maestra. Batista’s army of 15 000 should have been more than adequate to deal with this challenge. Its officers, however, owed their positions to favoritism and graft. The army had little counterguerrilla training and less desire to fight: during its 2-year conflict with Castro it suffered fewer than 3 casualties per week, and when Batista fled, most units had not fired a shot. The army used to take out its frustration on helpless peasants, under the eyes of the US media. With Castro promising free elections, President Eisenhower imposed an arms embargo in May 1958, a fatal blow to Batista’s prestige. In December the State Department withdrew recognition from his government. On New Year’s Eve, Batista left the country. When the Fidelistas entered Havana, they numbered less than a thousand. The isolated and reviled Batista regime had not been overthrown, it had collapsed. Thus the Castro ‘revolution’ was a fatally misleading paradigm for other Latin American countries, and efforts to export it failed resoundingly. In the Sierra Maestra, Castro had presented himself as a

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democrat, but his latter-day imitators declared themselves Leninists or Maoists, alerting their intended victims and also the United States. The spectacle of hundreds of thousands of Cubans fleeing to Florida, and Castro’s execution of many former Cuban officers, made a profound impression all over Latin America. And no other Latin American country had an army as grotesquely inadequate as Batista’s. Thus Castro’s regime, the first Communist dictatorship in the New World, became one of the last anywhere at all. The most famous would-be imitator of Castro was Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, an Argentine physician. Determined to ignite ‘another Vietnam’ in Bolivia, Guevara and a select group of Cubans and Argentines entered that country in November 1966, via the La Paz airport, without even having informed the Bolivian Communist Party of their arrival. Everything went wrong. The country had already had a popular revolution. The Bolivian Army consisted of peasant conscripts drawn from the very villages Guevara was trying to arouse. President Rene Barrientos was a popular leader of Indian heritage, who had come to power in national elections; Guevara was thus violating his own well-known dictum that revolution cannot be made against a democratic or quasi-democratic state. None of Guevara’s band could speak Guarani, the language of the region. The Bolivian highlands were too rough for Guevara’s urban compatriots, and he himself was an asthmatic. The wouldbe guerrillas did not know the terrain, became separated from one another, wandering lost for weeks, with little food and no medical supplies, under the disapproving eyes of the local Indians. A US Special Forces team trained some Bolivian units, which in October 1967 killed Guevara and put his corpse on public display. French Indochina Before World War II the French had maintained their control of Vietnam with only 11 000 troops; after the War, 30 times that number would prove insufficient. In 1941, Vietnam had a population of around 25 million. Eighty percent of that number were illiterate. Nevertheless, the French had built up an educated elite, whose members often found their aspirations for suitable positions in the government or the economy frustrated by French control of the good jobs. The prestige of the French was shattered by their inability to prevent the Japanese occupation of Vietnam. The Communist party formed a front organization called the League for the Independence of Vietnam (Viet Minh for short). Their leader, Ho Chi Minh (one of several aliases), born in 1890, had graduated from a good secondary school but had failed to obtain a position with the colonial government. He left Vietnam, went around the world, including to the United States, and returned as the Moscow-anointed leader of Indochinese Communism.

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The Viet Minh military director was a Hanoi University law graduate, Vo Nguyen Giap. The Viet Minh seized the leadership of the nationalist movement in Vietnam by downplaying their Leninist program, calling for a united patriotic struggle of all classes, and assassinating promising leaders of rival nationalist groups. The Japanese occupation was concerned with stopping supplies from reaching China and with sending foodstuffs to Japan, not chasing the Viet Minh. Hence the Communists had time to build up their forces. When Japan unexpectedly surrendered to the United States, Ho and Giap’s little army marched unopposed into Hanoi and proclaimed independence, the so-called August Revolution. When the French returned to Vietnam they recognized Ho’s government as autonomous, with its own army and finances. This did not satisfy the Viet Minh; relations deteriorated, and sustained fighting broke out in December 1946. Unable to resist the French in Hanoi, the Viet Minh retreated to the bush and to guerrilla war. By 1949 the conflict had reached a clear stalemate: the Viet Minh could not challenge French control of the cities, but the French, even with tens of thousands of Vietnamese soldiers, lacked the numbers and training to clear the countryside. This was mainly because Parliament in Paris forbade the use of French conscripts in Vietnam (and during the 8 years of the war the Paris politicians set up and pulled down no less than 16 different cabinets). But late in 1949 Communist Chinese forces reached the Vietnam border, providing the Viet Minh with sanctuary, supplies, and instructors. Giap began to wage both guerrilla and conventional warfare, while the French were losing officers at an unsustainable rate. The French strategy of trying to hold on everywhere, through a system of outposts and convoys, was ill-advised, especially in view of the totally inadequate air power available to them. That is why the French decided to entice Giap to give battle at the isolated fortress of Dien Bien Phu. There, 13 000 French and Vietnamese were besieged by 100 000 Viet Minh and their Chinese advisers. The fall of the fortress was only a tactical defeat for the French, but it broke the will of the French government to continue the war. Vietnam was partitioned at the 17th parallel, into a Communist North and a noncommunist South. French losses included 22 000 killed from metropolitan France (100 of them women), 22 000 Foreign Legion and Colonial troops, plus 80 000 Vietnamese soldiers. Viet Minh losses are usually estimated at around 400 000. The victory of the Viet Minh would be hard to imagine without both the Japanese occupation of Vietnam and the arrival of Mao’s forces on the border. After the surrender of Japan, the French neither sent sufficient troops from France, nor built a good, well-trained Vietnamese army, nor attacked the enemy politically by addressing peasant grievances, nor pursued a strategy of

concentrating their forces around Saigon and the populous Mekong Delta where the Viet Minh was relatively weak, nor closed the Chinese border through diplomatic or military means. And so they lost the war. The Americans and Vietnam In 1954, the newly-installed Communist regime in Hanoi expected that terrorism in the countryside against village officials and schoolteachers carried out by the southern wing of the Party, the Viet Cong, would soon cause the fall of South Vietnam (SVN). But by 1960, with SVN proving unexpectedly sturdy, under Hanoi’s leadership the Viet Cong launched guerrilla war, assisted by units of the regular North Vietnamese Army entering SVN through Laos. In 1965, with SVN on the verge of collapse, President Johnson began a massive infusion of US ground forces, to number almost 600 000 by early 1968. By 1967, Communist forces had suffered enormous casualties. Hanoi decided to launch the Tet Offensive of 1968 to break the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) and provoke massive uprisings in the cities. This was an acknowledgement that guerrilla war had failed. The Tet Offensive was a tremendous shock, but ARVN held up well, the urban population did not rise, and the Viet Cong took a mortal mauling. Communist executions of civilians, especially in Hue, alarmed many South Vietnamese. The following year, with numerous Americans turning loudly against the war, President Nixon inaugurated ‘Vietnamization’, which meant providing ARVN with good equipment and withdrawing US forces. After Tet the war became mostly conventional, with regular North Vietnamese troops taking over from badly-depleted Viet Cong units. The next great offensive after Tet was the Easter Offensive of 1972, involving a multi-front invasion of SVN by the entire North Vietnamese regular army; it failed against an ARVN supported by US air power. By the fall of 1972, the last few US ground combat troops remaining in SVN were withdrawn. ARVN soldiers, drafted for the duration, were stationed far from home and were granted little leave; hence desertion rates were high (as they were in the Viet Cong). During the long conflict ARVN suffered 200 000 killed, proportionally the equivalent of 2.5 million American deaths. Casualties in the SVN militia (the Regional Forces and Popular Forces) were much higher, but desertion was notably lower. Despite their many shortcomings, the SVN armed forces had withstood the best efforts of the Viet Cong (Tet 1968) and the North Vietnamese Army (Easter 1972). Great strata of the Southern population – Army officers and their families, Catholics, northern refugees, the powerful indigenous southern religious sects, the urban middle class, ethnic minorities – were determined to resist a Northern conquest.

Guerrilla Warfare

The Paris peace accords of January 1973 provided for the removal of the few remaining US military personnel from SVN and cessation of US bombing of the North, but tacitly permitted Hanoi to keep a third of a million troops inside SVN. The US Congress, where opinion had been turning against the South since the Tet Offensive, now began slashing aid to SVN; by spring 1975 ARVN soldiers were being issued 84 bullets per man per month. Deprived of American help, while Soviet and Chinese supplies poured into the North, SVN’s President Thieu decided to pull ARVN out of the northern and central provinces and retrench in the heavily populated areas of Saigon and the Mekong Delta. Retrenchment in itself was an excellent idea, but it was attempted with little planning and less warning to ARVN units. Roads became clogged with civilians fleeing southwards. Many soldiers left their units to search for their families. In these circumstances the North Vietnamese Army launched a massive offensive operation. Within weeks much of ARVN disintegrated. Nevertheless, Saigon and the Delta remained quiet and in ARVN hands. On 30 April 1975, however, the new president declared the surrender of SVN. Neither a peninsula like Malaya or South Korea nor an archipelago like the Philippines, SVN fell victim above all to its geography. From the beginnings to the end of the conflict, the Hanoi regime used the Ho Chi Minh Trail, eventually a multi-lane all-weather road through allegedly neutral Laos, to thrust troops and supplies into SVN. If all the troops and supplies that came down the Trail over a 15-year period had entered SVN on the same day, it would have looked bigger than the North Korean invasion of June 1950. Several proposals for closing the Trail by holding a line from Vietnam to Thailand (about the distance from Washington, DC to Philadelphia) were rejected by the Johnson Administration; the American bombing of North Vietnam and the so-called attrition strategy (trying to kill more North Vietnamese soldiers than Hanoi could replace) were some of the consequences of leaving the Trail open. After the fall of Saigon, many in Hanoi identified the Trail as their most valuable weapon. But perhaps the most important lesson of the entire conflict was that Maoist guerrilla war had failed: the conquest of SVN had required the largest conventional invasion Asia had seen since World War II, by one of the best conventional armies on the continent.

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police stations throughout Algeria. This insurgency closely followed the end of the fighting in Indochina, where the French Army believed it had been betrayed by the politicians. The soldiers in Algeria were determined that this time, there would be no defeat, and no betrayal. The French Army evolved three primary weapons against the insurgents. First, unlike in Vietnam, they deployed large numbers; by 1956, 450 000 French troops were in Algeria, enough both to hold all the cities and large towns and to field mobile strike forces. Second, they closed off FLN sanctuaries in Tunisia and Morocco by building barrier lines hundreds of miles long. The most spectacular of these was the Morice Line along the Tunisian border, with electrified wire fences, watchtowers, and minefields on both sides; artillery and aircraft would immediately respond to any break in the fence line. The French had 80 000 troops along this Morice Line. Third, the army regrouped 2 million Muslim peasants into new settlements. By the end of 1957, only 15 000 guerrillas remained inside Algeria. But rumors of torture of captured terrorists, the unpopularity of the draft, the agitation of the stilllarge French Communist Party, the unattractive attitudes of the colons, and the spread of Muslim-on-Muslim terrorism to Paris itself, all undermined French willingness to pursue the struggle. In the spring of 1958 the Paris politicians were ready to negotiate with the FLN. Fearing another Vietnam-style betrayal, the French Army in Algeria threatened to invade France. The terrified politicians summoned General De Gaulle to office, and the army backed down. But De Gaulle soon disappointed the army as well as the colons. Believing that France’s future lay across the Rhine, not across the Mediterranean, he moved toward negotiations with the FLN. Elements of the army attempted another revolt in April 1961, but this much smaller affair was faced down by De Gaulle. Thus, 4 July 1962 became the Algerian Independence Day. French forces, including Harkis (Muslim troops in French uniform) suffered 18 000 deaths. European civilian casualties of various degrees numbered 10 000. Among Muslim civilians, 16 000 had been killed and 50 000 were missing. Of the insurgents, 141 000 had been killed by the French and another 12 000 in internecine fighting. After the war the government of independent Algeria began killing Harkis; estimates of their deaths run from 30 000 to 150 000.

Algeria Algeria provides a textbook case study on military victory turning into political defeat. Larger in area than all of Western Europe, in the mid1950s Algeria had a population of 9 million Arabs and Berbers, and 1 million Europeans, called colons. Fighting broke out in October 1954 when the Muslim National Liberation Front (FLN) attacked 50 military posts and

Afghanistan Located at the intersection of the Middle East and East Asia, Afghanistan is the size of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin combined. Covered by forbidding mountains, it has very few all-weather roads, and no railways. A traditional buffer state between the Tsarist

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and British empires, it is a patchwork of numerous linguistic, ethnic, and religious minorities. After a confused and bloody coup d’etat in April 1978, the tiny local communist party, the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), emerged in nominal control of the country. In a short time the new regime executed thousands of political prisoners, attacked Islam (religion of the overwhelming majority) and outlawed age-old peasant family customs. On the eve of the Soviet invasion, 23 of Afghanistan’s 28 provinces were under rebel control. Seeking to prevent the embarrassing collapse of a proMoscow regime, the Soviets invaded on 24 December 1979. Against what was believed to be the mightiest land power in history, the Afghan resistance possessed few modern weapons. What they did have, however, was a land suited to guerrilla war, a priceless sanctuary in Pakistan and, above all, excellent morale: fighting for the holiest of causes, these mujahideen (‘warriors of God’) were convinced of their inevitable victory. By 1985 the guerrillas numbered between 80 000 and 150 000. Against them were the 30 000 troops of the PDPA regime, 50 000 local militia more or less purchased, and 115 000 Soviet troops (the standard 10:1 ratio would have required from 720 000 to 1.2 million Soviet troops). The insurgents ambushed convoys and mined roads; they isolated major cities so effectively that the Soviets had to supply them by aircraft. Government officials and collaborators were assassinated in the very streets of the capital. The guerrillas had clearly stalemated the war. The PDPA army proved unreliable: desertion, defection, mass surrenders and handing over of weapons to insurgents were common. Rival PDPA factions engaged in murderous infighting. Thus the Soviets had to shoulder almost the entire burden of the unexpectedly long and bitter war. Lacking not only numbers but also experience of fighting guerrillas, the Soviets embarked on the systematic destruction of the countryside: crops, orchards, animals, homes. They sought especially to empty the provinces bordering the Soviet Union and Pakistan, a program labeled ‘migratory genocide’. Eventually there were 4 million refugees and 1.3 million civilian dead, equivalent to the deaths of 20 million Americans. Airpower was the Soviets’ most effective weapon, but in 1983 the insurgents began receiving surface-to-air missiles; by 1986 the United States was sending in via Pakistan the very useful Stinger missile, which neutralized Soviet air power. Help was coming in also from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, China, and Iran; meanwhile the military inadequacies of the once-vaunted Soviet Army became ever more apparent. Deciding to cut his losses, Soviet leader Gorbachev in April 1988 forced the PDPA to reach an accord with Pakistan. A month later the Soviets begin their UN-monitored withdrawal.

Afghanistan was not ‘Russia’s Vietnam’: Afghanistan was right over the Soviet border, while Washington was closer to the South Pole than to Saigon; there were no intrusive media, no public congressional investigations into the Soviet war; the Soviet force commitment never approached that of the US in Vietnam; and the Afghan guerrillas, however brave, were simply not comparable to the North Vietnamese Army. Nevertheless, the incredible suffering and successful resistance of the Afghan people contributed mightily to the forces of disintegration gathering within the Soviet empire. One day the cries of battle in the Afghan mountains would be echoed in the shouts of freedom at the Berlin Wall.

Chechnya In 1994, only 6 years after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Russians became involved in another struggle against a mountain-dwelling Islamic people, the Chechens, descendants of those who had survived Stalinist genocide after World War II. Although Chechnya was but one-fortieth the size of Afghanistan, with a population only half that of Northern Ireland, Russian armed forces there would suffer one of the worst experiences in their history. Most of the large-scale fighting centered on the Chechen capital of Grozny (‘menacing’ in Russian). Against this city, smaller in population that Edinburgh or Sacramento, the Russians mounted one of the largest urban operations since World War II. But the Russian army was not trained for urban combat, and the 50 000 Russian troops sent to Grozny inexplicably failed to surround and cut off the city from outside help. Russian logistics were so miserable that Russian soldiers in Grozny were soon reduced to drinking water from street puddles and eating city dogs and cats. On the Chechen side, a number of their commanders had previously held high rank in the Soviet army or air force, and were thus well acquainted with Russian military methods. They also spoke Russian, while hardly any Russians spoke or understood Chechen. The Chechens in Grozny possessed tanks and artillery, although for the most part they employed guerrilla tactics. They were able to neutralize Russian air superiority by using subterranean communication networks, ‘hugging’ Russian positions, and sniping from rooftops, a tactic particularly effective against helicopters. Russian tank columns entering Grozny via parallel avenues became virtually helpless when Chechen guerrillas immobilized the front and rear tank. Indeed the Russians lost more tanks, proportionately, in Grozny in 1994 than they had in Berlin in 1945. Most of the fatal hits on Russian tanks came from above street level, strongly

Guerrilla Warfare

suggesting that armor should not operate in cities without substantial dismounted infantry support. In spite of all this, Russian forces eventually subdued Grozny, after inflicting a huge number of civilian casualties (mostly local Russian retirees), but in 1996 they had to withdraw after bitter fighting. The 1994–96 conflict with Chechen guerrillas constituted the greatest Russian military disaster since 1941, worse even than the Russo– Finish War. And the Future Guerrilla warfare has a very long history; one finds instances of it recorded in the Bible. And even during the height of the Cold War, at least one major guerrilla struggle (in Algeria) raged totally outside the schemata of that global ideological contest. It should therefore be no surprise that the end of the Cold War did not mean the end of guerrilla conflicts. On the contrary, many factors make guerrilla warfare more rather than less likely in the twenty-first century. The very breakup of the Soviet Empire, for one example, has permitted long-suppressed ethnic and religious tensions to surface in its former satrapies; an unusually large percentage of the population of the Third World is young and poor; certain Islamic groups have completely and angrily rejected the contemporary world; in many societies no peaceful road to change exists; and high-quality weapons are easily obtainable. An additional – and ominous – element in the guerrilla picture is the international drug trade. Peru’s Sendero Luminoso guerrillas supported themselves for years by drug trafficking, and the FARC in Colombia does so today. Drug lords are using their vast funds to support guerrilla movements, and may actually purchase or launch their own. Weak or disintegrating states provide openings for criminal associations seeking to take possession of a vulnerable country to advance their financial ends, while disguising their intentions under a veil of ethnic or religious populism. Perhaps most significantly, during the last quarter of the twentieth century, vast numbers of persons all across the Third World moved from rural to urban areas, so that today the majority of Latin Americans, for example, live in cities and towns. This unprecedented level of urbanization, along with the increasing ungovernability of many sprawling agglomerations, has led some analysts to predict that in the twenty-first century the locus of guerrilla war will be the city. This may well turn out to be the case.

Gun Politics See Arms Control

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Nevertheless, for more than six decades the record of urban guerrilla warfare has been one of complete defeat. From Warsaw (1944), Budapest (1956), and Algiers (1957) to Montevideo and Sao Paulo (1960s), Saigon (1968), Grozny (1994), Northern Ireland (1970–96), and Fallujah (2004), even the most heroic and popular urban guerrilla campaigns have failed (though some of them inflicted severe costs on the counterinsurgent forces, and the one in Northern Ireland was unusually protracted). The key to this litany of failures is that urban battles violate the most elementary rule of guerrilla warfare: the necessity to operate over an extensive area of rough terrain. In fatal contrast, the constricted extent of even the largest city makes it possible for energetic counterinsurgents to surround and isolate, and then defeat, urban guerrillas. In any event, it seems clear that for many of the oppressed, the marginalized, the frustrated, the ambitious, the vengeful, the hate-filled, and the greedy, the age-old techniques of guerrilla warfare will continue to be available and attractive options. See also: Civil Wars; Colonialism and Imperialism; Revolutions; Terrorism; Warfare, Modern; Warfare, Strategies and Tactics of

Further Reading Beckett, I. (2001). Modern insurgencies and counterinsurgencies: Guerrillas and their opponents since 1750. New York: Routledge. Beckett, I. and Pimlott, J. (eds.) (1985). Armed forces and modern counterinsurgency. New York: St. Martin’s. Callwell, C. (1976). Small wars. Wakefield: EP Publishing. Haycock, R. (ed.) (1979). Regular armies and insurgency. London: Croom, Helm. Joes, A. (1996). Guerrilla insurgency before the Cold War. Westport, CT: Praeger. Joes, A. (1996). Guerrilla warfare: A historical, biographical and bibliographical sourcebook. Westport, CT: Greenwood. Joes, A. (2000). America and guerrilla warfare. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky. Joes, A. (2004). Resisting rebellion: The history and politics of counterinsurgency. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky. Joes, A. (2007). Urban guerrilla warfare. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky. Laqueur, W. (1979). Guerrilla: A historical and critical study. Boston: Little, Brown. Manwaring, M. (1991). Uncomfortable wars: Toward a new paradigm of low- intensity conflict. Boulder, CO: Westview. Mao Tse-tung. (1963). Selected military writings of Mao Tse-tung. Peking: Foreign Languages Press. Mao Tse-tung. (1966). Basic tactics. New York: Praeger. Mockaitis, T. (1990). British counterinsurgency, 1919–1960. New York: St. Martin’s.

H Hate Crimes Jack Levin and Jack McDevitt, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Legal Distinctions Hate Crimes and Prejudice Why Treat Hate Crimes Differently? Problems in Collecting Hate Crime Data Types of Hate Crimes

Glossary Defensive Hate Crimes Hate offenses aimed against particular ‘outsiders’ who are regarded as posing a challenge to a perpetrator’s neighborhood, workplace, school, or physical well-being. Ethno-Violence Acts of hate that do not necessarily rise to the legal standard of a crime, but contain an element of prejudice. Hate Crimes (aka Bias Crimes) Criminal offenses motivated either entirely or in part by the fact or perception that the victim is different from the perpetrator.

Hate crimes are criminal offenses motivated either entirely or in part by the fact or perception that the victim is different from the perpetrator. As used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and a number of other law enforcement agencies across the United States, this definition has three important elements that have been widely accepted: first, it involves actions that have already been defined as illegal in state or federal statutes. Thus, the vast majority of hate crime laws do not criminalize any new behavior; instead, they increase the penalty for behaviors that are already against the law. Second, the definition specifies the motivation for committing the offense; it requires that racial, religious, ethnic, or some other identified difference between victim and offender play at least some role in inspiring the criminal act. Third, the definition of hate crimes provided here does not identify a particular set of protected groups to which the

Organized Hate Groups Are Hate Crimes on the Rise? Responses to Hate Crimes Conclusion Further Reading

Mission Hate Crimes Hate offenses committed as an act of ‘war’ against any and all members of a particular group of people. Modern Racism Subtle and institutionalized forms of bigotry based on the race of the victim. Prejudice A negative attitude toward individuals based on their perceived group membership. Thrill Hate Crimes Hate offenses typically committed by youngsters who are motivated by the desire for excitement.

hate crime designation can be exclusively applied. Unlike statutes in many states in which protected racial, religious, and ethnic groups are specified, this definition includes any group difference that separates the victim from the offender in the offender’s mind. This broad definitional standard undoubtedly introduces some ambiguity in deciding whether or not any particular case fits, but it also allows for the inclusion of important cases that might not come up very frequently; for example, attacks on homeless men that have occurred from time to time in various cities across the United States. The use of an open-ended standard also allows for the possibility that other groups can be added to the list protected by hate crime legislation. Some have argued, for example, that gender-motivated crimes of violence (e.g., rape) should be considered a hate crime in order to place them ‘‘on equal legal footing with analogous deprivations based on race,

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national origin, religion, and sexual orientation’’ (Weisburd and Levin, 1994: 42). Some 13 American states now treat gender-motivated offenses as hate crimes. The term hate crime first appeared in the late 1980s as a way of understanding a racial incident in the Howard Beach section of New York City, in which a black man was killed while attempting to evade a violent mob of white teenagers who were shouting racial epithets. Although widely used by the federal government of the United States, the media, and researchers in the field, the term is somewhat misleading because it suggests incorrectly that hatred is invariably a distinguishing characteristic of this type of crime. While it is true that many hate crimes involve intense animosity toward the victim, many others do not. Conversely, many crimes involving hatred between the offender and the victim are not ‘hate crimes’ in the sense intended here. For example an assault that arises out of a dispute between two white, male co-workers who compete for a promotion might involve intense hatred, even though it is not based on any racial or religious differences between them. Similarly, a love triangle resulting in manslaughter may provoke intense emotions, but may have nothing at all to do with race or religion.

District of Columbia presently have some form of hatecrime statute, there exists a wide variation among states in the specifics of their laws. For example, in the area of protected groups (i.e., particular groups are designated as protected in the statute), most states list crimes targeted toward individuals because of their race, religion, or ethnicity as prohibited. However, a number of states also include sexual orientation, disability, and age. The implication of this lack of uniformity is that members of a particular group may be protected by a hate crime statute in one community but not protected in a neighboring community in an adjacent state. A second area of legal distinctions involves the penalty structure of the statute. In some states, a separate statute exists that prohibits hate crime behavior. In other states the hate crime statute is a ‘penalty enhancement’. This means that if an existing crime is committed and it is motivated by bias, the penalty on the existing crime may be increased. Penalty enhancements have been enacted in other areas as well. For example, they have been applied to crimes committed with a gun, crimes committed by individuals with long criminal histories, and crimes committed against vulnerable victims such as children.

Legal Distinctions

Hate Crimes and Prejudice

While hate crimes have occurred throughout history and in a wide range of countries most of the research to date on the characteristics of these crimes as well as the descriptive research on hate crime victims and offenders has occurred in the United States. For this reason this article will focus primarily on the American experience with hate crimes but will include references to other countries’ experiences where appropriate. The initial piece of Federal legislation regarding hate crime, the Hate Crime Sentencing Enhancement Act (HCSEA) was passed in 1994. This statute increased sentence penalties in federal cases with proof of victim targeting based on race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender, disability, or sexual orientation. In 1994, the Violence Against Women Act was passed allowing for punishment and compensation in relation to federal crimes motivated by gender, promoting the inclusion of gender in the definition of hate crime in a number of states. The Hate Crimes Prevention Act was introduced in 1998 and in subsequent years in an attempt to expand the jurisdiction of federal officials to investigate and prosecute hate-motivated crimes, broadening both protection and circumstances of protection. This piece of federal legislation has yet to pass Congress. While limited Federal legislation exists, in the United States, it has been primarily left up to the states to formulate hate crime legislation. While 45 states and the

From a psychological perspective, ‘prejudice’ refers to a negative attitude toward individuals based on their perceived group membership – for example, their race, religion, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. Although as a form of discriminatory behavior, hate crimes often have an attitudinal dimension, the relationship between prejudice and criminal behavior tends to be complex. There is reason to believe that certain hate offenses ‘result from’ some personal bias or hatred. Perpetrators may act out of prejudicial beliefs (i.e., stereotypes) or emotions (e.g., envy, fear, or revulsion) concerning people who are different. In the extreme case, a hatemonger may join an organized group in order to devote his life to destroying a group of people he considers ‘inferior’. Where it is cultural, a particular prejudice may even become a widely shared and enduring element in the normal state of affairs of the society in which it occurs. As such, it may be learned from an early age through parents, friends, teachers, and the mass media. Individuals separated by region, age, social class, and ethnic background all tend to share roughly the same stereotyped images of various groups. In the United States, for example, some degree of antiblack racism can be found among substantial segments of Americans – males and females, young and old, rich and poor – from New York to California. In Germany, the same might be said of antiSemitism as well as anti-Turkish immigrant sentiment.

Hate Crimes

In fact, a recent analysis of anti-Jewish attitudes in East and West Germany found that strong anti-Semitism remained in West Germany even after ‘‘four decades of re-education . . . and a nearly total taboo on public expressions of anti-Semitism’’ (Watts, 1997: 219). It is not, however, always necessary for the prejudice to precede the criminal behavior. In fact, from the literature in social psychology, we know that prejudices often develop or at least become strengthened in order to justify ‘previous’ discriminatory behavior.

Why Treat Hate Crimes Differently? Since hate crimes by definition involve behavior that is already prohibited by state or federal statutes (e.g., assault, threats, vandalism), the question is frequently posed as to why we need additional penalties. Are these crimes truly different? The belief is that a number of characteristics of hate incidents make them different from other types of offenses. First, hate crimes are directed symbolically at large groups of people, not at a single individual. If youths decide that they do not want blacks living on their block, they may decide to throw a rock through the window of a home owned by a new neighbor who is black. Their intention is to send a message not just to that neighbor but to all blacks, informing them that their presence in the neighborhood will not be tolerated. Thus, not unlike acts of terrorism, hate crimes are about messages. Offenders use a criminal event to put the members of an entire group on notice, by example, that they are not welcome in a community, in a workplace, on a college campus, or at school. By contrast, if a window is broken in a simple act of vandalism, the offenders typically have no desire to communicate anything in particular to the property owner; in fact, they frequently do not even know anything about the victim they have targeted. Another characteristic that differentiates hate crimes from most other offenses is that the victim characteristic motivating the attack (e.g., race or ethnicity) is in most cases ascribed and immutable. A person cannot modify her or his race, ethnicity, age, gender, or disability status. Even a religious identity or a sexual orientation cannot be modified without causing an individual to make dramatic and painful changes in lifestyle. Consequently, if a woman is attacked because she is a Latina, there is little that individual can do to become ‘de-Latinized’ and thus reduce the likelihood of her future victimization. This is also true of perceived characteristics. If a man becomes a hate crime victim because he is perceived by a group of youths to be gay, he is also powerless to change the offenders’ perception of him. The feeling on the part of victims that they lack control over the characteristic that

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motivated their victimization causes most hate crime victims to feel extremely vulnerable to future biasmotivated attacks. A third characteristic of hate crimes that makes them different from many other offenses is that the individual victim typically did nothing to provoke the attack and is therefore interchangeable, at least from the perpetrator’s standpoint. To a group of youths waiting outside a gay bar to attack someone whom they believe might be gay, it does not matter which individual comes through the door next. Whoever comes out is likely to become a victim, because all bar patrons are identical in the mind of the perpetrator. Indeed, the interchangeability of victims tends to apply as well across groups of victims. If offenders cannot locate the members of one racial group to terrorize, they are likely to target members of another racial group. This aspect of hate crimes suggests that they are often motivated by an offender’s psychological need to feel superiority at the expense of his victims.

Problems in Collecting Hate Crime Data During the 1980s, researchers, journalists, and government officials increasingly turned their attention to questions regarding the extent and nature of hate crimes in the United States. At that time there was no national data gathered on the incidence and character of such offenses. The FBI, that agency responsible for collecting and reporting national data on crime, did not collect information separately for offenses motivated by bias. For example, a hate-motivated assault reported by the local police to the FBI would be grouped together with other assaults, regardless of their motivation. As a result, it was impossible to distinguish which offenses were hate motivated and which were not. In April 1990, Congress passed and the President signed the Hate Crime Statistics Act (28 USC 534). Although it did not criminalize any particular behavior, the Act required the Attorney General of the United States to publish an annual report about crimes that ‘‘manifest evidence of bias based upon race, religion, sexual orientation, or ethnicity.’’ This act authorized the first national data collection effort undertaken by any public agency to be targeted specifically at hate crimes. The Uniform Crime Reporting Section (UCR) of the FBI has been designated as the federal agency empowered to collect and tabulate these data. Although charging the attorney general with the responsibility for collecting information and publishing an annual report about hate crimes, the Hate Crime Statistics Act did not require that local law enforcement agencies report to the FBI. Historically, crime reporting

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has been voluntary with most but not all major law enforcement agencies agreeing to participate. Hate crime reporting was initially a different story. Many agencies had not separated hate crime data from other offenses in their collection procedures. As a result, retrieving hate crime data was not an easy task. In addition, many law enforcement agencies resisted the new national emphasis on hate crime investigation. For these reasons, few agencies participated in the original effort. In 1991, 2771 agencies submitted hate crime data to the FBI, which represented only 20% of the agencies participating in the UCR program. Through significant training efforts of the UCR section of the FBI and support from local advocacy groups, however, by 2004 the participation rate had increased to 12 711 agencies representing approximately 75% of all agencies submitting information to the FBI. These participation figures may not be as positive as they appear, the FBI program allows agencies to submit zero as their total count of hate crimes. According to the most recent FBI report nearly 85% of participating agencies report no hate crimes occurring in their jurisdiction during the previous 12 months. While reporting zero hate crimes may accurately reflect the number of hate crimes in many jurisdictions, scholars suggest that some agencies, particularly in larger, more diverse communities, are not fully and accurately collecting information on and reporting hate crime. For example, in 2004 three states reported fewer than five hate crimes for the entire state: Mississippi (2), Wyoming (2), and Alabama (3). Similarly, a number of major cities reported surprisingly low numbers of hate crimes, such as Detroit, MI (0), Indianapolis, IN (0), Milwaukee, WI (2), Nashville, TN (5), New Orleans, LA (6), and Houston, TX (14).

Types of Hate Crimes When they read newspaper accounts of an assault or vandalism based on race, sexual orientation, or ethnicity, many Americans immediately assume that an organized hate group was involved. Early reports of church burnings in the South almost invariably attempted to implicate the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) in some sort of far-reaching conspiratorial plan to destroy the fabric of life for black Americans, especially those who reside in rural areas of the South. After more careful study, however, the situation appeared much more complex. Although a few cases involved the Klan, it turned out that most of the racially inspired church burnings had little if anything to do with white supremacist groups. In South Carolina, for example, two-thirds of them were instead perpetrated by teenagers and young adults looking for a good time. Some of the young perpetrators had tenuous links with the KKK, if only because they enjoyed their symbols of power or Klan

propaganda. But most of the youthful offenders operated on their own, without being directly guided by the members of any organized group, including the KKK. Like church burnings, hate crimes in general are typically committed by individuals without links to any organized groups. With this in mind, we propose a typology in which hate crimes can be classified in terms of their offenders’ motivations. In our view, there are three distinct types, which we identify as thrill, defensive, and mission. Thrill Hate Crimes Based on a prior analysis of Boston Police Department reports, we found that nearly three out of five hate crimes in that city were committed for the thrill. More than 53% of these thrill offenses were committed by two or more offenders looking for trouble in the victim’s neighborhood. Perpetrators were predominantly white teenage males, the vast majority of whom – some 91% – did not know the person they were attacking. Latinos and Asians had the highest victimization rates; whites had the lowest. One surprising finding was the extent of the violence associated with thrill hate attacks. We found that fully 70% of the thrill offenses were assaults, sometimes brutal attacks that put the victim in the hospital. Thrill hate crimes are committed by offenders who are looking for excitement. In the same way that some young men get together on a Saturday night to play a game of cards, youthful hatemongers gather to destroy property or to bash minorities. They look merely to have some fun and stir up a little excitement . . . but at someone else’s expense. In a thrill-seeking hate crime, there need not be a precipitating incident. The victim does not necessarily ‘invade’ the territory of the assailant by walking through his neighborhood, moving onto his block, or attending his school. On the contrary, it is the assailant or group of assailants, looking to harass those who are different, who searches out locations where the members of a particular group regularly congregate. The payoff for the perpetrators is psychological as well as social: In addition to gaining a sense of importance and control, the youthful perpetrators also receive a stamp of approval from their friends who regard hatred as ‘hip’ or ‘cool’. Defensive Hate Crimes Not all hate offenses are motivated by thrill or excitement; not every hate crime is committed by groups of teenagers. In defensive hate crimes, the hatemongers seize on what they consider as a precipitating or triggering incident to serve as a catalyst for the expression of their anger. They rationalize that by attacking an outsider they are in fact taking a protective posture, a defensive stance against intruders. Indeed, they often cast the outsiders in

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the role of those actively threatening them, while they regard themselves as pillars of the community. As with thrill hate attacks, most defensive hate offenses in our study of incidents reported to the Boston Police involved white offenders who did not know their Asian, Latino, or black victims. In defensive crimes, however, the majority were committed by a single offender. Whereas in thrill-motivated hate crimes a group of teenagers travels to another area to find victims, the perpetrators in defensive hate crimes typically never leave their own neighborhood, school, or workplace. From the point of view of the perpetrators, it is their community, means of livelihood, or way of life that has been threatened by the mere presence of members of some other group. The hatemongers therefore feel justified, even obligated, to go on the ‘defensive’. Characteristically, they feel few, if any, pangs of guilt even if they savagely attack an outsider. In thrill hate crimes, almost any member of a vulnerable group will usually ‘do’ as a target. In contrast, the perpetrators of defensive hate crimes tend to target a particular individual or set of individuals who are perceived to constitute a personal threat – the black family that has just moved into the all-white neighborhood, the white college student who has begun to date her Asian classmate, or the Latino who has recently been promoted at work. Given the competitive nature of the workplace, it should come as no surprise that many defensive hate crimes also occur on the job. In their study of ‘ethnoviolence at work’, sociologists Joan Weiss, Howard Ehrlich, and Barbara Larcom interviewed a national sample of 2078 Americans. These researchers found that 27% of all respondents who reported ‘prejudice-based’ episodes experienced them while at work. These incidents included break-ins, property damage, robbery, harassing language, physical assaults, sexual harassment, or rapes.

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often follows an international incident such as an act of terrorism. For example, many communities have seen a number of anti-Arab retaliatory hate crimes after international acts of terrorism, most importantly in response to the attacks of 11 September. Mission Hate Crimes On occasion, hate crimes go beyond what their perpetrators consider thrill, defensive, or retaliation, at least in the narrow sense. Rather than direct their attack at those individuals involved in a particular event or episode – moving into the neighborhood, taking a job at the next desk, attending the same party – the perpetrators are ready to wage ‘war’ against any and all members of a particular group of people. No precipitating episode occurs; none is necessary. The perpetrator is on a moral mission: His assignment is to make the world a better place to live in. Those who perpetrate a mission crime are convinced that all out-group members are subhumans who are bent on destroying the culture, economy, or the purity of the racial heritage of the perpetrator. The offender therefore is concerned about much more than simply eliminating a few blacks or Latinos from his job, his neighborhood, or his school. Instead, he believes that he has a higher order purpose in carrying out his crime. He has been instructed by God or, in a more secular version, by the Imperial Wizard or the Grand Dragon to rid the world of evil by eliminating all blacks, Latinos, Asians, or Jews; and he is compelled to act before it is too late. Mission hate crime offenders are likely to join an organized group such as the KKK or the White Aryan Resistance (WAR). In our study of hate crimes reported to the Boston police, we uncovered only one mission hate offense among our 169 cases. This result is consistent with recent estimates that no more than 5% of all hate crimes in the United States involve organized hate groups.

Retaliatory Hate Crimes Retaliatory offenses occur in reaction to a perceived hate crime. Here, it is not important whether in fact an assault occurred, only that the offender believes it took place. Retaliatory offenders are likely to act out individually, often seeking out a victim to target in the victim’s own territory. There appear to be two major types of retaliatory hate crimes, one where hatemongers try to retaliate for a prior hate crime and second when offenders retaliate against a political action or act of terrorism. In a number of communities police have recorded specific hate crimes that were perpetrated against victims because of a perceived prior hate crime, ‘you got one of us, we will get one of you.’ In these cases again specific victims are seldom targeted, offenders look to attack any member of the targeted group. The other group of retaliatory hate crimes

Organized Hate Groups According to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Klanwatch project, there may be slightly more than 800 active hate groups in the United States in 2004. The Klan-watch project estimates that the number of groups has grown by about one-third since 2000. Most of these hate groups are very small with the average groups having less than 20 members. The growing presence of hate groups is hardly confined to the United States, but has occurred around the world. In Germany, for example, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution reported in 1991 that there were 4400 neo-Nazis in Germany, most of whom were skinheads. By adding in all other right-wing

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extremist and Nazi groups in the country, this figure swells to approximately 40 000. A 2005 Report from the German Government indicates that this number of rightwing extremists has remained stable for the past two decades. It should also be noted that hundreds of thousands of individuals in many different countries agree to some extent, if not wholeheartedly, with the principles of white supremacy, even if they would never join a hate group. White supremacist groups represent a fringe element among those who commit hate crimes. In statistical terms alone, the membership of all organized hate groups combined constitutes a tiny fraction of the population, most of whom would not consider burning a cross or wearing a swastika. Even so, the influence of white supremacist groups such as Posse Comitatus, WAR, Aryan Nations, and the KKK may be considerably greater than their numbers might suggest. It takes only a small band of dedicated extremists to incite a larger number of relatively passive but like-minded individuals. Today these groups increasingly use the Internet to communicate their philosophy of hate. The newer organized hate groups of the 1980s and 1990s do not always come so easily to mind for their bizarre uniforms or rituals. Followers of such white supremecy groups as John and Tom Metzger’s WAR have shed their sheets and burning crosses in favor of more conventional attire. They often disavow the Klan and the Nazi movement in favor of a brand of ‘American patriotism’

that plays better among the working people of America. In France, one of the original organizing slogans of Le Pen’s right-wing party was the utterly respectable idea: ‘‘Two million foreigners, two million Frenchmen out of work.’’ Moreover, white supremacist organizations now often cloak their hatred in the aura and dogma of Christianity. Followers of the religious arm of the hate movement, the Identity Church, are only ‘doing the work of God’. At Sunday services, they preach that white Anglo-Saxons are the true Israelites depicted in the Old Testament, God’s chosen people, while Jews are actually the children of Satan. They maintain that Jesus was not a Jew, but an ancestor of the white, northern European peoples. In their view, blacks are ‘pre-Adamic’, a species lower than whites. In fact, they claim that blacks and other nonwhite groups are at the same spiritual level as animals and therefore have no souls.

Are Hate Crimes on the Rise? Though limited to those crimes that are reported to the police, national hate crime statistics provide a critical measure of the prevalence and distribution of hate crimes throughout the country. Between 1995 and 2004, the FBI reports the total number of hate-motivated crimes reported in the national statistics remained relatively constant ranging from a low of 7459 (2002) to highs of 9792 (1999) and 9721 (2001) (Figure 1).

9792

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Figure 1 Total hate incidents reported by year 1995–2004.

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The relatively stable level of reported hate crime is more troubling when compared to other national estimates of violent and property crime (including the FBI’s UCR Program) which have reported dramatic decreases in all types of crimes over the same period.

Responses to Hate Crimes Interviews with victims of hate violence indicate that the aftermath of the victimization is characterized by a pervasive feeling of fear. As indicated earlier, the victims of these incidents generally did nothing to bring this violence upon them and thus do not know what to do to reduce their chance of future victimization. Their fear may be based on threats by the offender or friends of the offender but often it is simply based on the random nature of the crime. In order to reduce fear in victims of hate crimes, it is important to offer them some form of protection from future violence and a degree of reassurance that they are valued members of the community. First of all, community leaders must speak out, condemning the attack. This is important because it sends two essential messages: to the victims, that local residents want them to remain members of that community and, to the offenders, that most people in the community do not support their illegal behavior. Interviews with hate crime offenders indicate that they frequently believe that most of the community shares their desire to eliminate the ‘outsider’. The offenders often see themselves as heroes or at least as ‘cool’ in the eyes of their friends, because they have the courage to act on what they believe to be commonly held beliefs. Public statements by local community leaders challenge this idea and send a message to offenders that their actions are not supported. As noted earlier, many hate crimes are perpetrated by young people who do not yet have a profound commitment to bigotry and therefore may be dissuaded from repeating their offense. It is important, therefore, to apprehend youthful hate crime perpetrators at this point, especially in light of the possibility that many property offenders who go undetected may later graduate to hate crimes directed against people. Because what the perpetrators derive from committing such crimes is so minimal in a practical sense, they may be very influenced by a strong statement from society at large that demonstrates that this type of behavior will not be tolerated. The local police play an essential role in responding to hate crimes. Advocacy groups can offer support and encouragement, and political leaders can offer reassurance, but the police are the only group that can legitimately promise to protect the victim in any future attack. Before law enforcement personnel can effectively

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offer this protection to victims of hate crimes, however, they must be trained to identify and investigate these difficult cases. The UCR section of the FBI has developed an outstanding training program for local law enforcement that teaches officers how to identify and effectively prosecute hate crimes. Finally, the most important response to a hate crime, as reported by its victims, is the reaction of those closest to them – their neighbors, co-workers, or fellow students. When a hate crime occurs, victims quite realistically wonder just how widespread the hatred directed toward them is. Do all their neighbors agree with the person who attacked them? Therefore, the most significant reaction for most victims is when members of the ‘perpetrator’s’ group come forward to assure the victim that they do not agree with the offenders and to urge the victims to remain in the neighborhood.

Conclusion Even if they were not labeled hate crimes, offenses committed against individuals because they are different have undoubtedly occurred throughout the history of humankind. Moreover, depending on prevailing economic and political circumstances at any given time and place, there have been important changes in the incidence of such offenses as well. In particular, hate crimes seem to rise whenever one group in a society feels that its advantaged position is being threatened by the presence of another. This was true in Nazi Germany; it was also true in the United States during Reconstruction, the Great Depression of the 1930s, and the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Even large-scale ethnic conflicts such as those in Bosnia and Northern Ireland seem to be based on intergroup competition for scarce resources. Recent behavioral science research aimed at understanding the causes and characteristics of hate crimes may in part reflect a worsening of intergroup relations during the 1980s and early 1990s, as traditionally disadvantaged groups begin to make claims for equal treatment. In addition, however, such efforts to explain hate crimes probably also reflect a heightened sensitivity to violence perpetrated against vulnerable members of society – especially women, gays, and people of color. Because of the recent convergence of new social movements involving civil rights, women, gays and lesbians, and victims in general, efforts to confront the destructive consequences of hate crimes are being strengthened especially for the most vulnerable among us. See also: Enemy, Concept and Identity of; Ethnic Conflicts and Cooperation; Sexual Minorities, Violence Against; Women, Violence Against

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Further Reading Anti-Defamation League (1988). ‘JAP baiting’: When sexism and antisemitism meet. Special Education of ADL Periodic Update. New York: ADL. Anti-Defamation League (1995). The skinhead international. New York: ADL. Anti-Defamation League (1997). Vigilante justice: Militias and common law courts wage war against the government. New York: ADL. Berrill, K. (1992). Anti-gay violence and victimization in the United States: An overview. In Herek, G. and Berrill, K. (eds.) Hate crimes: Confronting violence against lesbians and gay men, pp 19–45. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications. Bureau of Justice Assistance (1997). A policy makers guide to hate crimes. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office. Cogan, J. C. (2002). Hate crime as a crime category worthy of police attention. American Behavioral Scientist 46(1), 173–185. Delgado, L. (1992). Black family in North End is met with racist graffiti. Boston Globe, 31 Jul., p. 17. Ehrlich, H. (1972). The social psychology of prejudice. New York: Wiley. Ehrlich, H. (1990). Ethno-violence on college campuses. Baltimore, MD: National Institute against Prejudice and Violence. Fox, J. and Levin, J. (1996). Overkill: Mass murder and serial killing exposed. New York: Dell. Freeman, S. (1993). Hate crime laws: Punishment which fits the crime. Annual Survey of American Law, pp 581–585. New York: New York University School of Law. Gambino, R. (1977). Vendetta. New York: Doubleday. Gordon, D. and Pardo, N. (1997). Hate crimes strike changing suburbs. The Chicago Reporter, Sep., p. 1. Gunshots aimed at home of Black family. Associated Press, 6 Jun. 1997. Halpern, T. and Levin, B. (1996). The limits of dissent: The constitutional status of armed civilian militias. Amherst, MA: Aletheia Press. Hamm, M. S. (1994). Hate crime: International perspectives on causes and control. Cincinnati: Anderson. Jacobs, J. B. and Henry, J. S. (1996, Winter). The social construction of a hate crime epidemic. The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 86, 366–391. Jacobs, J. B. and Potter, K. A. (1997). Hate crimes: A critical perspective. In Tonry, M. (ed.). Crime and justice: A review of research, pp 1–50. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Jenness, V. and Broad, K. (1997). Hate crimes: New social movements and the politics of violence. New York: Aldine De Gruyter. Jenness, V. and Grattet, R. (2001). Making a hate crime: From social movement to law enforcement. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Karl, J. (1995). The right to hear arms. New York: Harper. Keen, S. (1988). Faces of the enemy. New York: Harper and Row. Keough, W. (1990). Punchlines. New York: Paragon House. Klanwatch Intelligence Report (1997, Spring). Two years after: The patriot movement since Oklahoma City, pp. 18–20.

Lamy, P. (1996). Millennium rage. New York: Plenum Press. Langer, E. (1990). The American Neo-Nazi movement today. The Nation, 16–23 Jul., pp. 82–107. Levin, B. (1992–93, Winter). Bias crimes: A theoretical and practical overview. Stanford Law and Policy Review, pp. 165–171. Levin, B. (2002). From slavery to hate crime laws: The emergence of race and status-based protection in American criminal law. Journal of Social Issues 58(2), 227–245. Levin, J. (1996). Teenagers burn churches. Boston Globe, Focus Section, 12 Dec. Levin, J. (1997). Visit to a patriot potluck. USA Today, 6A, 1 Mar. Levin, J. (1997). N. Irish racialize ‘the troubles’. The Boston Herald, 13 Jul. Levin, J. and Levin, W. J. (1982). The functions of discrimination and prejudice. New York: Harper and Row. Levin, J. and McDevitt, J. (1993). Hate crimes: The rising tide of bigotry and bloodshed. New York: Plenum. Levin, J. and McDevitt, J. (1995). The research needed to understand hate crime. Chronicle of Higher Education, 4 Aug., pp. B1–2. Levin, J. and McDevitt, J. (1995). Landmark study reveals hate crimes vary significantly by offender motivation. Klanwatch Intelligence Report, Aug., pp. 7–9. Martin, S. (1995). A cross-burning is not just an arson: Police social construction of hate crimes in Baltimore County. Criminology 33(3), 303–330. Not in Our Town II (1996). Public Broadcasting System. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (1996). Report to Congress on juvenile hate crime. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office. Olzak, S., Shanahan, S., and McEneaney, E. H. (1996). Poverty, segregation, and race riots: 1960 to 1993. American Sociological Review 61, 590–613. Paulsen, M. (1996). Fires come in different shades of hate. The State, 1A, 6 Jul. Pearce, D. M. (1979). Gatekeepers and homeseekers: Institutional patterns in racial steering. Social Problems 26, 325–342. Schuman, H., Steeh, C., and Lawrence Bobo, L. (1988). Racial attitudes in America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Sherif, M. and Sherif, C. (1961). Intergroup conflict and cooperation: The Robbers cave experiment. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma. Stossen, N. (1993). Special penalties should apply to hate crimes. American Bar Association Journal, May. Watts, M. (1997). Xenophobia in united Germany. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Weisburd, S. B. and Levin, B. (1994, Spring). ‘On the basis of sex’: Recognizing gender-based bias crimes. Stanford Law and Policy Review, pp. 21–43. Weiss, J., Ehrlich, H., and Barbara, L. B. (1991–92, Winter). Ethnoviolence at work. Journal of Intergroup Relations 5, 21–33.

Health Consequences of War and Political Violence

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Health Consequences of War and Political Violence Nigel Hunt, Institute of Work, Health and Organisations, University of Nottingham, UK ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction Historical Background Mental Health and History Methodological Issues War and Political Violence in the Twentieth Century Current Understanding of Mental Health Consequences Physical Health Consequences of Modern Warfare Social and Economic Health Consequences of Modern War The Impact of Different Types of War and Political Violence

Glossary Asylum Seeker ‘‘A person having a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country’’ (1951 Convention). Biological Warfare The uses of disease-producing microorganisms, toxic biological products, or organic biocides to produce death or harm to humans, animals, or plants. Dirty Wars Systematic acts of repression, such as torture, disappearance, exile, or execution, carried out by state regimes against their own citizens, usually labeled as terrorists or insurgents, in order to eliminate opposition to the regime. Epidemiology The study of the causes, distribution, and control of diseases in populations. Genocide The deliberate and systematic destruction of a group of people because of their racial, cultural, or political status. Guerrillas Originally used by the Spanish in their war against the occupying French forces during Napoleonic times (Guerrilla means ‘little war’), it has come to mean the operation of irregular armed forces that fight a stronger force (often the army of a nation-state) through sabotage, ambush, or harassment. Incidence The frequency of new occurences of a disease within a particular time period. Insurgents Another term for guerrilla. Irregular forces fighting against the armed forces of a nation-state.

International Wars Civil Wars Dirty Wars Terrorism Low-Intensity War Other Types of War and Conflict Costs Relating to the Health Consequences of War and Political Violence Impact on Particular Populations Longer-Term Effects of War Conclusions Further Reading

Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) Similar to asylum seekers, except that IDPs are people who have been forceably removed from their homes, or have voluntarily left due to persecution, and are living in another part of their own country. Low-Intensity Conflict (LIC)/Low-Intensity War These are often prolonged wars which have relatively low levels of fighting, use relatively few resources, and many people in the country where the LIC is taking place can live relatively normal lives. Such conflicts are often difficult to resolve, and there may be few or no pitched battles involving large numbers of personnel. Militarism The use of force as a significant political tactic. Militarism has occured throughout history, and is popular in countries ruled by dictators or countries which believe they have the military means to impose their own political will on others. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Since 1980, PTSD has been recognized as a mental health disorder resulting from traumatic (life-threatening) experiences. Symptoms include intrusive thoughts and memories, avoiding reminders of the traumatic event, emotional numbing, and increased physiological arousal. Prevalence The number of people in a given population that has a particular disease at a particular point in time. Refugee A person who sought asylum because of persecution or fear of persecution in their own country and whose claim has been accepted by the host country. This usually means that they have full civil rights within the host country.

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Terrorism The systematic use of tactics designed to inspire fear in a population in order to gain political ends. Terrorism is often directed against a civilian population in order to persuade their government to adopt a different political position.

Introduction One of the primary goals of war is to inflict harm on the opposition, with the specific intent of making them suffer so much that they cease fighting and surrender. This has been the case for thousands of years and, though some claim that war can be fought ‘surgically’, with minimum damage to life: this is fallacious. Without physical and mental harm occurring to the enemy or to civilians, even if the war is mainly directed against the physical infrastructure, such as the bombing of houses, schools, factories, and hospitals, it would not succeed in its aims. As John Keegan said about how World War II ended, ‘‘both the Germans and the Japanese had had the stuffing knocked out of them’’ (Daily Telegraph, 1/6/2004). Unfortunately, there is no indication that the incidence and prevelance of war is decreasing. Whatever human nature is, war and fighting is part of that nature. With ever-improving technology, war leads to greater harm, to both military personnel and – increasingly – to civilians. Political violence is a form of war, usually on a smaller scale, but usually with an increased intent to harm the civilian population, both physically and psychologically.

Historical Background There is evidence throughout history regarding both the physical and mental health consequences of war and political violence on both military personnel and civilians. Much of this evidence stems from war having always been a popular subject for authors of books and diaries. Accounts of war go back thousands of years. Throughout history, people have systematically developed ever more effective means of killing and maiming each other. Even in early writings, we find something about the health consequences of war. In Homer’s Iliad, from about 800 BC, there are descriptions of the psychological problems experienced by Achilles, as he suffers the consequences of the loss of his friend and mentor Patroclus. There is also a description of an epidemic which killed many of the Greek soldiers encamped outside Troy. Later, in Herodotus, there is a description of an Athenian soldier who, during the battle of Marathon, falls to the ground. At the end of the battle he is found to have

Torture Inflicting severe physical or mental pain for punishment or coercion, often used to terrorize a population or to derive confessions and statements.

no apparent physical injury, but he is paralyzed and is blind. Herodotus relates how he remained blind for the rest of his life. From our modern perspective, we might argue that the soldier suffered a hysterical reaction. The fear felt at the sight of battle was so intense that his eyes just stopped working. Later, when the Romans defeated Carthage, they understood how to defeat a population, rather than just an army, and ensured that the city would not rise again by covering the whole area with salt, so nothing would grow, and hence any survivors would have to abandon the ruined city. Flooding is also a common tactic, not just as a deterent to stop troops, but as a means of drowning. In the seventeenth century the Dutch destroyed dykes and flooded their own territory to stop the French army. The Chinese blew up a dam in 1938 to stop the Japanese, killing thousands of men. Before the D-Day invasion in June 1944 the Germans flooded the lowlands at the base of the Carentan peninsular in Normandy to stop the Allied troops. When the paratroopers landed, many drowned in the water. Armies have always carried disease with them as they travel, ensuring a close relationship between war and the incidence of disease. Epidemics of various diseases have occurred as a direct result of being transported by armies. Armies themselves have been notoriously poor at hygiene and general protection from disease, which can make the situation worse. Until World War II, more soldiers were killed by disease than by fighting. Campaigns have had to be halted many times because so many of the soldiers have been struck down by various diseases. For instance, the invasion force of Henry V, which was to fight at Agincourt, was struck down by dysentry as they beseiged the town of Harfleur on the Seine. Henry’s forces defeated the French, took the town, but lost a large proportion of the army to dysentry. It was for this reason that Henry could not take advantage of the defeat of Harfleur and advance on Paris. The Battle of Agincourt was fought – and still won – because disease made Henry retreat to his own lands at Calais. In sieges through the ages there are stories of plagueridden bodies being catapulted into the city to bring about its fall through disease, early examples of biological warfare. At the siege of Caffa (now Feodosiya in the Ukraine) in 1346, the Mongols besieging the city were struck down

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by plague and catapulted many bodies in the town to try and force the Genoese who were defending to surrender because of the stench. It is thought that this is how the Black Death entered Europe, via ships leaving Caffa and escaping to Venice and Genoa. In the 1820s, the last major outbreak of bubonic plague in Europe occurred after the Russians and the Turks fought in Wallachia. There is very little in the contemporary chronicles of the English Civil War concerning the mental health consequences of war, but we do have descriptions of the famines resulting from destroyed or untended crops; and we know that the death toll in these wars was proportionately higher than in any other English war, including World Wars I and II. The majority of the dead were civilians. This pattern is followed many times. Famine results from soldiers being taken away from their farms so they cannot sow and harvest crops, or from soldiers either destroying food supplies so they cannot be used by an enemy or taking food for their own use. Famine is a normal concomitant of large-scale wars. In 1918, people in Germany began to experience famine, partly as a result of the blockade imposed by Britain, and partly because the loss of manpower meant that farms were not functioning effectively. During World War II, the Russians deliberately destroyed all their crops, their animals, and their stores, as they retreated across Russia in 1941 and 1942. This was in order to stop the German Army from feeding on captured supplies, but it also had a huge impact on the Russian civilian population. Many people had to flee their homes or starve. The Germans repeated this in reverse as they retreated from 1943 to 1945.

Mental Health and History As we have seen, we do have some evidence of mental health problems in war going back as far as the Iliad. At the end of the eighteenth century, during the French revolutionary wars, ‘nostalgia’ was prevalent among the troops. It was thought at the time that troops who were displaying symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) were actually experiencing the symptoms, not because they were distressed by battle experience, but because they were missing their homes, their wives, and their mothers. During the US Civil War, troops were experiencing psychological problems at the front, and many were unable or unwilling to fight. These were treated in various ways. Da Costa, writing after the war, said that the troops were suffering from soldier’s heart, a physical disorder of the heart, a ‘weak heart’. There was no conception that the problem could be psychological. It was not until the end of the nineteenth century that there was a recognition of the psychogenic origin of war

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trauma, with the work of Breuer, Charcot, Janet, Freud, and others, but even by World War I there was still relatively little acknowledgment that this behavior was a recognizable, if not well-defined, disorder. On the western front the term ‘shellshock’ was introduced as it was thought that the symptoms resulted from tiny pieces of shrapnel or shellcase that caused microscopic brain damage. It was during this period though that the first effective treatments for war trauma were developed. The simplest, and only partially effective, method was known as PIE; standing for ‘proximity’: the soldier would be treated near to the front line (though treatment usually just meant bedrest), ‘immediacy’: he would be treated as soon as the symptoms showed, and ‘expectancy’, he would always expect to be sent back to his front line unit. By World War II these principles were forgotten, though they were quickly relearned by the British after the defeat of Dunkirk in 1940. Treatment did become more sophisticated and effective, and many soldiers benefited; though there was still a prevailing attitude among many that someone who broke down in battle was weak. But in Russia, Japan, and Germany, any breakdown was seen as disobeying orders and the victim was very likely to be shot. It was not until the US experience in Vietnam, where many soldiers came back traumatized, that detailed systematic research was carried out which led to the introduction of PTSD as a diagnostic category (see below for details).

Methodological Issues There are difficulties in obtaining accurate information about the health consequences of war and political violence, so most of the figures included in this article are estimates. Sometimes they are good estimates, on other occasions they are little more than rough guesses. This is due to the nature of war; bodies are not left around to be counted, wars occur in obscure places which the epidemiologists do not reach. The figures are also obtained using a range of methods and are obtained from a variety of sources, not always reliable. With regard to mental health, most people are not assessed in any way, so the extent of mental health problems in a given war are simply not known, they are usually estimated from a number of small-scale unrepresentative studies. During most wars, few records are kept of the number of civilian or military casualties, and with the breakdown of the infrastructure, such numbers can only be guessed at. For instance, at the time of writing there are widely varying estimates of the number of civilians killed in the current Iraq war, from a few tens of thousands to approaching 1 million. While the war is on we will not know how many have died; and even when the war ends

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the numbers will never be accurately calculated, partly because it is not in the interests of certain parties to add the figures up, partly for other reasons (e.g., propaganda). This applies to every major war. When estimating the wounded and injured, it is also difficult to arise at accurate figures. How severe does an injury have to be to count? What about multiple wounds, that is one person being wounded on several occasions? What about the number of people who get a non-war-related severe illness but are not treated because of the war? The figures in Table 1 represent best guess estimates of the numbers of people killed where it is thought that at least 1 million people died as a direct or indirect consequence of the war or the political violence in the twentieth century. The table would have been impractically long had smaller scale wars been included. It is also problematic determining the scale of death because people are killed over a relatively short period of time, during which the country is in chaos, so that it is not possible to keep any statistics – and mostly the perpetrators will actively ensure that statistics are not kept. Afterwards, as whole communities have been killed or displaced, it remains impossible to obtain accurate statistics. For instance, in Rwanda in 1994 anywhere between 500 000 and 1 million people were killed within a few months. When whole communities are destroyed there may be no one left to work out how many lived and how

many died, particularly as many people may have fled the danger and do not return. Also, when there is a political motivation to distort statistics, it can be difficult to resolve the problem. There are also problems with definitions. There is a lack of consistency here which makes it very difficult to determine how many people have been affected by war. The term refugee, though it has a precise definition regarding the granting of asylum, is not always presented in the same way. The number of refugees may be given as those who have been granted asylum, but on some occasions it may also subsume those who are asylum seekers, or who have been displaced for other reasons. Burnham and co-workers in 2006 carried out a useful study to estimate the number of excess deaths in Iraq in the 3 years from the 2003 invasion until 2006. Using a national cross-sectional cluster sample survey, selecting 50 clusters randomly selected from 16 Governates, and 40 households in every cluster, they obtained information on deaths from each household. Two survey teams interviewed people in each household about births, death, and migration. The data were collected carefully, and a number of potential confounds were accounted for. Finally, data from 1849 households were included. The authors estimate that pre-invasion death rates were 5.5 per 1000, while after the invasion it was 13.3 per 1000 in the 40 months after the invasion. They estimate

Table 1 Estimated deaths in twentieth-century wars and conflict where it is estimated that at least 1 million died War/conflict

Dates

Estimated deaths (million)

Congo Free State Mexican Revolution Chinese Revolution Armenian Massacres World War I Russian Civil War Chinese Nationalist Era Japanese Manchuria Soviet Union–Ukraine Stalin Purges World War II Chinese Civil War Partition of India Korean War Mao’s China Second Indo–China War Ethiopia Nigeria Bangladesh Rwanda and Burundi Cambodia Mozambique Afghanistan Iran–Iraq Sudan Congo Kinshasa

1886–1908 1910–20 1911 1915–23 1914–18 1918–22 1928–37 1931 1931–33 1936–39 1939–45 1946–49 1947 1950–53 1948–73 1960–75 1962–92 1966–70 1971 1959–95 1975–78 1975–92 1979–2001 1980–88 1983–current 1998

3–8 1 2.4 1.2–1.5 8–15 5–10 2–3 1.1 7 13 55 1.2–2.5 1 2.8–4 40 3.5 1–1.4 1 1.25 1.35 1.7 1 1.3–1.8 1 1.9–2 3.8

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that 654 965 excess deaths have occurred in Iraq since the invasion, 601 027 as a result of violence. While this methodology can be criticized, it does at least provide a reasonable estimate (with high confidence limits) of the numbers of deaths. Unfortunately, this methodology cannot be effectively applied retrospectively.

War and Political Violence in the Twentieth Century The scale of war and political violence expanded enormously through the twentieth century, partly as a result of technological change and globalization. This section looks at the types and changing nature of war and political violence. Civilians became more directly involved, increasing in proportion through the century from around 10% of casualties in World War I to around 50% of the casualties in World War II, to around 90% of the casualties in the Balkan Wars of the 1990s. Wars are now more likely to be fought by insurgents or terrorists striking civilian or military targets by surprise, and often seemingly at random. While the nature of war changed in terms of increasing firepower and hence increased destruction of both people and property, the type of weapons used also evolved, with the first use of chemical weapons in World War I, and the use of nuclear weapons to end World War II. While the casualty figures for the twentieth century are too large to comprehend, for every death there are several wounded, injured, or ill, so if we add this into the equation, along with the figures for those dead or injured in smaller wars, the overall figure regarding war-related casualties for the twentieth century must be around 1 billion. Given that there were so many victims in such large countries as the Soviet Union and Mao’s China, even this might be an underestimate. All we can do is look at some of the general health consequences of these wars, and all others can do is focus on individual stories in order to obtain some personal meaning about these health consequences. The twentieth century saw dramatic changes in the technology used in war. At the beginning of the century there were no aeroplanes, submarines were in their infancy, there were few machine guns, and no sophisticated chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons. The century saw the development of evermore powerful weapons of mass destruction. During World War I, the machine gun came into its own, and for many symbolizes the killing fields of the war, though it was here that poisonous gas was also first used. Biological and chemical weapons were developed by many countries, even though the 1925 Geneva Protocol outlawed their first use. They were subsequently used by the Japanese against the

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Chinese, by the USA against the Vietnamese, and by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq against the Kurds. By World War II, technology had advanced to allow large bombers to bring destruction on a massive scale to cities. The war saw the deaths of 60 000 British civilians, mostly as a result of German bombing (and later the V1 and V2 weapons), but this was little compared to the numbers of German dead as a result of the British and US bombing of German cities in the second half of the war. We do not know the exact figure, but it is estimated that around 600 000 German civilians died from bombing, so we can estimate that there were 1.5–2 million casualties overall, including many maimed for life. World War II also saw the introduction of nuclear weapons, and their first use in Japan. The Hiroshima bomb killed at least 40 000 people instantly; including the bombing of Nagasaki it is thought that over 200 000 died, either instantly or through radiation poisoning which led to several types of cancer, including breast, lung, and thyroid; along with skin, urinary tract, esophagal cancer, salivary gland tumors, and malignant lymphomas. The bombs also led to chromosomal abnormalities and microcephaly with mental retardation. There were many Japanese casualties from nonnuclear bombing, which is often forgotten when we think of the nuclear attack. Around 40% of urban houses in Japan were destroyed during the war by conventional high explosive and, particularly, incendiary bombs. It is the shift from military to civilian casualties over the century which is most dramatic. World War II (if we count it as starting in the 1930s in China) saw the biggest shift, with around 50% of the casualties being civilian, and many of these resulting from deliberate policies of killing, whether it is the Nazi extermination camps, mass executions in Russia, the murders committed by the Japanese on civilians in the Far East, or the indiscriminate bombing of many cities, culminating in the firebombing of Tokyo and the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. From shortly after World War II until the present day there have been large-scale wars in Africa, Latin America, and Asia, which have involved evermore civilians as casualties. In Europe the Bosnian war of 1992–95 saw the deaths of around 200 000 people, most of whom (perhaps 90%) were civilians. The Bosnian War also saw large numbers of the population being forcibly removed from their homes. Many became refugees in Western Europe and North America, others were moved from one part of the country to another, becoming internally displaced persons, IDPs). Bosnia is just one example, and by no means the largest example, of the forced movement of populations. During the twentieth century, this has been a common phenomenon, including the German movements west after both World Wars I and II, the population transfers in the Soviet Union and Communist China, and the many

928 Health Consequences of War and Political Violence Table 2 UNHCR statistics for the numbers of refugees, IDPs, asylum seekers and total number of persons of concern, 1999–2005 (millions except asylum seekers column) Year

Refugee

IDP

Asylum seekers

Total persons of concern

2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999

8.4 9.5 9.7 10.6 12 12 11.7

6.6 5.4 4.2 4.6 5.0 6.0 4.0

668 000 838 000 882 000 941 000 940 000 947 000 1 181 000

20.8 19.5 17.0 20.7 21.2 21.8 22.3

millions of people who have lost their homes in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Table 2 provides details of recent figures as issued by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). These statistics do not include the estimated 4 million Palestinian refugees living in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and the Palestinian Territories. The other groups include those who have taken voluntary repatriation, resettlement, local integration, stateless persons, and others of concern who have not applied for asylum because it would be too dangerous. In 2005 Pakistan and Iran hosted the most refugees (21% of the total), but this was a significant reduction from the previous year because many Afghans had returned to their own country. The majority of refugees were in developing countries (68% at the end of 2004). Colombia has the largest population of concern, with over 2 million people, virtually all of whom are IDPs. The pattern has changed from the 1990s, with the proportion of refugees to the total of persons of concern dropping from 6 out of 10 to 4 out of 10.

Current Understanding of Mental Health Consequences A good historical analysis of the mental health consequences of war and political violence is a difficult task because conceptions of mental illness have changed significantly. Before the twentieth century, understanding was, as we have seen, both very different and limited. There are serious mental health consequences resulting from war and political violence. These fall mainly in the PTSD spectrum of disorders, and also include depression, anxiety, and other problems such as substance abuse. The levels of PTSD vary among both military and civilian populations exposed to war. They vary according to a number of factors relating to experience such as torture, rape, abuse, or imprisonment, and social support. War can have permanent effects on survivors of conflicts. There are issues relating to the loss of family members, the

breakup of families, and becoming a refugee or asylum seeker in another country. PTSD was introduced as a diagnostic category in DSM-III in 1980. It was introduced on the basis of research relating to war, specifically the US experience in the Vietnam War. Since then research has demonstrated that the symptoms of PTSD are appropriate for other forms of traumatic incidents, some of which can be war-related, such as the response to torture or rape; and some of which relate to other incidents such as natural or man-made disasters. The fundamental diagnostic criteria for PTSD do seem to be applicable not only in relation to the type of incident, but also across cultures. The main symptoms of PTSD are intrusive thoughts, where the person has uncontrolled memories of the traumatic event, perhaps expressed through nightmares, or flashbacks. Traumatic memories are closely associated with behavioral and emotional responses, such as fear, horror, or helplessness. The person not only experiences these memories, but tries to avoid them, by avoiding any reminders of the traumatic event. This can be associated with emotional numbing, whereby the sufferer numbs not only the negative emotions associated with the traumatic memories, but also positive emotions, and so cannot express feelings of love or happiness, which of course can have severe effects on relationships, which are likely to be already strained because of the war and its consequences. The person with PTSD also experiences forms of physical hyperarousal, which might be expressed as an exaggerated startle response, an inability to concentrate, or disturbance of sleep. In order to obtain a classification of PTSD the person must have these diagnostic criteria, and also be significantly affected at work, at home, or in their social life. PTSD symptoms must be felt for a period of at least 1 month for acute PTSD, 3 months for chronic PTSD, and delayed onset PTSD occurs when the person does not experience symptoms until at least 6 months after the event. PTSD is rarely experienced as a single disorder; most people also have other disorders, such as generalized anxiety or depression, which is why some criticize

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PTSD, claiming that it lacks validity and needs revision or even removal from the classification system. People with complex war-related traumatic experiences can have more complex disorders. DESNOS (disorders of extreme stress not otherwise specified) is a category that is not yet in the classification system, but is recognized by many clinicians as appropriate for diagnosing people with complex experiences. The symptoms not only include the PTSD symptoms described, along with complex traumatic memories, but may also include problems with cognitive, biological, and affective selfregulation. It is not possible to know with any certainty the incidence of mental health disorders in a war zone or after a war. A proportion of people with depression or anxiety will have had these problems even without a war. There is only limited evidence relating to the increased incidence and prevalance of mental disorders, and that evidence is often gathered under difficult circumstances and so is likely to be less accurate than what we usually obtain through epidemiological studies. The mental health of civillians is usually more severely affected than that of combat troops in war; and women are generally more affected than men. Other vulnerable groups include children, older people, and the disabled. The majority of people do not experience pathological levels of mental disorder after a war. The figures about those who do vary dramatically, according to the particular war, the participants, and the kind of research that has been carried out.

Physical Health Consequences of Modern Warfare Political violence and war are a major public health problem, not only because of the direct consequences, the deaths and injury caused by war, but also because of the longer-term effects on health and well-being for individuals, families, and communities. As we have seen, disease and famine have always been common comcomitants of war and political violence, along with direct physical casualties, deaths, wounds, and disability. There are also consequences due to the loss of the health service infrastructure, which mean that people who fall ill during a conflict but not as a result of the conflict, may be more likely to experience more serious health consequences, including death, than they otherwise would because there are limited medical facilities available. Iraq has had little peace since 1980, with the 1980–88 Iran–Iraq War, the First Gulf War of 1990–91, the sanctions imposed by the USA and Britain until the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, and the current (at time of writing, April 2007) Gulf War. It is estimated that up to 1 000 000

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people died in the Iran–Iraq War (see Table 1), and around 100 000–200 000 died in the First Gulf War. According to UNICEF, up to 500 000 children died as a direct consequence of the US/UK sanctions, and that the figure for deaths in Iraq since the invasion of 2003 is unknown as no one keeps accurate records, but an article in The Lancet in October 2006 estimed that perhaps 600 000 have died, with countless more maimed and wounded, and we do not know how many have succumbed to illnesses as a consequence of the war or because medical facilities are inadequate because of the war. The infrastructure of the Iraqi healthcare service has been severely damaged, as has the ability to provide clean drinking water and electricity. We do not have figures to indicate how many of these deaths are a direct consequence of war and how many have occurred as an indirect consequence due to the destruction of health service provision and the reduced availability of medicines and other basic requirements. Iraq over the last few decades is an unfortunate example of the impact of war and political violence in terms of the breadth of physical and mental health consequences, and how sophisticated countries – in this case the USA – still do not keep accurate records of casualties and health problems. The proportion of wounded to dead is usually higher than in the past, particularly for developed countries, where most service personnel receive more effective lifesaving treatment. A wounded person is less likely to die of their wounds than in previous conflicts, but this has an impact on the cost to the state, with more people receiving disability pensions, and having longer periods in hospital, and a different impact on families, who may have to provide long-term care for a disabled person. The war in the Congo, which has so far continued for a decade, has resulted in the deaths of several millions of people, with a large proportion being young children. The causes of death tend not to be combat, but diseases that do not receive adequate treatment such as diarrhoea and malnutrition. Again, this is the result of the damage to the infrastructure of the country, meaning that hospitals have limited resources and food supplies often fail to get through to where they are needed. Since its recognition in 1981, HIV/AIDS has spread around the world very rapidly. It is estimated that there are around 40 million people currently living with HIV/ AIDS, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. While there are health programs which can be effective in reducing the incidence and prevalence of the disorder, these may only be temporarily effective because the permanent behavior change which is required does not last. The spread of HIV/AIDS, especially in Africa, has increased because of war and political conflict. This is because the incidence of violent rape and sexual abuse increases in a war zone, and traveling soldiers with the infection are likely to have

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sexual relations with people across a wide geographical area, thus increasing the spread of the disease.

Social and Economic Health Consequences of Modern War There are severe social and economic consequences of war and political violence which have a direct impact on health. The most obvious is the burden on the health services, and the damage to the infrastructure of the health services which often means that while there is an increased number of people requiring healthcare (both from war-related injuries and increased prevalence of illness as a result of the war), the availability of such care is limited. This problem is compounded when the war occurs in developing countries (which is proportionally more likely), and which may not have had adequate healthcare services before the war. There are also indirect health consequences which are very difficult to measure, such as decreased economic productivity, which leads to increased poverty for the individual and slows the rate of recovery for the society. There is also an increase in the burden of both formal and informal caregiving, to look after the sick, the injured, and the maimed.

The Impact of Different Types of War and Political Violence Health consequences vary according to the type of war and political violence. This section examines these differences in the light of specific examples of recent wars and conflicts, including full-scale civil wars such as Bosnia and Somalia, international wars such as Afghanistan and Iraq, dirty wars, where governments are responsible for violence against their populations, and low intensity (Guerrilla or terrorist) wars such as Northern Ireland and Colombia. Civilians have always suffered from armies. For instance, many of the Napoleonic era conflicts, which appeared to be about the destruction of the enemy army, actually involved large numbers of civilians. In the Peninsular Wars, the French policy was to steal food from the populace, which led to many civilians fighting as guerrillas (literally ‘little war’), which is where the term stems from. Some of the great wars of the past, for example, the Mongol Wars of the thirteenth century, involved civilians to the extent that locals were often massacred after a battle, for example, after one battle Ghengis Khan ordered the slaughter of over 1 million civilians. Many factors relating to war occur in all types of wars. The descriptions below relate only to elements that are specific to each category.

International Wars These occur between nations when one or more nations attempt to impose their will on one or more other nations. These nations may be roughly equal in power (e.g., World War I or World War II). They may also occur between nations that have differential power, for example, the colonial wars of the European powers, particularly in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, or more recently between the USA and weaker powers (e.g., Iraq). These wars can be prolonged and have serious effects on mental and physical health, particularly if the victorious power destroys the infrastructure of the defeated.

Civil Wars Civil wars usually have a major impact on civilians, both directly through being attacked by military and paramilitary forces, and indirectly through the destruction of the infrastructure and the stealing or destruction of food supplies. The effects for many are potracted, often for a lifetime if someone becomes a refugee or is maimed through war action. There may also be high levels of mental health problems, again with long-term consequences.

Dirty Wars Other wars, the so-called ‘dirty wars’, are often fought entirely as guerrilla wars, with the population terrorized by guerrilla groups who want particular political objectives. This can be labeled as terrorism, as it involves deliberately making a population fearful, of attacking with bombs and bullets in unexpected places, avoiding direct contact with the legitimate armed forces, emerging only to attack, and then going back into hiding.

Terrorism Terrorism is a term that is currently used inappropriately in some quarters. Terrorism involves the deliberate targeting of civilians by an organized group of paramilitaries who have some political objective which they believe they will achieve through terrorizing the population. While this is not the place to discuss the types of terrorism, it does have consequences for health. Some terrorist organizations use terrorism even where they could put their arguments forward in a democratic manner, and have the freedom to debate their cause. This could apply to Northern Ireland, and to the Basques in Spain. Others use terrorist techniques because they have no

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alternative, because they do not have the means to discuss their political goals openly and fairly. One example is the Palestinians in Israel/Palestine. The consequences of terrorist activity can be severe, both mentally and physically. Bombs shatter bodies. If a person is near the bomb they may literally be blown to pieces, and sometimes bodies cannot be identified, even genetically. Those further from the blast experience the loss of limbs, or serious damage to the spine. These injuries have obvious permanent consequences. They create permanent disability, those involved may have to give up their work or change jobs, and they may require temporary or permanent support from the state. Other disabling injuries involve the loss of eyes or hearing, and permanent damage to internal organs. While many people with bomb-related injuries recover completely, it can take a long time, and is expensive on resources, particularly if the terrorist activity is taking place in a developing country which has limited medical resources. There are also severe mental health consequences for areas affected by terrorist activity. This can be a consequence of directly experiencing a terrorist attack, whether one is injured, observes the event, or is perhaps involved in a kidnapping; the consequences relate to PTSD as described above. If the PTSD is severe, again there can be consequences relating to work and family, and the drain on the health services. There are other problems associated with living in an area severely affected by terrorist attacks. Just the threat itself of an attack can affect the mental and social health of people – which is the intention of the people committing the acts. Beyond that, if the security services introduce severe measures to try and stop the terrorist attacks, as is happening now in Western Europe and North America, then they can also impact on the emotional well-being of the individual.

Low-Intensity War Many of the conflicts, particularly but not exclusively, in Africa and Latin America, can be characterized as lowintensity wars. They may be international, or they may be civil wars. In these wars (or conflicts) guerrilla-style tactics are used by the military forces of the country, sometimes fighting against other armed groups, often with the support of one or more foreign countries which might supply arms and money to support the fighting. For instance, the fighting in Colombia, where the Colombian government is supported by the United States, which has an interest in reducing the supply of cocaine. A common tactic used in low-intensity warfare is the terrorizing of populations to ensure they do not provide active support, for example, food, shelter, to insurgents. The military may remove the population of certain areas, and then apply a scorched-earth policy, destroying villages, crops,

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and animals, so that insurgents cannot receive supplies. On some occasions, civilians become military targets, and are slaughtered by the military. Low-intensity warfare, then, has a number of healthrelated consequences. If populations are not killed then they may lose access to basic medical services, or they may not have enough to eat; both of these have potentially serious health consequences.

Other Types of War and Conflict It is sometimes difficult to categorize wars. For instance, the Chechen War and the Civil War in Georgia both started with terrorist activities, but expanded to become full-scale civil wars, with direct fighting between armies and rebels. The changing nature of war can have consequences on the people living in the area. When they are bewildered as to what is happening around them, there are also potential mental health consequences.

Costs Relating to the Health Consequences of War and Political Violence We have seen that there are many costs associated with the health consequences of war and political violence. These include the costs associated with healthcare, the loss of the economic ability of those killed, wounded, or ill as a consequence of war. The actual costs are difficult to determine because they are never fully added up. According to Ugalde and co-workers in 2000, there are three key areas where there is underassessment in evaluating the health costs of war. These include psychosocial behaviors, environmental destruction, and disruption to policymaking. While it is difficult to accurately measure these factors in terms of the impact on health, taking them into account will lead to a more accurate assessment. As an example, one of the psychosocial costs of war is the impact of increasing use of drugs and alcohol, along with their concomitant economic costs through drug-related illness, crime, and underemployment. These figures cannot be accurately quantified. For instance, the estimates of the costs of the Iraq war range from $100 billion to $300 billion (in the USA alone), with some commentators suggesting that the final cost may be $1 trillion.

Impact on Particular Populations This section focuses on the health consequences for specific populations involved in war and political conflict.

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Children Children have always had a difficult time in war. Many are orphaned, lose their opportunities for education, or lose their homes. There is strong evidence that children do suffer mental health problems as a consequence of their war experiences. Instead of being brought up in a safe environment, everything is disrupted. This can have long-term consequences that we do not fully understand. There is very little research relating to the very long-term impact of war experiences on children, which is unfortunate given the large numbers of children who experience war. These effects relate to mental health, physical health, and to the consequences of the disruption of education. Women While there are many armies in which women fight alongside men, it is civilian women who experience the greatest health consequences. Women are often the ones who try to hold their homes together in war. They have to feed the family, look after the injured, and try to keep the physical environment acceptable to live in. Beyond the normal consequences, women have the social health consequences to consider. They may also be imprisioned or subjected to violence, sexual or otherwise, which may have permanent physical and mental health consequences. In some wars, the armed forces deliberately use sexual violence against women as a tactic to undermine the opposiing forces and establish dominance in certain regions (e.g., Bosnia 1992–95).

been exposed to chemical or biological attack may have permanent damage to, for instance, lungs or eyesight. Disease may also impact permanently on an individual. There can also be serious consequences relating to the experience of hunger during war. For instance, older people in certain parts of Andalucia in Spain suffer severe rickets because they were young children in the years during and after the Spanish Civil War, a time of famine in Andalucia. In the author’s own research, cases of World-War-II veterans who were held prisoner by the Japanese, and who, because of their experiences with tropical diseases and starvation in the prisoner of war (POW) camps, have had lifelong problems with their digestive systems have been noted. The longer-term consequences of war can increase for those people who are aging, as the aging process means that they have reduced resources to deal with their problems. The difficulties associated with an old wound may lead to arthritis and restricted movement, or the psychological problems associated with traumatic memories may re-emerge after retirement. Indeed, there is strong evidence that war-related traumatic memories do re-emerge after retirement, when the veteran has more time to think about their war experiences. In the end, while our understanding of the type of longer-term war-related health problems is fairly good, the extent of such problems is not known. Not only are the statistics difficult to obtain, it may not be possible to determine whether a particular disorder is related to war experience, or to some other cause.

Refugees Refugees and asylum seekers are those who have left their homes, usually by force. They may have physical health problems, and many do have mental health consequences (e.g., PTSD, depression, and anxiety) as a result of their war experiences, including the experience of leaving their home country. One study showed that Bosnians who became refugees in the UK had more serious mental health consequences than those who lost their homes and were internally displaced. This is explained through refugees having less social support, and having to live in an alien country which has a difficult language and strange food and customs.

Longer-Term Effects of War The health consequencs of war can last for many years, sometimes permanently. This is the case for those who have been permanently disabled through direct action, for example, the loss of limbs, eyes, genitals, or who have had serious injuries such as a broken back. People who have

Conclusions Many millions of people have died in conflicts from the beginning of the twentieth century. Just how many millions is not known, because it is impossible to obtain accurate figures for many wars, including major conflicts such as World War II. For every person who died, there are several who suffered, and are suffering, from injuries, often disabling, and from the mental health consequences of their experiences. While an accurate figure is not possible, it is estimated that around 1 billion people have been casualties of war in the twentieth century. Many are living in countries far from their birthplace, which itself has associated issues. As these effects can be long-lasting or permanent, there are vast numbers of people living with the health consequences of war and political violence. There is no doubt that war and public health remain at odds with each other. Wars continue to be fought, and fought brutally; and they affect the health, both mental and physical, of many people, including millions of innocent civilians who have been caught up in the conflict.

Health Services, Effects of War and Political Violence on See also: Health Services, Effects of War and Political Violence on; Public Health Models of Violence and Violence Prevention

Further Reading APA (2000). The diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, (DSM-IV-TR), 4th edn. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association. Bortolotti, D. (2004). Hope in hell: Inside the world of medicin sans frontieres. London: Firefly. Burnham, G., Lafta, R., Doocy, S., and Roberts, L. (2006). Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: A cross-sectional cluster sample survey. The Lancet 368(9545), 1421–1428. Friedrich, J. (2006). The fire: The bombing of Germany 1940-45 (trans. Brown, A.). New York: Columbia University Press. Hunt, N. and Gakenyi, M. (2005). Comparing refugees and non-refugees: The Bosnian experience. Journal of Anxiety Disorders 19, 717–723. Levy, B. and Sidel, V. W. (2008). War and public health, 2nd rev. edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Murthy, R. S. and Lakshminarayana, R. (2006). Mental health consequences of war: A brief review of research findings. World Psychiatry 5(1), 25–30. Smallman-Raynor, M. and Cliff, A. D. (2004). War epidemics: An historical geography of infectious diseases in military conflict and civil strife, 1850–2000. Oxford: OUP.

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Taipale, I. (2001). War or health?: A reader. London: Zed Books. Ugalde, A., Selva-Sutter, E., Castillo, C., Paz, C., and Canas, S. (2000). The health costs of war: Can they be measured? Lessons from El Salvador. British Medical Journal 321, 169–172. UNHCR (2006). 2005 Global refugee trends. UNHCR: Geneva. Wesseley, S. and Jones, E. (2005). Shellshock to PTSD: Military psychiatry from 1900 to the Gulf War London: Psychology Press. Wilson, J. P. and Drozdek, B. (2004). Broken spirits: The treatment of traumatised asylum seekers, refugees, war and torture victims. New York: Brunner/Routledge.

Relevant Websites http://www.cdc.gov – Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). http://globalhealth.org – Global Health Council. http://www.ncptsd.va.gov – National Center for PTSD. http://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk – Refugee Council. http://www.unhcr.ch – United Nations Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). http://www.unfpa.org – United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). http://www.va.gov – United States Department of Veterans’ Affairs.

Health Services, Effects of War and Political Violence on Anthony B Zwi, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK Antonio Ugalde and Patricia Richards, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction Impact on Health Services and Systems Positive Effects of Conflict on Health Systems

Glossary Cold Chain The systems and services required to ensure that vaccines are kept at a cool temperature to ensure their viability during processes of packaging, distribution, and ultimately delivery to the person being immunized. Primary Healthcare The basic level of healthcare that should be effective, equitable, accessible, acceptable, and affordable to users of services. The primary care approach is closely linked with a multisectoral model of health and development and is community oriented and accountable.

This article is reproduced from the previous edition, volume 1, pp 679–690, Ó 1999, Elsevier Inc., with revisions made by the Editor.

Postconflict Challenges Conclusions Further Reading

Secondary Healthcare This term usually refers to hospital-level healthcare, operating at district or local government level. Tertiary Healthcare Institutions that receive referral cases from secondary care facilities. Tertiary care institutions are typically (but not always) located in the large urban areas and will include national referral centers and teaching hospitals. Vertical Programs These health programs focus on a single condition (e.g., malaria or tuberculosis), set of conditions (e.g., childhood diseases for which immunizations are available), or set of interventions (e.g., those necessary to promote safe delivery of

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children and the health of their mothers) and are typically organized in such a way that a range of financial control, service delivery, logistics, human resources and training, information systems, and accountability are all

Introduction There is increasing recognition that political violence and war present a significant negative impact on health services and health systems. They also present opportunities, however, for the development of new services and systems; the challenge of confronting adversity allows for innovation, creativity, and the emergence of new technologies and systems that may have some positive benefits for health. This article examines how political violence of various forms affects health services and health systems. It presents a model, reflecting the mechanisms by which war and political violence adversely affect health systems and seeks to demonstrate the variety of ways in which this occurs. We highlight the challenges facing health systems in their attempts to maintain activity despite adversity. Lastly, we focus attention on societies emerging from conflicts and seek to highlight the role of international aid and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in supporting the reestablishment and development of health systems. Trends in Conflict As described elsewhere in this encyclopedia, the nature and number of wars have changed over time. Each of the last three centuries has revealed an increase in the number of wars and associated deaths. Over 107 million people have died in wars this century alone. While the vast majority of such conflicts have taken place in lessdeveloped countries, there have been notable exceptions, such as the 1956 war in Hungary, the 1969 war on the Soviet–Chinese border, and the more recent conflicts in the former Yugoslavia and parts of the former Soviet Union. A variety of types of struggle, each with different determinants and effects, have been identified. Important factors include anticolonial struggles for independence; struggles based largely on superpower rivalry and the quest for regional hegemony; conflict within states, between classes, religions, ethnic groups, and tribes, often as a result of inequalities in access to political power and decision making, as well as in securing resources for development; and struggles between states over territory, some of which relate to the often arbitrary way in which historically colonized countries and their

located at one key point, often outside of the usual systems for maintaining these activities within the general health system.

borders were defined. Violent conflict may also result from populations seeking to redress the structural violence they have experienced: in this sense, war and conflict may represent a survival strategy. For different types of conflict, the extent, form, intensity, and severity of violence varies, as does its effect on health, health services, and systems. Additional influential factors will include the prior development of health services and systems, as well as the nature and form of the conflict, including its scope and geographic extent, its duration, speed of onset (sudden, gradual, chronic), and the level of social preparedness. Impact on Health Reveals Impact on Health System Examining certain ‘tracer conditions’ or health problems allows us to identify some of the mechanism by which these adverse effects occur. Aside from the direct effects of conflict on injuries and deaths, many of the other effects are mediated through an impact on health services and systems. Infant mortality, for example, may be susceptible to the impact of conflict through reduced access to primary care services, the unavailability of drugs for treatable conditions such as respiratory infections, and the disruption of immunization services. Other effects on nutrition, the family structure, and access to water and shelter will not be described here but clearly have important influences on health, probably more so than health services themselves. During the Ugandan civil war the infant mortality rate rose to above 600 per 1000 in certain war-affected areas; in 1989, UNICEF documented the massive impact of conflict on infant and child survival in Southern Africa. Refugees and internally displaced populations, many fleeing from the effects of conflict, have raised mortality rates, often resulting from the combined effects of poor nutrition, increased vulnerability to communicable diseases, diminished access to health services, poor environmental conditions, anxiety, and stress. In Ethiopia, for example, the sharp decline in immunization coverage during the expansion of the war front in 1991 is likely to have contributed significantly to increasing child mortality; Garfield and colleagues describe a war-related measles epidemic in Nicaragua, attributed in large part to the declining ability of the health service to immunize

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those at risk in conflict-affected areas. Similarly, the destruction of malaria control activities was instrumental in causing malaria epidemics in Ethiopia in 1991, and in Nicaragua and Mozambique, suggesting that these complex control programs, which require access to people and their homes, are particularly sensitive to disruption in periods of conflict. Increased rates of malaria may result from war-related population and troop movements, the inability to carry out timely disease control activities, and shortages of personnel for the conduct of control programs in peripheral areas. Epidemics of louse-borne typhus and relapsing fever have been associated with crowded army camps, prisons, and relief camps, as well as the sale of infected blankets and clothes by retreating soldiers to local communities. Meningitis, dengue fever, and leishmaniasis have all been associated with conflict. Cholera in Africa has been linked with population movements, in great part a response to conflict; sleeping sickness has reemerged in Angola due to the ongoing civil war; and guinea-worm disease, which is targeted for worldwide eradication, is uncontrolled in South Sudan where an ongoing civil war is underway. A variety of authors have drawn attention to the ‘high risk situation’ for HIV transmission that occurs in times of conflict. HIV infection has reached high levels in many army forces; the ability of these men to command sexual services from local women through payment or force; the movement of troops to different parts of the country and the front, and their ultimate return to different parts of the country after demobilization, present significant risks to women. Aside from communicable diseases, nutrition programs and other community-based programs such as the provision of postpartum care maybe affected; hospital admissions may decline as a result of services put out of commission or the decline in availability of health service staff. Monitoring these trends may be difficult as the health information system itself may collapse. Violent political conflict may affect mental health in a variety of ways. The nature of the conflict, the nature of the trauma experienced (or inflicted, as in the case of torture and other repressive violence), the individual and community response to these pressures, the psychological health of those affected prior to the event, the state of community cohesion, and the relationship between the individual, community, and the political struggle taking place will all influence mental health outcomes. In each of these examples, the impact of conflict on health system activity, whether this be information collection and surveillance, delivery of basic healthcare services, maintenance of disease control programs, availability of health education and promotion activities, or immunization programs, impedes service delivery and health promotion. These are discussed in more detail further ahead.

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Impact on Health Services and Systems Lee and Haines attempted to quantify the impact on health services of the war of the US-led coalition against Iraq in 1991. The prewar Iraqi health system was extensive, accessible to 90% of the population, and it reached 95% of the children requiring immunization. By the end of the war, many hospitals and clinics had been severely damaged or closed; those still operating in the months after the war were forced to cope with massive catchment populations, rendering them unable to provide appropriate care. The damage to infrastructure, such as water supplies, electricity, and sewage disposal, further exacerbated both the determinants of health and the circumstances in which health services operated.

Access to Services The impact of war on health facilities and service delivery is time and location specific. Access will clearly depend on the prior availability of services and their distribution. Users of services are able to utilize them only if they have geographic access (i.e., they are not too far away), economic access (i.e., the services are affordable), and social access (there are no psychological or other barriers preventing use of services). During conflicts all these forms of access to services may be restricted. In Afghanistan following the takeover of Kabul and other towns by the Taliban, women lost access to many services that were previously available to them. Population movement to access services may be limited as people may be unable to reach services for fear of encountering military personnel or because access to health services is actively hindered. Risk of physical or sexual assault may deter women from seeking care, curfews may prevent people moving about, whether in daytime or nighttime, and the widespread use of antipersonnel landmines may, directly or indirectly, impede access to health services. People who have been injured may avoid using public services that carry a risk of security force surveillance and in which those with suspicious wounds may be detained or questioned. In South Africa and in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, NGOs established alternative health services to allow those injured during uprisings against repressive regimes to seek care without fear of detection and detention. Many other factors conspire to reduce access: peripheral services may be directly targeted as in Mozambique or Nicaragua. Health workers, anxious to protect their own safety and that of their families, may move to urban areas and may be unwilling to work in more vulnerable peripheral sites. Increasingly, given the absence of drug supplies and logistics support, health workers operating in peripheral services may question whether they

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are achieving anything at all and may abandon their public sector work in favor of simply ensuring their own survival – either by migration, diversification out of healthcare provision, or privatizing the care they provide. In some cases services were not available prior to or during the conflict; in others, there is a rapid decline in service availability, especially where the affected society was fairly well resourced and supported, as in the former Yugoslavia, where the sudden lack of access to good quality medical care was a great shock to the population. Conflict may seriously disrupt the linkages between different levels of the health service: referrals from clinics to district hospitals, or from districts to provincial centers may be impeded by lack of logistics and communication support as well as by physical and military barriers. Towns and cities may be surrounded and entry into and out of them controlled; experience of besieged cities has taken place over millennia but has more recently been repeated in Sarajevo and in a number of towns in Southern Sudan, such as Juba. Health Services Activity As mentioned earlier, health service activity may adapt in a variety of ways. There is generally a tendency to shift from basic primary care activities, where these were provided, toward secondary care services. This partly reflects the shift from peripheral to more urban services, as well as a reduction in peripheral service availability as health workers themselves move to safer areas. In addition, if the military aspects of the conflict intensify, more effort is required to attend to the war wounded, and preventive care and health promotion drop down the list of priorities. Even in situations where there is a desire to promote preventive care, such as in the Tigrayan struggle for liberation, early efforts focused specifically on dealing with those wounded in war and making sure that fighting forces were sufficiently well to continue with their campaigns. In addressing the needs of the war wounded, including rehabilitation, longer-term health development and community-based activities may be sacrificed. Scarce healthcare personnel will be drawn into a more limited range of activities. A frequently disrupted set of services are those concerned with disease control programs. In relation to malaria control, for example, vector control programs, house spraying, the drainage of stagnant water, the availability of information and education activities, and the ongoing development of treatment protocols, training, and supervision necessary to ensure good quality early treatment of disease may all be compromised. The disruption of surveillance and health information systems will further exacerbate these problems and may reduce pressure to ensure that the problem is addressed. Public health programs geared to following up people with

communicable diseases, contacting their families and partners, and making advice, information, screening, or care available to them, may be compromised. Community outreach activities invariably suffer as services contract and are offered only in safer, less peripheral areas. As the public health sector declines for the reasons cited above, other actors increasingly engage in healthcare provision. These include the local indigenous and medical private sector, as well as local and international NGOs. Activities become increasingly ‘projectized’, with a lack of overarching direction within a broad policy framework. Aid dependency increases; along with this comes an increase in donor control and a skewing in the nature and types of programs offered. Activities may become increasingly limited to small areas or specific districts and populations. Programs that do operate are likely to become increasingly vertical with a single system operating to assess needs, deliver services, monitor performance, and finance the system. The gap between these better-funded vertical programs and the general health services may widen substantially as the former are protected from the neglect and withdrawal of resources occurring elsewhere in the health system. Infrastructure The destruction of the physical infrastructure necessary for the delivery of health services may wreak havoc on systems attempting to maintain services. The direct targeting of clinics, hospitals, and ambulances may be against international humanitarian law but has frequently been experienced in latter-day conflicts. Increasingly, the delivery of aid, whether in the form of food or healthcare, has itself been targeted during intense international conflicts. In addition, related facilities such as those necessary for storage, water distribution, sewage removal, or electricity have been targeted with adverse health service effects. The Sudanese army deliberately destroyed hand water pumps in rebel areas, and the insurgency did likewise in government-held territory. During the Gulf War allied bombing damaged sewage treatment plants and water supplies in Iraq. Potable water availability declined from 7 million to 1.5 million cubic meters per day. Shortages of chemicals and electricity required for testing and ensuring water potability led to outbreaks of typhoid, cholera, and gastrointestinal diseases. In Nicaragua, the insurgency destroyed the main pharmaceutical storage facility of the country in Corinto, creating a severe shortage for months. The destruction of nonhealth physical infrastructure such as roads, electrical plants, and communication systems has indirect health consequences. In Cape Town, South Africa, transport difficulties prevented health workers from attending work; experiences in the

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occupied Palestinian territories and other regions of active ongoing conflict have been similar. In some Iraqi hospitals, elevators did not work during energy blackouts and patients could not be moved to surgical theaters, and emergency interventions had to be delayed or took place in suboptimal conditions. The displacement of rural dwellers and health workers from rural areas produced a more urban care system causing a total breakdown of several rural districts.

Equipment and Supplies During violent political conflicts, fewer medicines and inputs to healthcare may be available to the public health sector because of budgetary reductions and import difficulties. The shortage of drugs may translate into an increase in medically preventable causes of death, such as those from asthma, diabetes, and infectious diseases. Shortages also lower the quality of care. In Somalia, amputations performed without intravenous antibiotics produced high rates of infections, and in former Yugoslavia operations were performed with inadequate anesthesia. In Uganda, the Essential Drugs Management Programme, funded by the Danish International Development Agency and organized in the early 1980s, was disrupted by the conflict. Many rural dwellers who for the first time had access to modern medicines were once more deprived of basic drugs. The cold chain, necessary for ensuring that vaccines are kept in appropriate conditions from the time of manufacture to transport and supply and ultimately delivery to the individual, may be disrupted with serious consequences for communicable disease outbreaks. The availability of basic healthcare technologies, such as functioning X-ray units or laboratories, may be undermined by lack of maintenance, spare parts, skilled personnel, chemicals, and other supplies. More sophisticated technologies, such as ultrasound or fetal monitoring, even where previously available, may no longer be present with health workers having to change their practice to less technology-intensive approaches. While this may not, in itself, necessarily be inappropriate, it does increase the levels of stress faced by both healthcare providers and users alike.

Budget A key concern is the impact of ongoing military struggle on government spending on the social sector. In Ethiopia, the conflict against the Ethiopian Derg led to increases in military expenditure from 11.2% of the government budget in 1974–75 to 36.5% by 1990–91, and to declines in the health budget from 6.1% in 1973–74 to 3.5% in 1985–86 and 3.2% in 1990–91.

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The deterioration of the economy during wars implies a reduction in public expenditure. Funds required to support the war shifts budgetary priorities and allocations from social services to the military. The result is a smaller percentage of a smaller budget for health. In Uganda, income per capita was reduced from $500 in 1965 to $250 by 1989 (in constant prices of 1989). In 1986 the public health budget was only 6.4% of what had been in the early 1970s. The drastic reduction of funding at a time when needs were greater, the lack of available health workers and key health administrators, the destruction of physical infrastructure, and the weakening of civil and political institutions all contributed to the collapse of the health system. Before the beginning of political violence, Uganda enjoyed health services considered to be among the best in sub-Saharan Africa; by the end of the conflict in 1986, it was near the bottom. In El Salvador the gross national product (GNP) per capita (in constant prices of 1960) was reduced from $839 in 1978 to $619 in 1989, and the proportion of the national budget allocated to health plummeted from 10% in 1980 to 6% in 1990. In the same period the budget available to the ministry of health, as a percentage of the GNP, declined from 2% to 0.9%. Until 1980, the health budget had been higher than the defense budget, but during the first year of the civil war more funds were allocated to the military than to health, and at the peak of the conflict in 1986, the official figures (which probably represented a small part of the real allocations) showed that the military received about 4 times more than the health sector. During the 1967–70 civil war in Nigeria, the military expenditures rose exponentially. In 1966, only 7% of the national budget was dedicated to defense; by 1970 the percentage was 43%. During the same period, health expenditures as a percentage of the GNP fell from 4% to 0.8%. Human Resources Injury, killing, kidnapping, and exodus of health workers are common during periods of political violence and war. As in the case of the destruction of the physical infrastructure, there is evidence that in many countries, including Argentina, Guatemala, Mozambique, and Nicaragua, health workers were targeted for destruction. In Uganda, half the doctors and 80% of the pharmacists left the country between 1972 and 1985. After the war for independence from Portugal, Mozambique was left with only 80 of the 500 doctors present before independence. By 1960, 1 year after the Cuban revolution, half of the Cuban physicians had left that country. Other times, war-ravaged countries are left without health planning and administrative expertise. Shortage of personnel reduces the availability and quality of services and the control of communicable diseases. As supports to the delivery of healthcare decline, the morale

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of service providers is compromised and a vicious spiral of declining quality of care, declining utilization, and increasing privatization ensue. Health workers increasingly seek to protect their own interests, whether by moving to safer areas, by emigration, or by drainage into nongovernmental and private services. The lack of skilled personnel, referral systems, training, and support all detract from the quality of services provided and the satisfaction that service providers take in the care they offer. Community Involvement In many other struggles, particularly those of the ‘lowintensity’ form, there is evidence of community leaders and social structures being specifically targeted for destruction and annihilation. The war against the Marxist Frelimo state in Mozambique was waged, in part, through an attempt to reduce access to healthcare and educational services that the state had prioritized as a symbol of its commitment to improving the quality of life in rural and peri-urban areas. As a result, these services became specially targeted, for the same reason: in an attempt to undermine the support attracted by the state. In Nicaragua, another country in which the socialist uprising had sought to give priority to education and health services, these were targeted by opposition forces. The immediate and longer-term effect of such action is difficult to quantify: what is clear, however, is that local systems of democracy and accountability will be disrupted and involvement in community affairs discouraged. Health Policy Formation Violent political conflict tends to undermine national capacity to make decisions rationally and accountably. On the other hand, conflict may bring communities together to work collectively to solve problems, an issue discussed briefly further. During periods of conflict, established and routine systems of making decisions, planning, assessing needs, and responding to them may be seriously disrupted during periods of ongoing conflict. As mentioned earlier, normal services may be disrupted and resources, whether human or material, may be required for new needs. A key problem in conflict-affected settings is the wide range of actors operating and the lack of the usual lines of accountability for action. In regular health systems, decisions taken at a peripheral level are accountable, usually within the health sector, to district or provincial health authorities, and these are, in turn, responsible to central health authorities. During conflicts, the system of provision and response to needs may be highly decentralized with few lines of accountability. A related problem is that

the policy framework, within which providers and purchasers of services operate, may be entirely lacking. There may be an inability to control and coordinate, or even simply to ensure awareness of, NGO and donor organization activities. There may be a serious lack of data on which to make important health policy decisions. A longer-term constraint will be the inability of local health service providers and policymakers to relate to the international debates around healthcare and health system reorganizations that take place all the time. As a result, lessons learned in other settings may fail to be adopted locally and the same mistakes may be made in new sites over and over again. While this is not solely due to conflict, the presence of conflict exacerbates any usual attempt to ensure that systems learn from their own experiences, and that systems of institutional memory are developed, as well as impeding the ability of individuals and systems to learn from the experiences of others further afield. It is notable that during the conflicts in Uganda, and during the period of antiapartheid political struggle in South Africa, the isolation of the country served to reduce contact with current international health policy developments and debates. This suggests that despite the nature of the struggle, relative isolation and focus on other key political struggles and concerns detracts from both individuals and systems keeping abreast of developments in the ‘outside world’. Locally available fora for debate around policy matters may be unavailable. For example, the media may be less accessible to people or may be less willing to take risks in highlighting discrepancies between, for example, what the government might say it does and what it actually does. In the postconflict setting, a key challenge is to reestablish these fora for debate and facilitate the exchange of ideas between the range of important stakeholders operating in the health environment. Policy shifts

In almost every country, the dominance of physicians in the health sector sustains policies favoring specialized and tertiary care at the expense of primary care services. By the late 1960s, it was becoming increasingly clear among public health scholars that in order to improve the health conditions of the poor in Third World countries, there needed to be a more even allocation of resources between primary and hospital care, and between rural and urban areas. During the 1970s, in spite of pressure from physicians, some countries had achieved modest gains in making primary care accessible to rural and underprivileged urban populations. In war-torn countries, the tertiary care needs of the wounded and the limited availability of resources reversed earlier changes, while in countries in which the implementation of primary care policies was under discussion, these were postponed, in some cases for extensive periods of time.

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The impact of war on the policy process has been studied in very few countries; information and insights into how systems adapt to and respond to ongoing conflict is therefore extremely scarce. (We base this section on work with which we have been involved directly or indirectly in Uganda, El Salvador, Cambodia, Palestine, and South Africa.) In Uganda, the political conflict paralyzed health policy formation. As one informant remarked, during the war years policy ‘‘was established by decree, no one knew what health policy really was.’’ During wars, due to scarcity of resources and government difficulties in accessing populations under the control of insurgents, NGOs fill part of the vacuum left by the public sector. The role of NGOs is extremely important both during and in the aftermath of ongoing conflict. During conflicts, indigenous NGOs and church groups may be among the few service providers who continue to operate during the conflict, especially in rural areas and those more directly affected by violence. A key problem, however, is that these NGOs often provide a patchwork of services that are relatively independent of the state and do not necessarily fit in with other service provision approaches or priorities. They may communicate poorly with one another, adopt different approaches and standards of care and health worker remuneration, and focus attention mostly at a very local level with some impact on the equity of service availability across large regions. In the postwar period, NGOs continue to have an important role and may remain the sole service providers in some areas. The link between the services they provided during the earlier emergency period and the services now needed in the postwar period may be at odds with one another, and a gradual transition from a relief mode of operation to one that is developmentoriented is required. A number of key problems may emerge in relation to this transition, however. For one thing, different actors, whether donors or NGOs, tend to operate in either the relief/emergency or the development phase, and there are few organizations with the skills, ability, political insight, and flexibility both in terms of funding sources and in types of activity, that can bridge this divide. In Uganda after the war, the public sector exhibited extreme weaknesses in planning. Coupled with the proliferation of NGOs (350 were registered in the country) most of which operated largely independently, the result was a degree of policy chaos and persistent fragmentation of health policy and service delivery that had begun during the political conflict. The conflict itself seriously delayed urgently needed policy debates during the reconstruction and development of the country and the form that this should take. Because of a lack of coordination, important programs such as malaria control were not adequately addressed by any of the key donors. In

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Cambodia, there was a similar neglect of disease control activity, and tuberculosis received inadequate attention during the period under a UN transitional authority. While some services in Cambodia and other conflictaffected countries were neglected, others were offered by a variety of providers. During the period of reconstruction in Uganda, little attention was paid to the more difficult tasks of creating self-sustainability and correcting structural inefficiencies. The policy process was also altered by war in El Salvador. The insurgency, assisted by foreign volunteers and funding, had developed a remarkable primary healthcare system based on health promoters, preventive care, and self-reliance. After the signing of the peace treaty in 1992, foreign funding for primary care began to dry up. Because of economic constraints, the ministry of health was unable to provide services to the relatively extended and remote rural areas formerly controlled by the insurgency. In the absence of public services, the NGOs that had assisted the insurgents continued to offer services after the war. In the postconflict reconstruction effort, international donors promoted the provision of health services through the private sector and NGOs. In spite of the pressures by international agencies, the ministry was unwilling to coordinate activities with and transfer funds to the NGOs because, as former allies of the insurgency, it considered them to be too leftist. There were also conflicts in the policy approaches between the ministry and the NGOs. The former was more interested in a traditional medical care model, while the NGOs, as a result of the war experience, favored primary care more in line with current international recommendations (use of paramedics, preventive and educational programs, and self-reliance). The result of the impasse was delays in the formation and implementation of policies, friction between international donors and the ministry, delays in the transfer of international assistance, and a deterioration of primary services in the poorest rural areas of the country. In Cambodia, unique efforts were made by the Ministry of Health, with the support of the World Health Organization (WHO), to coordinate international aid to the health sector and ensure that services offered could be accommodated within a health policy framework on which a wide range of policy actors agreed. While this was an important and innovative effort, the coordination effort was inadequately resourced and had insufficient powers to ensure that coordination actually took place. As a result, much effort was duplicated, unnecessary services were established, conflicts between the NGO community and public sector emerged in some settings, and inadequate attention was devoted to the longer-term needs of the health system. More recent discussion of sector-wide approaches to health system development is receiving attention and may present

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some opportunities for ensuring that the donor community as a group engages with national policymakers to collectively determine how best to assist the reestablishment of the health system and its longer-term development. Almost inevitably, wars reinforce economic dependence in Third World countries; Uganda illustrates the consequence of dependence on the health policy process. After the war in 1988, about 50% of healthcare was provided by church missions. Foreign funding and outof-pocket payment of health services accounted for fourfifths of health expenditures in the country. Unable to control health funding, the public health sector lost policy-making power, and foreign agencies and donors became the de facto health policymakers. During the reconstruction, the World Bank, contradicting its own international health policy statements, paid lip service to primary care while at the same time advocated the rehabilitation of hospitals. According to the World Bank’s Uganda report: ‘‘Primary health care . . . will not necessarily be cost-effective . . . it can absorb great amounts of money without yielding results, and may be rejected by consumers . . . immediate future investment in the renovation of hospitals is likely to show a very effective return.’’ Our study in El Salvador found that the World Bank preferred to fund hospital construction and rehabilitation because it had more experience in the preparation, administration, and supervision of these types of loans than in primary care. The institutional needs of the World Bank appeared to be more important than the pressing health needs of populations emerging from wars. International banks such as the World Bank have been eager to lend money for reconstruction and rehabilitation of hospitals and other health facilities, in some cases providing opportunity costs and compromising the capability of the health sector for preventive, promotional, and primary care. In the Palestinian territories, donors too have shown a propensity to desire to fund infrastructural projects. In particular, the Japanese government and the European Community have both contributed sizeable sums for the construction of hospitals in Jericho and the Gaza Strip, respectively, despite hospital services not being the priority concerns at this point in time.

Positive Effects of Conflict on Health Systems Not all the effects of political violence on health systems are negative. In some cases, adaptations and organizational or political responses might be positive and may allow opportunities for health system and societal development. In the anticolonial liberation struggles in

Mozambique, for example, the FRELIMO party encouraged community participation and self-reliance in health; this was a forerunner to more widely promoted primary healthcare policies in many countries. In the conflict between national groups and the Ethiopian Derg, community-based political movements in Eritrea and Tigray promoted community participation and control in decision making, and facilitated the development of multisectoral health promotion strategies. The system was so sophisticated that an underground hospital, hidden from air raids, was developed in Orota. In Tigray, the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front ensured that health workers were trained and mobile services established. Innovative community-financing systems, operating through elected local governments, the baitos, were established, empowering health workers in communities to ensure that drugs and adequate services were available despite considerable constraints. Services that were destroyed during the military struggle were reconstructed, and a functioning referral system was also established. Similar experiences of the promotion of participation and control by communities over health resources, the promotion of primary healthcare, and recognition of the social determinants of ill-health have characterized other struggles such as those in Nicaragua and Vietnam. It is difficult to quantify the impact of conflict on community participation but it is apparent that there are times when it enhanced community mobilization, participation, and control over local decision making. Experiences in Nicaragua, Mozambique, Vietnam, Eritrea, and Tigray suggest that conflict may be an important organizing influence and that communities may come together to respond to this external threat. What is far less certain, however, is whether such participatory activity can be sustained in the longer term. A recent study in Tigray and North Omo, Ethiopia, showed that although the involvement of women in local government and political activity was actively promoted during the war, their ongoing involvement in the postwar period appeared to be declining. Relatively little is known about how health systems actively adapt to adverse conditions during wartime. This would be a fruitful area for research and warrants attention: if positive adaptations could be more directly supported, it may be possible to ensure that the core elements of health systems are maintained and sustained, or even develop during periods of conflict. One adaptation that consistently emerges in conflictaffected societies is the development of the private and traditional sectors. These important aspects of the healthcare system represent an important healthcare resource that could be usefully incorporated in the delivery of healthcare in the future. Understanding how this system emerges, what role it plays, and what support can be given

Health Services, Effects of War and Political Violence on

to it to ensure that the quality of services delivered is appropriate, merit further attention. In some cases unique adaptations may occur. The WHO assisted the Bosnian and Croatian healthcare systems to develop a system for registering disabled people during the war. These registration systems can be extended and further developed in the aftermath of the conflict in order to ensure that disabled people retain access to important rehabilitation and social support services. Where services are developed in response to specific war-related needs, for example, the development of war surgery services to care for people with antipersonnel landmine injuries, these services could be extended to other emergency care needs and rehabilitation requirements in the aftermath of conflict. A variety of forms of health for peace initiatives have been promoted. These include truces to allow for immunization campaigns and other forms of cessation of conflict to perform vital public health activities. Healthrelated activity may be particularly useful in helping reestablish community functions by allowing a focus on services that all parties agree are beneficial. The extent to which health services reconstruction is able to facilitate a reduction in tensions between factions and a commitment to working together has been underexplored but warrants attention.

Postconflict Challenges In the postconflict period, the costs of reconstruction may be staggering. In the immediate aftermath of the Gulf War, it was estimated that Iraq would require $110–200 billion and Kuwait $60–95 billion to repair the war damage from the US-led coalition. In contrast, the goals adopted by the World Summit for Children in 1991 required $20 billion for their global implementation. Some of the key challenges facing postconflict health systems have been referred to earlier. A particularly important issue is to determine the extent to which the prior health system will be reconstituted or the extent to which it will be reformed in an effort to improve efficiency, effectiveness, and equity. It is apparent from studying a number of countries emerging from conflict that the ‘default mode’ is to attempt to reestablish whatever services existed prior to the violence. In Uganda, however, the postconflict resource base was less than 10% of what it was prior to the civil war, making simple reestablishment of prior services totally infeasible. Furthermore, in the period between the commencement of periods of conflict and their resolution, which may last decades, approaches to the nature of health services and who purchases and provides them have changed. In recent years, for example, it has become accepted wisdom (often without careful assessment of local context) that charges

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be levied for health services and that the state need not be the only provider: where possible the engagement of other providers, including the for-profit and not-for-profit private sector, and the indigenous or traditional sector, have been enlisted in many countries. An even more important and difficult challenge is to establish the policy framework within which health services and the health system operate. Different stakeholders, including political actors, service providers, and international donors, each have their own agendas and services that they wish to prioritize. A key role of government, when it functions effectively, is to provide a framework within which the different actors can operate. In postconflict countries, this policy framework may be lacking given the inadequacy of government capacity, or challenges to its legitimacy. An important policy role is to facilitate the development of consensus about broad health system direction: in the absence of functioning government this is a particularly challenging task that could be assisted, or (more usually) hindered, by the involvement of the international community. Among the issues to be debated at such a crucial time in the reestablishment of national policy is the extent to which reform of the health system is possible. Issues such as the extent to which services will be paid for and by whom, how decentralized the system will be, what the role of the private for-profit sector will be, and whether third-party payment mechanisms will be promoted are all key questions on which debate and direction are required. In the absence of resolving many of these issues amicably, services and systems may develop without any cohesiveness with resultant lack of efficiency and equity. Ensuring that, to as great an extent as possible, existing inequities in distribution and access to health services are resolved in the aftermath of conflict may be helpful in reducing causes of tension between groups. In the postconflict period, a fundamental concern is to understand and seek to address those factors that contributed to the conflict in the first place. Health may provide an opportunity to bring together community members from different factions. There are a variety of ways in which health services and health-related projects can assist in bringing together different groups. Although the evidence for the effectiveness and sustainability of such initiatives is limited, these deserve attention, experimentation, and careful evaluation. An additional factor that may contribute to reducing the level of tension between communities is to work toward the establishment of more equitable systems of distributing resources. Improving the proportion of the budget that can be allocated to primary care service provision, to rural areas, and to the poorest areas will all assist in reducing inequities. In seeking to address historical inequities, enhancing the quality of publicly, and where possible, privately provided services, as well as

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ensuring their longer-term sustainability are all important challenges. In seeking to ensure sustainability, some co-payment mechanisms may be necessary although appreciating the limited resource base in many postconflict settings is critical. It is important also to appreciate the need for enhancing quality and sustainability. An appreciation of gender inequalities in society, in health and in access to and utilization of services, is crucial to reestablishing a more effective and equitable service. During conflicts gender relations may change, for better or worse: where positive features develop, for example, where women are able to exert more control over household decisions, supporting these positive developments is desirable. In some conflicts, such as the South African, Tigrayan, and Palestinian conflicts, women played an important part in the political struggle and have continued to demand their right to influence ongoing political developments. Postconflict development of civil society and good governance thus reflect opportunities for positive change.

Conclusions Political violence and conflict have an extensive negative effect on health and health systems. These negative effects are present in all aspects of the health system: their infrastructure, budgeting, planning and management, availability of human and material resources, and service provision. There is increasing evidence of these detrimental effects. Far less documented and understood are the impacts upon planning and policy making, and on relationships between services and the communities they serve. An important challenge for researchers is to understand how health systems adapt and respond to conflict and to determine whether those developments that are positive can be further reinforced and sustained. This applies not only to health systems, but to community and local government responses to conflict that may be positive and deserve to be reinforced. Notable among these may be positive changes in gender relations in which women have challenged their domination during conflict and demand that their needs receive attention in any postconflict arrangements. To examine how systems respond to conflict and if and how they protect key elements of service provision and functioning is an important challenge. To maintain information systems, for example, is crucial to ensuring that ongoing disease control efforts are sustained. The establishment of sentinel sites or areas of heightened surveillance in which ongoing monitoring can be preserved and promoted represent important challenges in urban and rural areas. Refining rapid assessment techniques that can be used in the aftermath of conflict to establish the extent to which

services are able to function and health personnel are actively providing good quality care is another important challenge. How best to integrate a variety of personnel who may have been trained in different systems to different standards has barely been addressed in the literature. There remain many unknowns regarding how systems and services respond to conflict. Which characteristics of health systems allow them to maintain their activities during conflicts and complex emergencies deserve attention. Are these characteristics of the system of service providers, or alternatively, of the communities in which they function? Here, more research is clearly required: identifying positive developments or mechanisms for bolstering the resilience of health systems will assist in ensuring their survival during disruptive and destructive periods. A key challenge during and in the aftermath of conflict remains the effective coordination of available resources. A variety of stakeholders operate in these settings: government, private sector, international organizations, and a wide variety of nongovernmental groups. Various mechanisms have been tried in an attempt to ensure a degree of coordination between service providers: a key element is having in place a policy framework within which service providers operate. To stimulate policy dialog and debate, and to seek to ensure that policy is, at least in part, based on evidence of effectiveness, efficiency, equity, and sustainability, are key challenges to all the stakeholders operating in these highly politicized environments. It is important that in the postconflict reconstruction, priority be given to the reorganization of services with emphasis on preventive and primary care over the physical reconstruction of the infrastructure. In many settings, however, emphasis appears to be mistakenly placed largely on the rehabilitation and construction of hospitals and clinics, with little attention being devoted to the more difficult tasks of improving the policy process, improving management capacity, developing the provision of preventive care, and extending services to the poor. See also: Public Health Models of Violence and Violence Prevention; Warfare, Modern

Further Reading Barnabas, G. A. and Zwi, A. B. (1997). Health policy development in wartime: Establishing the Baito health system in Tigray, Ethiopia. Health Policy and Planning 12(1), 38–49. Cliff, J. and Noormahomed, A. R. (1988). Health as a target: South Africa’s destabilisation of Mozambique. Social Science and Medicine 27(7), 717–722. Coghlan, B., Brennan, R. J., Ngoy, P., et al. (2006). Mortality in the Republic of Congo: A nationwide survey. Lancet 367(9504), 44–51. Dodge, C. P. (1990). Health implications of war in Uganda and Sudan. Social Science and Medicine 31, 691–698.

Homicide Dodge, C. P. and Wiebe, P. D. (1985). Crisis in Uganda: The breakdown of health services. Oxford: Pergamon. Fulco, C. E., Liverman, C. T., and Sox, H. C. (eds.) (2000). Gulf War and health. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Garfield, R. M. and Neugat, A. I. (1991). Epidemiologic analysis of warfare: A historical review. Journal of the American Medical Association 266, 688–692. Garfield, R. and Williams, G. (1992). Health care in Nicaragua: Primary care under changing regimes. New York: Oxford University Press. Garfield, R. M., Frieden, T., and Vermund, S. H. (1987). Health-related outcomes of war in Nicaragua. American Journal of Public Health 77, 615–618. Garfield, R. M., Prado, E., Gates, J. R., and Vermund, S. H. (1989). Malaria in Nicaragua: Community-based control efforts and the impact of war. International Journal of Epidemiology 18, 434–439. Jenkins, J. C., Scanlan, S. J., and Peterson, L. (2007). Military famine, human rights, and child hunger. Journal of Conflict Resolution 51(6), 823–847. Jong, J. de. (2002). Trauma, war and violence: Public mental health in socio-cultural context. Dordrecht: Springer. Kloos, H. (1992). Health impacts of war in Ethiopia. Disasters 16, 347–354. Lee, I. and Haines, A. (1991). Health costs of the Gulf War. British Medical Journal 303, 303–306. Levy, B. S. and Sidel, V. W. (eds.) (1997). War and public health. New York: Oxford University Press. Macrae, J. and Zwi, A. (eds.) (1994). War and hunger: Rethinking international responses to complex emergencies. London: Zed Books.

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Macrae, J., Zwi, A., and Birungi, H. (1994). A healthy peace? Rehabilitation and development of the health sector in a post-conflict situation. London: Health Policy Unit, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Taipale, I., Physicians for Social Responsibility (Finland), and International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (eds.) (2002). War or health. Dhaka: University Press. Ugalde, A. and Vega, R. R. (1989). Review essay: State terrorism, torture, and health in the Southern Cone. Social Science and Medicine 28, 759–765. Ugalde, A. and Zwi, A. (eds.) (1994). Violencia politica y salud en Ame´rica Latina. Mexico: Nueva Imagen. Ugalde, A. and Zwi, A. (1995). Violencia politica. In Vidal, G. (ed.) Enciclopedia iberoamericana de psiquiatria. Buenos Aires: Fundacio´n Acta Fondo para la Salud Mental. UNICEF (1989). Children on the front line. New York: UNICEF. Walt, G. and Cliff, J. (1986). The dynamics of health policies in Mozambique 1975–1985. Health Policy and Planning 1(2), 148–157. Walt, G. and Melamed, A. (eds.) (1984). Mozambique: Towards a people’s health service. London: Zed Books. Zwi, A. (1996). Numbering the dead: Counting the casualties of war. In Bradby, H. (ed.) Defining violence: Understanding the causes and effects of violence, pp. 99–124. Aldershot: Avebury. Zwi, A. and Ugalde, A. (1989). Towards an epidemiology of political violence in the third world. Social Science and Medicine 28, 633–642. Zwi, A. and Ugalde, A. (1991). Political violence and health in the Third World – A public health issue. Health Policy and Planning 6, 203–217.

Homicide Marc Riedel, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Carbondale, IL, USA Danielle Dirks, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Homicide and Criminal Homicide A Note on Criminology and Law Sources of Data Using Homicide Statistics Age and Gender Race and Ethnicity Alcohol and Psychoactive Drugs

Glossary Clearance Clearing crimes is a police task. Crimes are cleared or ‘solved’ by legally charging an offender or offenders. ‘Cleared by arrest’ means that offenders are apprehended and charged. Offenses are ‘exceptionally cleared’ where there is enough evidence to effect an arrest, but the offender or offenders are not available for a variety of reasons. Crime Rate Number of crimes divided by the population at risk, the result being multiplied by a constant (usually 100 000). Both the numerator and

This article is a revision of the previous edition article by [Marc Riedel], volume 2, pp 123–138, Ó [1999], Elsevier Inc.

Firearms The Missing Offender Prior Relationships between Victims and Offenders Preventing Homicides and Violence Summary Further Reading

denominator refer to the same geographical area and time span. Criminal Homicide Purposely, knowingly, recklessly, or negligently causing the death of another. Criminal homicide is murder, manslaughter, or negligent homicide. Homicide The killing of one human being by the act, procurement, or omission of another. Justifiable Homicide Homicide committed intentionally but without any evil design and under such circumstances of necessity or duty as render the act

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proper and which relieve the party from any shadow of blame. Murder Criminal homicide that is committed purposely or knowingly or committed recklessly under

Homicide and Criminal Homicide Generally defined, homicide is the act of killing another person. Cross-culturally, it is impossible to succinctly take account of the legal variations that characterize one of the oldest criminal laws. Most countries treat premeditated killings as crime. In many countries, criminal homicide and murder are distinguished from homicide by the element of culpability or intent. Criminal homicide is an act judged by legal authorities to be culpable: the offender set out to kill the victim and succeeded. Hence, homicide may not be a crime, while criminal homicide always is. Difficulties emerge when considering what kinds of killings should be culpable and how to establish the relationship between the subjective element of intent or blame and the behavior. Laws in different countries vary as to the kinds of killings regarded as culpable. If a woman kills her newborn child, it is a culpable killing in the US and Canada but not in some developing countries. Where survival conditions are harsh, infanticide may be viewed as an appropriate or altruistic act. A major source of cross-cultural variation is in the establishment of the nexus between the subjective cause and the objective effect. If the person driving the getaway car in a robbery murder does not enter the store that is being robbed and did not participate in any planning of the murder, should he or she be criminally liable? Many states in the US answer positively. If a person intentionally wounds another and the victim later dies of his or her wounds, is the offender open to a charge of murder, as happens in the United States, or a charge of aggravated assault, as is true for Japan? Generally, homicide law includes provisions for killings that would be called justifiable or excusable homicides in the United States, that is, killings for which there are no criminal penalties. Examples include police who kill felons in the line of duty, soldiers following orders in combat, people who lack the mental capacities to understand the nature of their act, and self-defense.

A Note on Criminology and Law Legal definitions are important not only because they guide the behavior of medical and criminal justice

circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life. Primary Prevention Focuses on eliminating conditions that lead to or cause criminal behavior. Also called ‘corrective prevention.’

personnel but because their records are data sources for criminological research. In short, for researchers, criminal homicide is what law enforcement, medical personnel, judges, and juries say it is. However, it is important to consider how homicide researchers ‘process’ this data to reflect social science purposes. First, homicide researchers are interested in using data as close to the event as possible, which means using law enforcement records and/or mortality statistics. One problem posed by this approach is the variations between what is collected by agencies and the terms used by researchers. Mortality statistics use the term ‘homicide,’ making it difficult, even impossible, to separate criminal homicides from the broader category of homicides in cross-cultural data. Law enforcement agencies collect data on all forms of homicides, but most researchers focus on criminal homicides or murders. In this article, we use the term ‘homicide.’ When citing the work of others, we attempt to use the term provided by the researcher. It is generally true that most homicide statistics refer to criminal homicides; justifiable homicides are a very small proportion of all homicides. Another problem posed by using data as close to the event as possible is the difficulty of studying offenders. In the US, about one-third of murder offenders are not arrested, which means there are no data about them. Further, the more homicides are ‘processed’ through various legal decisions and distinctions, the more selective the resulting set of cases may be. Hence, generalizations based on offenders convicted of murder may not represent all offenders. Second, although most homicide research is based on criminal justice and medical records, researchers do not feel constrained to limit inquiry to legal categories. Researchers select and combine this material in an explicit manner to address scientific hypotheses. For example, in the United States, homicides and aggravated assaults are very similar with respect to the behavior and circumstances of victims and offenders. Behaviorally, differences turn on fortuitous factors such as bad aim or poor-quality firearms, types of weapons, and proximity to emergency medical facilities. Legally, an assault becomes a criminal homicide when the victim dies. Although there are substantial differences in legal processing, behaviorally, they may be considered a form of violence with similar causes.

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Third, because of substantial variations in legal definitions of killing, cross-cultural studies are limited to homicides rather than subtypes and use data series that apply a consistent definition. Similarly, in a search for causes, other cross-cultural commonalities, such as age, gender, social services, unemployment, or number of marriages, are used. While the latter contribute to a general understanding of homicides, they provide little understanding of the different cultural contexts in which homicides occur.

Sources of Data Nationally, most countries collect homicide data from law enforcement agencies. For example, criminal statistics in Canada are collected by Statistics Canada, a government agency; in France, the source of criminal statistics is known as Compte general de l’administration de la justice criminelle; in England, criminal statistics are published in Home Office : Criminal Statistics, England and Wales; and in the United States, Crime in the United States: Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) is published annually by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. A second source of homicide data are medical causeof-death statistics that are drawn from the files of officials such as coroners or medical examiners. In the US, statistics drawn from death certificates are gathered and distributed by the National Center for Health Statistics, National Institutes of Health. Finally, researchers compile and archive national data sets drawn from official records and contact with criminal justice agencies. In the United States, the most extensive data file on homicides, which has been updated several times, has been compiled by Richard and Carolyn Rebecca Block. It consists of detailed data on nearly 23 000 homicides in Chicago from 1965 through 1995. Researchers also compile and archive data sets on homicide and violence for many countries. The best known is the 110-nation Comparative Crime Data File, compiled by Dane Archer and Rosemary Gartner from 1900 through 1974, and the 14-nation crime file by Ted Robert Gurr and Erika Gurr. Both contain data on murder, assault, robbery, and rape. There are three readily available sources of homicide data compiled by international agencies: United Nations Surveys, crime data from the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL), and mortality statistics from the World Health Organization (WHO).

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operations of criminal justice systems. The first survey covered the years 1970 through 1974, with 56 member and nonmember states responding. The most recent survey, the ninth, covers the years 2003 through 2004; 71 nations provided information on homicides in 2004. The surveys are collections of data on officially reported crimes, including intentional homicides (death purposely inflicted by another, including infanticide and attempts), assaults, sex crimes, robberies, and kidnappings, with the data broken down by age and gender. They also provide information on prosecutions, convictions, and penal sanctions. International criminal police organization

Interpol has collected and published crime data from national police forces since 1950. It collects data on homicide, which it defines as ‘‘any act performed with the purpose of taking human life, no matter under what circumstances.’’ This definition excludes manslaughter and abortion, but includes infanticide (the killing of newborns), sex offenses, larceny, fraud, counterfeiting, and drug offenses. The data are presented by yearly quarters, and statistics are given on the number of crimes solved by police. Each category of offense is broken down by gender and specifies whether the offenders are adults or minors. The nations reporting vary. For example, from 1980 to 1984, 145 countries were listed as members of Interpol, but no more than 85 countries reported crime data in a single year. The year 2007 saw 186 member countries of Interpol with nearly every one of them linked electronically to their massive database of crime information. World Health Organization

Generally believed to be the best data source, World Health Organization (WHO) has collected mortality statistics, categorized by cause of death, from national health organizations since 1948. In recent years, comparative data analysis has been made more possible through the implementation of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD) in defining causes of death. The definition of homicide used by WHO (death due to injuries purposely inflicted by others) has varied, at times including deaths due to legal intervention and war. Raw data and rates are provided only on victims of homicide. Classifications are given for age and gender. In 2003, over 75 countries submitted using the latest, tenth revision definitions, and 40 countries using the ninth revision ICD.

International Data Sources United Nations

The United Nations (UN) has collected information from member nations since 1946. Beginning in 1974, the UN began a series of surveys covering crime trends and

Evaluation Generally, cross-national data on homicide is more reliable than data on crimes such as rape, robbery, and assault. Limitations on cross-national homicide research are

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design-specific: time-series studies of homicide are more reliable than cross-sectional comparisons of national rates. Ultimately, however, researchers that rely on official statistics of national agencies must use what is available; there are few opportunities to learn the over- or underreporting or misclassification of events. Cross-national homicide statistics provide few variables and limited detail: the data consist of total homicides and are classified by age and gender. Data on whether the homicide involved robbery, originated in domestic conflict, or involved weapons are absent, as is race/ethnicity information. While such information would provide valuable insights, variations in cultural definitions make it difficult to collect this kind of crossnational data. Finally, available cross-national data are biased toward more developed countries that have sufficient resources and political stability to develop an adequate reporting system. Some countries are involved in devastating civil wars and civil unrest, which provides little opportunity for government to function, control crime, or count it. In the 1990s, Afghanistan, Croatia, Bosnia–Herzegovina, and Somalia fell into this category. Other countries, such as

Zaire (Democratic Republic of Congo) and Albania, have had, or are undergoing, profound political changes in which the government’s capacity to report crime is nonexistent.

Using Homicide Statistics Describing Reality: Rates and Trends International homicide rates often reflect profound social, economic, and political changes underway. Table 1 presents the ‘‘total recorded intentional homicides completed’’ using data compiled from the Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth United Nations Survey on Crime Trends and the Operations of Criminal Justice, collected between 1999 and 2004. Homicide rates in the United States are substantially higher than homicide rates in comparably developed countries. Table 1 shows that homicide rates in the United States rival those of some of the poorest and least economically developed countries in the world. In 1991, the United States was ranked 17 among countries in the United Nations Demographic Yearbook. As Table 1

Table 1 Homicide victimization rates in selected countries (2004) Rank

Year

Country

Rate per 100 000

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

2000 2002 2002 2000 2004 2004 2002 2004 2004 2002 2002 2004 2004 2004 2004 2004 2000 2004 2004 2004 2004 2004 2002 2004 2004 2002 2004 2002 2004 2004

Columbia South Africa El Salvador Russian Federation Ecuador Swaziland Mexico Mongolia Suriname Panama Argentina Lithuania Latvia Zimbabwe Belarus Kyrgyzstan Barbados Ukraine Uganda Estonia Moldova, Republic of Sri Lanka Namibia Costa Rica Georgia Albania Uruguay United States of America Peru Philippines

62.74 47.53 31.54 19.80 18.33 13.63 13.04 12.81 10.30 9.56 9.47 9.38 8.58 8.44 8.31 8.01 7.87 7.42 7.37 6.82 6.71 6.69 6.35 6.23 6.22 5.68 5.64 5.62 5.54 4.31

Source: United Nations Survey on Crime Trends and the Operations of Criminal Justice: Seventh, eighth, and ninth editions.

Homicide

indicates, the United States ranked 28 among the top 30 for homicide victimization. Various perspectives have attempted to account for varying transnational homicide rates. One perspective suggests that societies at different stages of modernization will show different crime patterns reflecting differences in criminal motivations, controls, and opportunities. A major prediction of modernization theory is that property crimes will be higher and violent crimes lower in modernized societies, with the reverse true for developing countries. Rosemary Gartner has suggested that sociocultural contexts are important in explaining crime. Societies that enjoy low rates of violence have strong systems of informal social control and highly consensual normative systems, strong networks of communal obligation, and cultural orientations that discourage interpersonal aggression. Such societies are characterized by collectivist rather than individualistic principles.

Creating Reality: Serial Murders While homicide statistics are generally used to describe a social problem in ways that are useful to practitioners and policy makers, it is also true that statistics have been constructed to bring a social issue to public attention. In countries where political leaders have to remain sensitive to the demands of a voting public, the process of constructing statistics to support and enhance a social problem is not always sensitive to traditional scientific concerns of reliability, validity, and the relationships between concepts and measures. This was illustrated during the 1980s, when there was widespread public concern over serial murders that occurred in the US. Serial murderers kill repeatedly over a long period, whereas mass murderers kill several people at one time. Serial murderers are not exclusively a current or a US phenomenon. Reliable reports of serial killing have been reported from Canada, Germany, and England at least as far back as the nineteenth century. Jack the Ripper, an inhabitant of London, is probably the most familiar example of a serial killer. Serial murder became a popular topic in the 1980s, resulting in an outpouring of books and television and newspaper stories. Besides Congressional hearings, a large variety of nonprofit service agencies took up the banner to protect people, especially women and children, against what was perceived as a demonic menace. To give the problem threatening proportions, numbers are needed and not just any kind of numbers. Joel Best describes three principles that are important in promoting a social issue: ‘‘big numbers are better than little numbers; official numbers are better than unofficial numbers; and big, official numbers are best of all.’’ For serial murders,

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the big, official numbers were promoted by the Behavioral Sciences Unit of the FBI. Philip Jenkins explains how the statistic that 20% of all murders involved serial killers was generated, how the view of a social problem was promoted through Congressional hearings, and how various organizations took sociological ownership of the issue to promote their agendas. In fact, Jenkins points out that it is difficult to find evidence that serial murders comprise any more than 1% of all murders. It is worth considering what might have been accomplished had the resources spent on serial murders been allocated to reducing the other 99%. Further, Jenkins describes how organizations capitalized on and promoted stereotypes of serial murder offenders. A predominant stereotype is that the serial murderer is a lone white male. However, one reliable estimate is that 10% to 20% of serial murders involve group activity. In addition, in one study, at least 15% of offenders were women. Serial murderers are not exclusively white. In one study of 163 serial offenders, 13% were African American, 1% Hispanic, and 1% Asian. Another stereotype is that serial murderers rape their victims and engage in a variety of other sadistic behaviors. However, this overlooks the substantial contribution of ‘medical murderers.’ For example, Genene Jones, a nurse, was suspected of killing 47 babies and children by injection. Finally, most serial killers do not travel wantonly across the country looking for victims. About two-thirds of serial killers operate within a state or urban area.

Age and Gender Homicide is predominantly a young (ages 15–24) male offense. Generally, females have low rates of homicides and the killings involve family members or spouses, an issue that will be considered in a later section. Table 2 gives homicide rates for young homicide victims in selected countries. Table 2 shows very high victimization rates for 15- to 24-year-old males in the United States in comparison to the rates in other countries. The rate for this group is nearly seven times that of the countries with the next highest rates, Canada and Ireland. From 1985 through 1991, the United States experienced an enormous increase in homicide among young males. During this time, the rates for all homicides increased by 25%. However, the homicide rate for persons aged 15–34 increased 50%, the rate for 15- to 19year-old males increased an impressive 154%, and the rate for 20- to 24-year-old males by 76%. After the

948 Homicide Table 2 Male and female homicide victimization rates (15–24): Selected countries Rate per 100 000 All Ages Country

Year

Males

Females

15–24 Males

15–24 Females

United States Australia Austria Canada Denmark England Finland France Ireland Italy Japan Netherlands New Zealand Norway Sweden

2000 2001 2002 2000 1999 2002 2002 2000 2001 2001 2002 2003 2000 2001 2001

9.2 2.1 0.7 2.2 1.1 0.9 3.5 1.1 1.8 1.5 0.7 1.6 1.7 0.9 1.3

2.7 1.1 1.0 0.8 1.0 0.5 1.7 0.6 0.3 0.5 0.4 0.9 1.1 0.6 0.6

20.9 2.2 0.4 3.2 1.6 1.3 2.4 1.0 3.1 2.0 0.4 1.9 2.6 1.0 1.7

3.8 1.4 1.3 1.1 1.0 0.6 2.5 0.5 1.0 0.4 0.2 0.4 1.1 0.4 0.8

Source: World Health Organization Statistics Annuals.

homicide boom in the early 1990s, the homicide rate experienced an equally dramatic decline, not only among young men, but across all age groups. While homicide is predominantly a young man’s offense, the role of age in homicide is not as pronounced in other countries. Table 2 indicates that, although young male rates are higher, there are substantial variations among countries. While Ireland’s young male rate is nearly twice that of the rate for all ages, Japan’s young male rate is less than the rate for all ages. Consistent with this view is Rosemary Gartner’s finding that, across 18 high income nations over a 30-year span, the percentage of those aged 15–29 had little effect on homicide. Fred Pampel and Rosemary Gartner have shown that shifts in the age structure may be counteracted by collectivist institutions. Thus, among 18 similar high income countries over 36 years, the authors found that corporatist arrangements for bargaining among social classes, types of class compromise, coalition cabinets, left-of-center political rule, universality of benefits, and governability of a country serve to reduce the effects of homicide in young age groups.

Race and Ethnicity There are racial and ethnic groups in many countries whose experiences are characterized by poverty, unemployment, little education, unstable families, frequently the targets of prejudice and discrimination, and disproportionately high homicide rates. This section examines various racial and ethnic groups in the United States

while focusing on black Americans and Latinos in the US and aboriginal peoples of Canada. Black and African Americans Except for Native Americans, the oldest minority group in the United States is African Americans. Although civil rights legislation has had ameliorative effects, black Americans are still characterized by many social and economic disadvantages. As a result, they run an extremely high risk of homicide victimization. Table 3 shows particularly high rates of homicide victimization among both males and females in the 15- to 24-year age group, but particularly among 20- to 24-year olds. The homicide victimization rate for black American males (101.7) is more than eight times higher than the rate for white American males (12.5) among this group. For black females in the same age group, the homicide rate (9.8) is more than four times higher than it is for white females (3.0). It is also important to note from Table 3 that homicide rates for African American males and females remain higher throughout their life spans. In 2004, the lifetime risk of being a homicide victim for black American males was 37.1 per 100 000. For black American females, it was 6.4 per 100 000. Thus, while the risk of homicide victimization is extremely high for young black American men, it is very high for black men of all ages. The lifetime risk for homicide victimization for black men is seven times that of white men. For black women, their risk is three times that of white women in the United States. The ranking of race and gender groups in Table 3 have been confirmed by other research since the 1940s.

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Table 3 Homicide victimization rates by racial and ethnic groups, gender, and age (2004)

00–04 yrs 05–09 yrs 10–14 yrs 15–19 yrs 20–24 yrs 25–29 yrs 30–34 yrs 35–39 yrs 40–44 yrs 45–49 yrs 50–54 yrs 55–59 yrs 60–64 yrs >65 yrs Lifetime

Latino/ Hispanic Americans

Black/AfricanAmericans

White Americans

M

F

M

F

M

7.9 1.4 3.3 54.8 101.7 98.3 64.6 43.1 32.9 27.8 23.8 16.5 13.1 10.6 37.1

8.4 1.4 1.5 7.8 9.8 10.2 9.3 9.2 9.0 7.2 4.6 3.6 3.8 3.0 6.4

2.8 0.5 0.9 7.9 12.5 10.9 7.7 6.8 5.8 5.2 4.6 3.6 3.2 2.4 5.3

2.4 0.5 0.5 2.1 3.0 2.9 2.6 2.4 2.9 2.3 1.4 1.3 1.4 1.6 1.9

3.9 0.6 1.5 25.9 32.8 24.5 15.7 13.1 10.4 9.7 9.4 6.5 6.5 3.9 13.0

AmericanIndians/Native Americans

AsianAmericans

F

M

F

M

F

3.1 0.8 0.7 2.9 3.7 3.6 3.3 2.7 3.8 2.4 2.0 1.5 1.0 1.4 7.9

9.0 1.5 1.3 14.6 21.1 22.3 16.2 19.4 13.6 11.5 7.0 3.0 6.5 4.4 11.6

5.6 0.0 1.4 4.8 5.1 4.4 1.8 1.8 5.0 2.7 1.1 2.8 2.0 3.0 3.0

1.0 0.4 0.6 7.3 8.4 3.8 4.7 2.3 3.9 4.3 5.8 5.8 4.5 1.5 3.9

0.0 0.7 1.1 1.2 1.2 2.4 1.8 0.7 2.1 2.2 1.1 1.2 1.0 1.4 1.4

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS); http://www.cdc.gov/ ncipc/wisqars/.

The ranking of rates for race and gender groups begins with black males as highest by a wide margin, followed by black females, white males, and white females. Finally, most homicides involve victims and offenders of the same race. According to FBI statistics, in 2005, 83.2% of white American victims and 90.7% of black American victims were slain by members of the same racial group. Latino Homicides Until comparatively recently, the epidemiology of Latino homicides has often been ignored. Latino homicides are not distinguished in racial classifications in the United States because they are an ethnic, not a racial, category. Despite the sparse research, Latino homicides are important to understand there has been a dramatic increase in the Latino population in recent decades in the US. Since the late 1960s the largest number of Latinos have come from Mexico and have settled mainly in California and Texas. In 2001, Latino Americans surpassed black Americans as the largest racial or ethnic group in the United States. Because of the increasing size and influence of this group, it is important to examine the limited research available on homicides among persons of Latino or Hispanic descent. Examining Table 3 shows that Latino Americans today have the second highest rates of homicide victimization across the majority of age groups, when compared to white Americans and black Americans. Again, young Latino men ages 15 through 24 years have the highest rates of homicide victimization. Young Latino American men aged 20 to 24 are three times more likely to be the

victim of homicide in comparison to young white American men in the same age category. Other research has supported the finding that the rates of Latino homicide are second to the rates of black Americans and higher than those of whites. Riedel’s unpublished homicide work in Los Angeles County shows that, after 1990, the rates of Latino homicide declined slightly while the rates of whites showed little variation during this time. Martinez’s research in Miami supports the preceding. Using race/ ethnic specific rates, he found black Americans had a rate of 73.49, Latinos 21.66, and whites 19.83 for homicides reported for 1990 through 1995. There are three other characteristics of Latino homicides. First, as Martinez suggests, Latino female victimization is similar to whites. Using the Los Angeles County data, the 9-year means of race/ethnic genderspecific rates were 3.6 for white females, 5.0 for Latino females, and 19.6 for black females. As Table 3 represents, the rate of Latino female victimization across age groups is only slightly higher than white females. Yet, the risk of homicide among young Latinas is less than half of young black women. Second, the mean rates of victimization among older age categories were similar for whites and Latinos. The mean race/ethnic age-specific rates (65–75) were 4.1 for white Americans, 4.3 for Latino Americans, and 24.6 for black Americans. Finally, Carolyn Rebecca Block found in her study of Latino homicides in Chicago that gang-related homicides are particularly high among Latino youths. From 1982 through 1989, 34% of Latino male victims were killed in street gang confrontations.

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As several forms of crime data are now beginning to include race- and ethnic-specific categories for persons of Latino or Hispanic descent, a clearer understanding of their rates of homicide victimization will fortunately become more available.

Aboriginal Peoples of Canada Conditions of poverty, lack of opportunities, and prejudice associated with minorities in the US also exist for Canadian aboriginal peoples. Canadian aboriginals represent only 3% of the Canadian population, but account for 17% of the homicide victims. The total murder rate in Canada for 1961 through 1989 was never above 3.5 per 100 000. Yet, the rate for Canadian aboriginals increased from about 10.0 per 100 000 in 1961 to 30.0 in 1978 and 1979 and then declined to 23.0 by 1989. Today, the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics Homicide Survey and Incident-based Uniform Crime Reporting Survey is one of the better sources for understanding the rates of homicide victimization among persons of aboriginal origin. However, there have been data problems related to the collection, reporting, and privacy conflicts of using ‘Aboriginal Indicator’ categories that may or may not include members of the First Nation, Inuit, Non-Status Indians, and Me´tis peoples. In their book, Deadly Deeds, Robert Silverman and Leslie Kennedy report that most (20.9%) murder incidents involving Canadian aboriginals occur in nonmetropolitan areas in contrast to metropolitan areas (5.7%). The experiences of Canadian aboriginals, with respect to the conditions of urban centers that lead to lethal violence, vary by city. For example, Toronto had a murder rate of 12.3 for the period from 1977 through 1981; Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, on the other hand, had a rate of 57.4. Siu Kwong Wong has found that the links between poverty, family disorganization, and crime in the United States are similar to the patterns found for homicide victimization in urban municipalities among Canadian aboriginals as well. In addition, homicide in Canada, like the United States, is predominantly an intraracial offense. Among Canadian aboriginal victims, 80.3% were killed by offenders of the same race; for white Canadians, the intraracial percentage was 96.5%.

Alcohol and Psychoactive Drugs It is well established that violent behavior is related to alcohol consumption. In Drugs in American Society, Erich Goode states the relationship unequivocally:

Of all drugs, nationally, internationally, and cross-culturally, alcohol is by far the one most likely to be implicated in violent crimes. The empirical evidence is overwhelming. More individuals who commit violent offenses are under the influence of alcohol than of any other single drug. [Italics in the original.]

The research supports a strong association between alcohol consumption and homicide. While study results vary, between one-third and one-half of homicide participants have blood–alcohol concentrations above 0.1. The difficulty with much of the research on alcohol and homicide is that, as is well known, association is not causation. Increased alcohol consumption results in a corresponding decline in sensorimotor coordination, but that is only one part of the causal issue. Many homicides arise out of situational conflicts; they originate in disputes between two people who come to play the roles of victim and offender. The topics of such disputes may include anything over which people can disagree, ranging from serious and substantive issues to the most trivial. Many of us have been involved in such disputes that tend to escalate with claims, counterclaims, and even insults and name-calling until one actor leaves the situation or a third party intervenes. With respect to homicide, the difference is that disputes continue to escalate until one party resorts to physical force or the use of a weapon. Sometimes a fatal conflict turns on issues such as money or marital fidelity; other times, with disturbing frequency, homicides result from conflicts over the performance of opposing sports teams, ownership of a can of beer, or a parking space. What is common to these topics is not the content but that one actor sees the other’s behavior as an attempt to compel or prevent a certain behavior or achieve a favorable self-image at the actor’s expense. The actor counters with behavior to protect his or her own sense of self. This can take the form of refusing to do what is demanded, insisting that the person justify his or her demand, or retaliating with insults, all of which set the stage for a possible violent resolution. Unlike sensorimotor activity, this is a highly symbolic activity where the effect of alcohol is least understood. The effects of alcohol in social situations are mediated by set and setting. ‘Set’ refers to the psychic, mental, and emotional state of the actors. For example, after a few drinks, some people engage in witty and animated conversations, tell jokes, talk to strangers, and so on. Others become sullen, withdrawn, and hostile. ‘Setting’ refers to the social and physical environment in which drug use takes place. Different effects from alcohol consumption occur depending upon where the alcohol is consumed, whether it is consumed among strangers or friends, and whether the actors are comfortable in the setting.

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Cultural definitions of drug and alcohol use play an important role in whether violent behavior is related to alcohol. Craig MacAndrew and Robert Edgerton, in their anthropological study Drunken Comportment, show that alcohol is not a universal ‘‘releaser of inhibitions.’’ For example, beer is consumed in South African tribal villages without causing rancor and physical aggression. However, when beer is drunk by the same tribespeople in South African urban slums, there are arguments, fights, brawls, and stabbings. In rural Okinawa, Japanese men and women drink sake together without drunken aggression. However, when the same men drink by themselves, they can sometimes become quarrelsome and physically violent. Obviously, alcohol plays a role in violent behavior, but it is unclear how it interacts with the complexities of psychological functioning and social interaction.

Psychoactive Drugs Illegal psychoactive drug use is implicated in a substantial share of urban homicides. National estimates of drugrelated homicides range between 8% and 10%. The research seems most consistent regarding the effects of cocaine and marijuana. James Iriciardi compared homicide trends and cocaine arrests in six US cities and found no simple aggregate relationships between the two. Chronic use of cocaine in powdered or smokable forms (‘crack’) sometimes leads to mental states in which aggressive and violent behavior is expressed. One hospital study showed that 6% of all cocaine-related emergency admissions involved violent behavior; another showed no difference in the frequency of violence between institutionalized cocaine users and other in-patients. Homicides arising from the pharmacological effects of cocaine are rare, although its use accelerates violent behavior in settings where violence is common. A recent report of the National Research Council summarizes the effects of marijuana on violent crime: During the past two decades, five major scientific reviews of the research literature have concluded that violent human behavior is either decreased or unaffected by cannabis use. Similarly, studies of many animal species demonstrate that acute doses of THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, promote submissive and flight responses and, at least in large doses, inhibit attack and threat behavior. These effects persist during chronic administration to animals.

Studies of prevalence and dosage do not tell the whole story. Drug use and its violent effects can be attributed to individual differences such as long-term patterns of drug use, dosage levels, and even genetic mechanisms. Further, such differences interact with group, social, and cultural

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factors in ways that are not understood with the most familiar drug, alcohol. We have just begun to understand the intricate interrelationships that characterize other drugs and homicide. Economic and Systemic Violence The process of obtaining and distributing illegal drugs makes possible two kinds of violence, according to Paul Goldstein and his colleagues. The first, economic violence, occurs when some drug users obtain money to buy drugs by committing robberies. The second, systemic violence, occurs in disputes over marketing practices. Since illegal markets are not subject to legal dispute resolution mechanisms, violence may result. While violence is clearly part of obtaining money to buy drugs, the type of violence is primarily robbery. Burglaries are also frequent and can become violent if the burglar encounters an occupant of the property. According to some research, heroin users prefer nonviolent alternatives such as burglaries. Two important forms of systemic violence are related to organizations and transactions. Processing, importing, and distributing illegal drugs is a complicated organizational task. Violence and homicide are used to enforce organizational rules, such as abstaining from drug use while selling or trafficking, resolving territorial disputes, punishing informers, protecting sellers, and battling police. Transaction-related violence is used in robberies of drugs and money from sellers to resolving disputes over the quantity or quality of drugs and over how much money low-level sellers pay higher-level sellers. Robberies of dealers and assaults to collect debts are the most common.

Firearms In 2005, about 68% of the homicides in the United States involved firearms according to the UCR. While there is no precise count of the number of privately owned firearms in the United States, the most recent estimate by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms places the figure at over 200 million. The percentage of all households owning a firearm has remained stable at about 50% for at least three decades. However, the percentage of handguns increased from 13% in 1959 to 24% in 1978, and has since remained stable. Gun ownership and gun use in homicide is predominantly a United States problem. The Centers for Disease Control conducted a study of firearms-related deaths among young children from 1990 to 1995, comparing the United States with 25 other industrialized countries. For firearms-related homicides for ages 0–4,

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the ratio of US rates to the pooled rates of 25 other countries was 8.6 to 1. For 5- to 14-year-old victims, the ratio was 17.4 to 1 and for 0- to 14-year-old victims, it was 15.7 to 1. Recent firearms trends suggest that while guninvolved homicides resulting from arguments declined, homicides that occurred during the commission of another felony increased to 77% in 2005, up from 55% in 1985. In addition, since the 1980s, the number of gang related gun-involved homicides has increased since 1980. Among adolescents, other research indicates that the risk of homicide victimization by guns in the United States is very high among black American males. In 1988, the gun homicide rate in 1988 was 8 per 100 000 for teenagers and 6 for the total population. For black American males ages 15 to 19, the firearms homicide death rate was 83.4 whereas for white males of the same ages, it was 7.5 per 100 000 at the time. Today, according to the Centers for Disease Control, the rate of gun-related homicide among black men aged 15 to 19 has dropped to 49.8 per 100 000 in 2004. However, for young black men aged 20 to 24 it jumps to 93.8 per 100 000 and for those 25 to 29, 88.9 per 100 000. In comparison to young white men of the same ages, young black men are nine to ten times more likely to die of a gun-related homicide. The stark disproportionality of these figures has led several scholars to understand the role of firearms among young men. The pervasiveness of firearms and their disproportionate use by teenagers have been the subject of a survey by Joseph Sheley and James Wright. For their book In the Line of Fire, they surveyed 758 male students in 10 innercity high schools and 835 male inmates in six correctional institutions in four states. The more important findings from the survey of males in inner-city schools include the following. The social environment of the students was such that 37% had males in their families who carried guns; 42% had friends who did the same. When asked if it was okay to shoot someone to get something they wanted, 10% of the student sample responded affirmatively. The percentage increased if the scenario included a person from another neighborhood who also injured or insulted them. Twelve percent of the student sample carried a gun all or most of the time. Automatic and semiautomatic sidearms and large caliber revolvers were the weapons of preference. Students preferred weapons that were well-made, accurate, easy to shoot, and not easily traced; cheap, poorly manufactured imports (‘Saturday Night Specials’) play a very small role in teenage use of firearms. Forty-one percent of the students surveyed felt that they could easily obtain a gun. Most felt that they could

buy one from family or friends; only 28% of the students would purchase one from a gun shop. Where gun shop purchases were made, respondents typically had someone over 21 make the purchase for them. Most amazing was the cost of handguns. For the majority (53%) of purchases reported by students, the cost was between $50 and $100. Legally purchased firearms are priced substantially higher: $300 or more. From the perspective of supply and demand, the low price indicated an ample supply of handguns, many of which were stolen. Given this informal network of people who can provide firearms, legislation and regulation of legal firearms is likely to have little effect. Finally, while there was an association between guns, drug dealing, and violent crime, more important is the finding that most of the students purchased guns to protect themselves. As Albert Blumstein has indicated, among students who are involved in drug dealing, guns are obtained because they are the tools of the trade. This results in an ‘arms race’ in which other teenagers feel compelled to carry weapons for self-protection. The presence of lethal weapons leads to a major escalation of violence that frequently characterizes teenage males.

The Missing Offender Much of what is known about homicide is based on data about victims. What is said about victims is generally applicable to offenders because it is an offense where victims and offenders are often of the same race, ethnicity, gender, and/or age. In addition, data on victims are more comprehensive than data on offenders. This section discusses the declining availability of offender information and its impact on criminal justice. The Decline in Arrest Clearances When a homicide that occurs in the United States is investigated and results in the arrest of one or more offenders, it is considered ‘cleared by arrest.’ Of all violent crimes in the United States in 2005, homicide had the highest clearance rate of all violent offenses (homicide and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault) cleared – 62.1%. Over the past four decades in the United States, clearances have been decreasing steadily, except for a slight increase in 1983. In 1961, the percentage of murders and nonnegligent manslaughters cleared by arrest was 93%. By 1995, the figure had declined to 65%. Variations in national murder rates do not account for the decline in arrest clearances. Robert Silverman and Leslie Kennedy have examined arrest clearances in Canada and note that in 1961 the US

Homicide

and Canada had identical clearance rates (93%). The results by Silverman and Kennedy show that the highest uncleared homicide rate in Canada is barely 0.6 per 100 000 (1983) while in the United States the peak rate is more than three per 100 000 (higher than Canada’s homicide rate). While the homicide rate in the United States is three to four times that of Canada, the uncleared homicide rate is closer to six times as high in the United States. The decline in arrest clearances is important because arrests are the entry point to the criminal justice system. If a substantial proportion of offenders are not arrested, it is not possible for criminal justice processes to have any significant deterrent or punishment effect. The decline in arrest clearances has other negative effects. The fact that over one-third of the people who kill other people remain at large, raises questions about public safety and increases fears of victimization. Felonyrelated homicides are more likely to be repeated than those that do not involve a concomitant felony and these are the offenses most difficult to clear by arrest. Further, because arrest clearances are used as a measure of police performance, the decline in clearances has led to a decline in morale and effectiveness among law enforcement personnel. In a 1994 article in US News and World Report, a veteran Washington detective commented: ‘‘I can honestly say this is the first time in my career I don’t enjoy this stuff any more. And I’m in the process of looking for another job. We’re losing the war. We’re not even winning battles anymore.’’ In addition, the trauma experienced by the families of murder victims is only compounded when no suspects are arrested. The available research indicates that victims’ families undergo stress and trauma for long periods and children are especially vulnerable. Finally, uncleared murders are important because what represents uncleared murders to law enforcement represents missing data to researchers. On the surface, it is important to consider whether research that reports on offender-related variables, when over one-third of the data are missing, can avoid serious problems of bias. There are three possible causes for the decline in arrest clearances. First, it is customary to look to changes in police activity or organization to explain variations in arrest behavior. As crime rates increased in the United States in the 1980s, resources for police were stretched thin. Unfortunately, the large amount of research on the topic, plus evaluations of programs to increase arrests, point to only modest positive effects. Recent data on this topic by Wellford and Cronin suggest that there are several police-related factors that can help clearances. In their analyses, clearance rates increased in cities that had detectives arrive to a scene within 30 minutes of a homicide. In addition, assigning

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three to four detectives to a case also increased the likelihood of clearance. Second, over the time discussed, there have been changes in the types of homicide committed. As will be discussed subsequently, there has been a decline in family-related killings, which are also the offenses most easily cleared by arrest. This leaves a higher proportion of felony-related crimes, which are more difficult to clear. Identifying alleged offenders in stranger crimes and illicit drug market crimes is much more difficult, which may also explain the decline in clearance rates. Finally, Albert Reiss noted, ‘‘There is no feasible way to solve most crimes except by securing the cooperation of citizens to link a person to the crime.’’ In homicide investigations, community cooperation is essential. Without information about the offender and the circumstances of the offense, law enforcement is unable to effect arrests. Where police investigators face hostility and fear, clearances may be difficult. Although the relationship to arrest clearances is unknown, it is likely that where there are large numbers of gang killings, area inhabitants fear retaliation for cooperation with police. Here, positive police and community relations, particularly in urban areas, may have potential to increase citizen cooperation to locate suspects.

Prior Relationships between Victims and Offenders Friends and Gangs It is frequently said that the average person stands a greater chance of being killed by someone they know than by a stranger. While this is true, the generalization is circumscribed by the limits of the data: among homicide victim/offender relationships on which information is available, the largest percentage involve prior relationships. However, there are many cases for which the relationships are unknown. According to the FBI’s 2005 Uniform Crime Reports, 12.3% of murders involved family members and 28.6% involved friends, acquaintances, and such relationships as boyfriends, employees, neighbors, and so on; thus, 40.9% of murder victims had prior relationships with their killers. In 13.9% of cases, the victims were strangers to their offenders. However, information on victim/offender relationships was missing for 45.2% of the cases, nearly all of which were uncleared homicides. Since it is not known what types of relationships are contained in cases with missing data, the claim that murder victims are likely to know their killers is limited by what is known about victim/offender relationships. Information about prior relationships between victims and offenders is obtained from friends, family members, or associates of the victim or from offenders upon arrest.

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Since homicides involving intimate relationships frequently occur in the presence of family members or in private locations where witnesses observe either the homicide or events leading up to it, homicides involving intimates are reported with a reasonable degree of accuracy. In a conflict situation, the presence of third parties whose good opinion is valued by the actors contributes to a lethal outcome. Such third parties as friends, spouses, and gang members more often encourage violence rather than mediate or reduce it. When the initiating insult represents an attack on male identities, the presence of other male third parties results in more severe violence. However, the importance of peer influence extends beyond the immediate situation with respect to gangs and motivation for homicide. Determining the number of gang homicides presents a problem because counting rules depend on the definitions of gangs and gang involvement. Law enforcement agencies take two approaches. Los Angeles law enforcement officials follow a broad gang-member definition: a gang homicide is one in which either victims or offenders are gang members. Chicago police, on the other hand, use a narrower gang-motive definition, requiring that a homicide be directly linked to a gang function. There must be some positive evidence that gang activity or membership was the motive for the encounter. Examples include quarrels over territory, retaliation, recruitment, and ‘representing’ (graffiti, shouting gang slogans, wearing gang colors). Therefore, the killing of a convenience store clerk by a gang member during a robbery would be a gang homicide in Los Angeles, but may not be in Chicago. The difference in definition also results in a difference in the number of gangs and gang-related homicides. Maxson and Klein note that, using the Los Angeles gang-member definition, 44% of all homicides occurring in the city in 1994 were gang homicides. For the same year in Chicago, using the gang-motive definition, 32% of all homicides were gang related. Definitions make a difference in terms of prevalence because the number of gang homicides plays a powerful role in motivating public opinion and resources; an equally important issue is whether the two definitions make a difference in the patterns of gang homicide. Comparisons of the two definitions to nongang homicide in Los Angeles, using many variables related to homicides, show few differences, at least at the bivariate level. In other words, gang-member or gang-motive homicides are more similar to each other than to nongang homicides. Among the characteristics that distinguish gang from nongang homicides are the presence of firearms. Nearly all (95%) gang homicides involved guns while this was true for 75% of nongang homicides. Males are victims in 90% of gang-related homicides, but only 77% of nongang homicides. Males are also more prominent (93%) as

offenders in gang in comparison to nongang (83%) homicides. While there are differences among gangs, the research does not support media reports of high levels of drugmotivated homicides among gangs. Patrick Meehan and Patrick O’Carroll found that 5% of gang-motivated homicides in Los Angeles involved narcotics compared with 23% for other homicides. Just 2.2% of Chicago street gang-related homicides between 1965 and 1974 involved drug motives. At least with respect to what is found in law enforcement records, drug-related homicides do not occur with a high frequency among gangs. Intimate Partners and Family Most prior relationships between victims and offenders involve limited knowledge of another: ‘acquaintances’ are the single largest category of victim/offender relationships tabulated by the FBI. Among gang homicides, victims and offender may know little more than that the other is a member of an opposing gang. Intimate partner and family homicides are different; they involve continuing relationships and repeated violent victimization commonly occurs before the actual homicide. For example, Browne, in her classic study of women who kill, documents frequent serious violent acts, many of which resulted in permanent injury to the woman, stretching over several years before the actual killing. Intervention and research are hampered because victims are vulnerable and relatively powerless against offenders. This means that offenders can threaten victims with additional violence if incidents are disclosed to others. Victims may also refrain from disclosure for fear of stigmatization and denigration, which may be particularly true of gay and lesbian victims who fear being ‘outed’ by their abusive partners. Finally, much of the domestic violence, short of homicide, occurs in private places where it is not visible to others and less likely to be detected and reported to police. Violence between family members and intimate partners is a serious problem, but family-related homicides, primarily homicides involving spouses, have been declining. According to the UCR, in 1977, family-related murders accounted for 19.4% of all homicides. By 1995, they had declined to 11.6%. In 2005, the UCR data show that 12.3% of all homicides were family-related. Forty percent of these homicides were among married couples, most of which included women being killed by their husbands (80.5%). In Canada, intimate murders (family and spouses) accounted for 40% of all murders during the 1980s. As a proportion of all murders, murders involving spouses and lovers have been declining, although at about 25% in 1990, the rate is higher in Canada than in the United

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States. The rate of spousal murders has remained stable since the late 1960s. Richard Rosenfeld examined the decline in spousal homicides by studying intimate partner homicides. Marital intimate partners are those victims who have been married to, separated from, or divorced from their killers and those in common-law relationships. Nonmarital intimate relationships include boyfriends, ex-boyfriends, girlfriends, and ex-girlfriends. Using homicide data from St. Louis, Rosenfeld found that total intimate partner homicide rates declined for black American females from 1970 to 1990. Black American males, white American males, and white American females showed a decline from 1980. Marital intimate homicide rates declined for black American males and females from 1970 to 1990 and for white American males and females from 1980. Nonmarital intimate partner homicide rates decreased for all race and gender groups from 1980 to 1990. Much of the decline in intimate partner homicide is a consequence of changes in marriage patterns among the young adult population, which is at greatest risk for homicide victimization. In 1970, 55% of US males between the ages of 20 and 24 had never married; by 1992, this percentage had increased to 80%. Rosenfeld reports a decrease in percentage married in St. Louis, especially among black Americans. Between 1970 and 1990, the percentage of black American women never married dropped from 58% to 43%. There are two additional factors that may contribute to a decline in intimate partner homicides. First, in the past few decades, there has been a shift away from the view that homicides, particularly those between intimates, are crimes that cannot be prevented. Nothing can be done, it was said, when a man or woman suddenly kills their intimate partner ‘‘for no apparent reason.’’ What is slowly sifting into public consciousness is the recognition that very few spouses or intimate partners kill ‘‘for no apparent reason.’’ The public is becoming increasingly aware that intimate partner homicides are frequently the culmination of a long history of extremely violent abuse. Homicides are the result of battering or a last desperate attempt by abused women to free themselves from their tormentors. This awareness shifts the burden of social concern to the prevention of violence preceding the homicide. Doing something to prevent less serious forms of violence may also contribute to preventing lethal forms. Second, consensus about norms and values in a society are typically given formal shape and substance by law. For example, the immorality of murder is given expression by legislation, criminal justice processes, and penal sanctions. But the reverse is also true: legal formalization strengthens norms. With changes in legislation, ‘wife-battering’ or intimate partner violence is no longer a minor irritant for

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police and the source of gossip, but a crime with substantial penalties. There have been a variety of legislative changes besides making abuse a criminal offense. These include making restraining orders more readily available, creating statutes permitting warrantless arrests based on probable cause in domestic violence cases, providing funds for family violence shelters, and developing abuse programs that offer counseling. In Canada, the battered-wife syndrome is now a defense against homicide. While these steps do not eliminate the problem of domestic violence, they may contribute to preventing its most serious expression.

Preventing Homicides and Violence Punishment and Deterrence The obvious approach to reducing the number of homicides is to arrest, convict, incarcerate, and/or impose the death penalty on offenders. This politically popular approach is justified as a general and specific deterrent. Arrests are a general deterrent, that is, they teach by example that others should not commit the same crime. But it is difficult to argue for a general deterrent effect when no offender is arrested in more than one-third of murder and nonnegligent manslaughter cases in the United States. Further winnowing of the number of offenders takes place after arrest. Persons arrested for a killing may or may not be charged with murder, those charged may plead guilty to a less serious charge (plea bargain) or be acquitted, and those convicted may or may not be incarcerated in state institutions. While incapacitation limits the number of crimes committed by felons, the effect on the crime levels in society is negligible. Research shows a 31% or more decrease in violent crimes among offenders with a 5-year mandatory sentence. However, the general effect on crime levels in society is less than 14% and may be as small as 0.8%. Clearly, the deterrent impacts of ‘law and order’ policing and criminal sanctioning may do little to decrease violent crime. The Death Penalty One of the most controversial sanctions for homicide in the United States is the death penalty. As of midyear 2007, 38 states and the federal jurisdiction held 3350 prisoners under sentence of death. Comparison to other industrialized countries indicates that the US is among the few nations that use capital punishment. Over half of the countries in the world have abolished the use of the death penalty in law or practice. Since 1990, over 40 countries in central and Pacific Asia, Europe, Africa, and

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the Americas have abolished its use for any crime. Countries that continue it use (e.g., China, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan) are known for their disregard for human rights. Only a small sliver of homicide offenders are sentenced to death. Without taking into account uncleared offenses, only 2% of persons convicted of criminal homicide are sentenced to death, making it difficult to argue for its effectiveness as a deterrent for murder. Further, it appears that prison sentences are more effective with murder offenders than with other kinds of violent offenders. For 6835 males released on parole, Sellin found only 21 (0.3%) were returned because they had committed another murder. These persons were less likely to commit murder while on parole than persons originally sentenced for armed robbery or forcible or aggravated assault. The most persistent argument advanced for the death penalty is that it is a specific deterrent: once the offender is executed, it is certain that he or she will not commit any additional homicides. But would this offender have committed more homicides if he or she had been sentenced to life and eventually released? One way to answer that question is to examine the behavior of offenders who were sentenced to death but allowed to live. In 1972, the US Supreme Court concluded in Furman v. Georgia that the existing form of the death penalty was unconstitutional. As a result, over 600 offenders under sentence of death were re-sentenced. Some of these offenders were eventually released on parole. Given the large number of individuals who have had their death sentences commuted to life sentences (e.g., more recently, in 2003, Illinois Governor George Ryan commuted 156 death sentences) or are released on appeal, these answers are increasingly within reach. In a study of 47 offenders in Texas taken off death rows by Furman, none were implicated in a prison homicide. Among those released into the community, only one offender committed another murder. In another study of 272 Furman offenders, there were two additional murders of correctional workers and one of an inmate. Among the 185 offenders released on parole, there were three additional murders. Whether the six additional murders represent an acceptable level of risk requires comparison to the re-incarceration records of comparable offenders not sentenced to death. From that perspective, the imposition of the death penalty appears not to prevent significantly more murders. Lastly, a more recent justification in support of the death penalty is that it is able to provide ‘closure’ to the loved ones of homicide victims. While death penalty proponents argue that an execution may heal the pain associated with a loved one’s murder, there has been no empirical research to test such claims and little is known about the loss, grief, and recovery processes among

homicide survivors. As stated, such a small percentage of homicides actually receive a death sentence, so the ameliorative effects of an execution seem limited at this time.

Primary Prevention Another approach focuses on the broader problem of preventing violent behavior. Two facts support that approach. First, as was noted earlier, homicide often emerges from interactional escalation in a social situation. This suggests that it takes two or more people to perform the interaction sequence that leads to homicide; homicides do not occur unless someone responds aggressively in a conflict situation. When the potential victim is not responsive or leaves the setting, homicide does not occur. This suggests that we need to examine the social and cultural commonalities of victims and offenders that lead them to escalate conflicts to a violent end. Second, many homicide offenders have a prior record of violent behavior, although there are people who commit homicide with no previous record of violence. For example, Edwin Megargee noted that overcontrolled persons may suddenly erupt in a violent episode. But we have noted than many spousal killings involve a record of prior violence, and this is true for other homicides as well. This suggests we also need to examine developmental patterns that contribute to violence. Social and cultural factors

Homicide victims and offenders are not randomly distributed through the population. Descriptions of the social and demographic variables that contribute to homicide show what groups and strata in society are most at risk of homicide. In the United States, the highest risk is found among young black American males and females and Latino males. Knowing something about the social and economic conditions faced by young people in these categories leads to explanations and prevention programs. The extent of poverty, racism, lack of opportunity in inner-city neighborhoods, and prevention programs have been discussed in many other publications. In their study of gun ownership and use in inner-city neighborhoods, Sheley and Wright paint a compelling picture of innercity life in which gun ownership seems a very reasonable response to the dangerous conditions of daily life. There is much talk these days about family values and the importance of family in socializing children against the use of violence. What seems to be forgotten is that many families function in communities and neighborhoods that undermine their efforts to inculcate values opposing violence. The presence of gangs, availability of drugs and guns, and daily exposure to violence in the neighborhood mean that many families in inner-city

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neighborhoods face insuperable difficulties in raising children to avoid violent victimization. Criminologists, such as Marvin Wolfgang and Franco Ferracuti, have suggested the existence of shared clusters of beliefs about the use of violence. These beliefs characterize a subculture of violence that is most prevalent among young males, black Americans, and lower-income persons. These beliefs predispose actors to respond to certain behaviors, such as insults, with force. Because they believe that violence is a way of solving interpersonal problems, they are more likely to escalate a verbal conflict and use violence to resolve the dispute. Yet, others have focused on the social structural aspects of the nature of violent crime in urban areas, challenging constitutional and subcultural theories of violent crime as rooted in prejudice. Early on in criminological literature, University of Chicago researchers Shaw and McKay, in their book, Juvenile Delinquency and Urban Areas, illustrated that we must understand crime in the social context of where it occurs, suggesting that scholars needed to address the neighborhood and community factors in explaining the disproportionate rates of violent crime in urban areas. For example, today, the majority of black Americans reside in urban areas in the United States. These areas are often plagued by high rates of residential racial segregation, concentrations of poverty, joblessness, family disruption, and violence. Scholars such as Robert Sampson have illustrated how the complex interplay of community and neighborhood factors, the availability of jobs, and family relations explain homicide and robbery among both black and white juveniles and adults. This body of literature points to the need for a social structural approach to understanding violent crime in metropolitan, urban areas, rather than solely focusing on the individual characteristics of offenders. Clearly, if scholars are to focus on individual characteristics and factors, they must be examined within the social context in which they are developed. Developmental factors

There is a significant relationship between childhood aggression and violence: aggressive children tend to become violent teenagers and violent adults. Farrington has shown that aggressive children at ages 8–10 and 12–14 tended to have later convictions for violence and be violent at age 32. Predictors and correlates of violence include low IQ, low school attainment, high impulsivity, and poor concentration. Family factors include low income, large family size, parents with criminal convictions, harsh discipline, poor supervision, and parental separations. Cognitive-behavioral theories have resulted in prevention programs. Huesman and Eron have developed a cognitive model of aggression development in which the

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expression of aggression is controlled by ‘scripts’ learned during early development. These scripts suggest what events are about to occur, the expected reaction, and what the outcome will be. They are retrieved with appropriate environmental cues and guide behavior. In this theory, a repeatedly aggressive child is one who consistently retrieves and uses aggressive scripts that are learned, in part, from the behavior of parents. The prevention of violence focuses on changing these scripts to foster nonviolence. Social skills training can have positive effects in changing aggressive behavior in children. The Earlscourt Social Skills Group Program attempts to improve self-control and social skills of aggressive children. The program teaches such social skills as problem-solving, knowing one’s own feelings, using self-control, responding to teasing, and avoiding fights. An evaluation of the program showed improvement in dealing with aggression, and these improvements were maintained over a 3-month follow-up. Poor parental training techniques predict delinquency and may have an effect in reducing violence. Parental intervention programs, aimed at families with delinquent and predelinquent children, focus on noticing what the child is doing, monitoring his or her behavior over long periods, clearly stating and standing by house rules, making rewards and punishment consistently contingent on behavior, and negotiating disagreements so that conflicts and crises do not escalate. Many parent-training programs have been evaluated and shown to be effective in reducing aggression in children. Yet, as the body of literature noted above on the social and community factors that help explain the high rates of violence in urban areas suggests, children’s development must be understood within the familial, social, and economic context in which it exists. Families characterized by a lack of social resources and disruption tend to lack the ability to provide both formal and informal social controls. In neighborhoods where parents are less able to supervise, monitor, and watch over their children themselves or with their help of community members, rates of violent crime may not change without first addressing the social and economic factors which help explain them.

Summary While comparisons to other countries have of necessity been limited and selective, what we have shown is that homicide is a US problem – in many ways, uniquely so. There is little doubt that among technologically advanced countries, the United States has the highest homicide rates; its rates are more comparable to the least developed countries than advanced industrial ones. The major

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contributors to these high rates are the disproportionate rates of homicide among young black American men, gang and illicit drug market related homicide, and the widespread availability and use of lethal weapons such as firearms. The ability of police to clear or arrest offenders has declined to where approximately one-third of offenders are not arrested. On the positive side, marital homicides have declined as a proportion of total homicides largely as a result of increased concern and resources. Yet, it is still unclear how this relates to nonmarital homicide and intimate partner violence among the increasing number of couples who cohabitate or remain unmarried. In addition, over the past three decades, relationship violence has increasingly been viewed as a major social problem and public health concern. Programming designed to prevent the long-term escalation of violence such as counseling and women’s shelters exist not only in the United States, but in several countries as women’s rights become issues of human rights and social justice projects. Transnational research has been useful in suggesting that institutional arrangements have a bearing in reducing homicides. Clearly, additional research in this area and innovations in research and design will further elucidate the nature of homicide across the globe. See also: Death Penalty, Overview; Drugs and Violence in the USA; Evolutionary Theory; Family Structure and Family Violence; Gangs; Minorities as Perpetrators and Victims of Crime; Urban Violence, Youth

Further Reading Archer, D. and Gartner, R. (1984). Violence and crime in cross-national perspective. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Best, J. (1988). Missing children: Misleading statistics. The Public Interest 92, 84–92. Blumstein, A. (1995). Youth violence, guns, and the illicit drug industry. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 86, 10–36. Browne, A. (1987). When battered women kill. New York: Free Press. Eron, L. and Huesmann, L. (1984). Cognitive processes and the persistence of aggressive behavior. Aggressive Behavior 10, 243–251. Jenkins, P. (1994). Using murder: The social construction of serial homicide. New York: Aldine de Gruyter. Klein, M. W., Maxson, C. L., and Miller, J. (eds.) (1995). The modern gang reader. Los Angeles, CA: Roxbury. Martinez, R. (1997). Homicide among Miami’s ethnic groups: Anglos, blacks, and latinos in the 1990s. Homicide Studies 1, 17–34. Pampel, F. C. and Gartner, R. (1995). Age structure, socio-political institutions, and national homicide rates. European Sociological Review 11, 243–260. Riedel, M. (1999). Sources of homicide data: A review and comparison. In Smith, M. D. and Zahn, M. (eds.) Homicide studies: A sourcebook of social research, pp. 75–95. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Riedel, M. and Rinehart, T. A. (1996). Murder clearances and missing data. Journal of Crime and Justice 19, 83–102. Rosenfeld, R. (1997). Changing relationships between men and women: A note on the decline in intimate partner homicide. Homicide Studies 1, 72–83. Shaw, C. R. and McKay, H. D. (1942). Juvenile delinquency and urban areas. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Silverman, R. and Kennedy, L. (1993). Deadly deeds: Murder in Canada. Scarborough, ON: Nelson Canada. Wellford, C. and Cronin, J. (2000). Clearing up homicide clearance rates. Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice. Wong, S. K. (2007). Disorganization precursors, the family and crime: A multi-year analysis of Canadian municipalities. Western Criminology Review 8, 48–68.

Homosexuality, Violence Against See Sexual Minorities, Violence Against

Human Nature, Views of James C Davies, Eugene, OR, USA Published by Elsevier Inc.

Introduction Some Earlier, Mostly Philosophical Views of Human Nature Innate, that is, Natural Sources of Tension

Some Research in the Neurophysiology of Assertive and Violent Behavior From Here, Where? Further Reading

Introduction

The experiences that produce views on this very basic matter begin at birth and continue through childhood, adolescence, and at least early maturity. One’s religion, one’s political orientation, and one’s attitude toward his or her fellow beings are very stable. The durability of these

People’s views of human nature are part of their general attitude toward their fellow beings. The general attitude derives more from experiences than from formal learning.

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influences is confirmed by the persistence of opposing, incompatible views on religion, politics, and human nature. Millions of people are Christian or Muslim or Confucian or Buddhist and few of them ever move from one of these religions to another. The same is true in politics. And the same is true in views of human nature. It is important to appreciate that the systematic or casual views people have of human nature are altogether a product of experience. That is, views of human nature are not themselves innate and thus are subject to change. But they change very slowly. If individuals start life in families and neighborhoods that are high in violence and later experience nonviolent interactions in solving problems, they may change to a less violent view of human nature. If individuals start life with minimal domestic violence and later experience violent interactions, they may more easily retain or re-establish a less violent view of human nature. Individuals from a stable, relatively nonviolent culture may go to war and kill. These killers are not usually regarded as dangerous when they return to civilian life. It is important to appreciate these aspects of attitude formation because the attitudes are so important. Violence is often a life-or-death matter, and the wrong attitude can be deadly. Furthermore, these views involve both objective and subjective influences and inevitably involve considerations of moral right and wrong. The distinction between ‘is’ and ‘ought’ is very hard to define and harder to realize. People maintain confidence that their views of religion, politics, and human nature are both correct and morally right. Realization of these problems is a necessary first step to moving beyond the ill-considered views of human nature that are so seldom revised after childhood. A practical definition of human nature is seldom offered: natural scientists say that it is vague definition and then offer nothing specific. Let this definition serve as a basis for discussing views of it. Human nature is the set of determinants of behavior that generate within the human organism and ultimately within the genes. It is very, very difficult to separate out, to abstract, these determinants because of two factors: the genetically established organism is influenced even before birth by several neurochemicals that pass through not only the placenta but also the blood–brain barrier. These prenatal influences, perhaps the earliest experiences, cannot be regarded as innate, but they so affect the developing fetus that they quite surely are permanent. Infants whose mothers took heavy doses of narcotics like heroin as at young adults became hooked themselves. Such prenatal influences may be called second nature, but as the fetus becomes an infant and grows through childhood to adulthood, it is most unlikely ever to become conscious that these prenatal events are not genetic. In one experiment a pregnant rat was injected

with testosterone. Its female pups became more aggressive than females not subjected to infusion of abnormal, unnatural amounts of prenatal testosterone. In addition to prenatal influences, there is a steady stream of influences that commences with the first contacts with mothers, fathers, family, neighborhood, etc., and continues throughout life. Even though they may seem natural they are not but can be clearly described as second nature.

Some Earlier, Mostly Philosophical Views of Human Nature Not all the writers mentioned in this section described themselves as philosophers. Indeed some of them – notably Hobbes and Freud – scorned the term. Nonetheless, they are here included as philosophers on the assumption that their observations arose mainly from their individual experience rather than scientific investigation, experimentation, and validation. This is not to say that these viewers of human nature were wrong but that, in their views of human nature, they were not acting as scientists. Aristotle, in a relatively peaceful time in Athens, looked at violence causally though he used somewhat different language than is used today. He concluded that revolution is caused by subjective inequality: ‘‘when inferior, people enter into strife in order that they may be equal, and when equal, in order that they may be greater.’’ Aristotle was the tutor of one of the most successfully violent rulers of all time: Alexander the Great. Nonetheless, his statement (Aristotle, Politics, p. 379) anticipated by more than two millennia of George Orwell’s succinct aphorism about life in the very unjust Animal Farm. In that anti-Utopia the ruling elite had total control of both power and ideology: everyone is equal, the elite said, but some are more equal than others. It is perhaps more accurate to describe Aristotle or Orwell not as prescient but as intuitively basic in his analysis. They both said that human beings naturally expect to be regarded as equals, if not more so: as it would now be expressed, and as Lasswell put it, people want dignity and power. Thomas Hobbes provides an example of environmental influences that profoundly affected his view of violence. He was in exile from the persistent and frightful wars of the Protestant Reformation in seventeenthcentury England. He was thus a participant observer in this very violent century in England’s history. He viewed human nature as inherently, innately violent and said this tendency is controllable only if people surrendered their power of self-rule to the sovereign. Hobbes did not work into his system recognition that people want other things in addition to power. The inevitable implication of his conclusion is that self-rule is impossible, and he did not

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consider that in the English Reformation, people who lacked power were forcibly demanding it and – if they won enough battles – taking it. That is, Hobbes did not consider that people want equality, in power and other things, and that they turn violent, when they are denied equality and power. Plato, also more than two millennia before Hobbes, proposed government by the guardians, by vesting total power in the active intellectual elite. Unlike his successor Aristotle but like his successor Hobbes, Plato did not adequately address the problem of who governs the governors. Both philosophers avoided logically facing the fact that rulers also are human beings and so much appraise their own violent tendencies. They viewed human beings from their philosophically elitist standpoints and assumed that ordinary human beings and elitists who were denied power did not want it: they just wanted to fight. Sigmund Freud’s greatest contribution to the science of human behavior was his insistence that unconscious influences not only exist but also are very powerful. He brilliantly applied and used his contribution mainly in the analysis of childhood experiences as they affected adult sexual behavior. He was less successful in applying his study of the unconscious to nonsexual behavior (and he tended to sexualize the nonsexual) and he did not clearly distinguish sexual from other forms of love, like, for example, agape. Freud experienced World War I, the meatgrinder of millions of soldiers on both sides, from the viewpoint of Germany and the Central Powers. One of his sons saw military service. His early reaction during that war was to say that as German victories extended, they would spread German culture more broadly throughout the world. His later reaction was to observe with growing horror the enormous violence and to conclude that violence is an innate tendency. He elevated it in his theoretical system so that in addition to the positive, life-producing (sex) instinct in his earlier theorizing, there was a murderous death instinct that produced destruction not only of others but of the self. In 1933, he collaborated with Albert Einstein in an exchange published as Why war. In it Freud chided some presumptions of Einstein, noting that all sciences have their unexamined first assumptions. And Freud did not well examine either his own assumptions or their origins. The here-significant facts are that Freud was influenced by his (adult) experience and that this influenced, indeed determined, the construction of his basic orientation. If the world war served only as a reminder and not a determinant, it speaks ill of Freud that he was unable to include a death instinct before the war. If violence indeed is an innate tendency, it is quite an oversight in Freud not to see such an elemental tendency among Homo sapiens. World War II produced a similar spate of writing that likewise concluded that mankind are innately aggressive,

innately violent. Perhaps among the most noteworthy writers was Konrad Lorenz, whose book On aggression (1966) was enormously popular following its original publication, two decades after Lorenz served as a medical doctor in the Germany wartime army in German as Das sogenannte Bo¨se in 1963. His conclusion was the same as Freud’s, though not in the same language: mankind are naturally aggressive, presumably with the exception of Lorenz. Similarly, in two superbly written books, African genesis (1961) and The territorial imperative (1966), an American writer, Robert Ardrey, likewise proposed and concluded that mankind are naturally aggressive. In the popular discussion of these postwar books, M. F. Ashley Montagu, an anthropologist, was a dissenting voice. He lambasted natural aggressionists for declaring that the violent behavior that is common in war is natural. The discussion, perhaps starting with the Biblical slaying of Abel by his brother Cain, has been endlessly inconclusive. One cannot satisfactorily demonstrate that general observations are false because they are a product of experience with war. However, one can question the verity of the conclusion by noting a couple of (in)conclusions. The first is an assumption that rather evidently underlies the conclusion that mankind are naturally aggressive (or have a death instinct). The unexamined assumption is that human beings have a natural need to survive ‘and have no other natural needs’ – except possibly to form groups, to associate. This assumption can be derived from too simple a reading of Darwin’s emphasis on the struggle for survival and the desire to perpetuate the species. But to assume that because they want to survive, people have a natural desire to aggress avoids consideration of the means–end relationship between aggression and survival. It seems clear that survival is pursed for its own sake, but it seems also clear that aggression is undertaken as a means to achieve not only survival but also other natural ends like the solidity, the integrity, of various groups with which individuals identify; and perhaps the pursuit of equal dignity. It is no more reasonable to ignore the fact that equality was given as a major reason in 1776 for Americans to throw off the British colonial yoke than it is to ignore the inclusion of equality that was included in France as a justification for its revolution. In sum, a few philosophers and theorists have made without examining it a large assumption that survival is the only natural need. They have tended to ignore the fact that human beings have enormously developed brains that furnish the potential not simply to develop an understanding of natural phenomena but also to identify and empathize with ever-wider segments of their conspecifics. Does this tendency to identify come altogether from the environment? There is a tendency among some

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philosophers and social scientists to separate themselves from the rest of humanity. Almost universally, people seem to prefer activity – even at times turbulence – to stasis. But they do not seem to prefer violence. If violence is pursued naturally and for its own sake, then the best humankind could maximize everyone’s opportunity to engage in it: to have, as Hobbes observed, a perpetual war of each against all. If violence nevertheless is undertaken as a means of achieving things that have inherent value and producing inherent satisfaction, then it is important to probe deeper into both definition and examination of human nature. Its discussion need no longer be left to philosophers or to theorists in psychology. Because it is possible to learn more about human nature by scientific investigation, it is possible to diminish the use of violence as a last-resort means of accomplishing ends that are naturally desired and that provide inherent satisfaction. The problem is akin to that facing global explorers and navigators in the fifteenth century: if you no longer suppose the Earth is flat, it is much easier to get around the globe. The problem is also akin to cosmic navigation: if you no longer suppose that space and time are independent factors, it is much easier to try to explain the universe. Describing and evaluating views of human nature is a grievous problem, because views of it are very much the product of experience, and experience varies widely and people cling to their views stubbornly. Even people who are well educated and those without formal education have their view. The major difference between those without formal education and the rest is that literate people are better able to articulate their view, but they are not much better at appraising human nature. The reasons for such a view of views of human nature are elemental: from birth onward, each individual is influenced by events that impinge directly on each individual. If these earliest events include violent experiences, there is a great likelihood that violence will be considered natural, just as if these earliest events include supportive, affectionate interactions, the individual will incline toward a benign and amicable view of others. If those who readily engage in violence are close to a very young observer, a child, it is more likely to regard violence as innate to all people. If others – ranging from neighbors to nearby communities to other nations – are less likely to engage in it, violence is more likely to be regarded as an acquired rather than as an innate tendency. These seemingly speculative generalizations are, in other contexts, not regarded so speculatively. Social scientists do not often question why they are more likely to find immediate interpersonal violence among people who have been raised in violent families. And they are more likely to find violence on the grand, international scale among a people who feel threatened with violence by people of other nations. When such grand-scale

violence strikes home, in the form of an air raid by the enemy or by the loss of a family member, the inclination to regard violence as an innate tendency is increased. What seems to be fundamental to these speculations is that views of violence are a function of experience with it, whether in childhood or adulthood, whether the violence is perpetrated by a family member, a local community, or a nation. And fundamental to regarding violence as innate or not is the fact that it threatens injury and even death: that is, views of violence are in part a function of the experience of threat to survival. In sum, the very earliest environmental influences underlie everyone’s view of human nature and these early imprinted influences become so ingrained as to become second nature. Views of violence become second nature. And few people are willing to believe that their view of human nature is highly subjective and imprinted rather than innate. Each person believes that his or her view of human nature, whether or not it includes violent tendencies, is an objective judgment about reality. If these speculative observations are not wrong, then the process of describing and evaluating views of violence is very difficult indeed. If they are not wrong, then the unconscious, imprinted origins must be looked at, in order to approximate somewhat closer a scientific view of the innateness of violent tendencies. A start toward understanding aggression and violence as they relate to views of human nature can be made by defining them. There has been critical vagueness in defining aggression. Lorenz uses the term agonistic behavior, and so do J. P. Scott and others. It is used to get around the knotty problem of defining intent. Agonism means forceful action against some part of the environment. Agonism avoids considering intent and avoids judging whether agonistic behavior is bad. There would be no problem for humankind and for perpetrators and victims of agonistic action if they were merely forceful interactors. We would be dealing in the realm of competition and perhaps with action that is heedless of its consequences. Forceful interaction may be undertaken with the intent of helping the object. A surgeon wielding a knife is engaging in forceful interaction, in agonistic interaction. But his or her action is readily acknowledged to be opposite to that of a person using a knife to injure or kill. Perpetrators of violence are not free of intent and we cannot avoid judging whether actions are harmful. In this article, the term agonistic is avoided because it does not consider whether an action harms or helps its object and whether an action is intended to harm or help its object. The term aggression is defined as action whose intent is to harm its object and which does harm its object. So defining aggression maintains the distinction that is lost in the term agonism, because aggression does not include action whose intent is to help. The question

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whether aggressive action is justified or not, is good or bad, remains open. In analysis of national action, it is both necessary and difficult to appraise national aggressive action, but the elemental unit of analysis must be the individual human being. If he or she is not naturally aggressive, then it is hard to conclude that aggression for its own sake is natural to the species. Aggression covers the action of a person who is attacking another person or an object, whether as an initiated action or as a defense against the attack of another. It only muddles things to say that a person defending him- or herself against another who is bent on homicide is not as aggressive as the attacker. If the defender is successful against the attacker, the defender will survive and the attacker may die. If a nation, say Czechoslovakia, is attacked and occupied in one decade by Nazi Germany and in the next by the Communist Soviet Union, no one save the attacking nation is going to say that Czechs have no right to defend themselves. But, in the historic cases, both Germany and the Soviet Union argued that they were defending their interests against wanton aggression. In a 1975 resolution the United Nations adopted a definition of aggressive war that specified the invasion of another nation’s territory but avoided the question of harmful intent. While the UN definition avoids the issue of culpability, and so avoids the problem inherent in the term agonism, it leaves indefinite the issue of harmful intent. This indefinition does not help appraise the action of a nation or the UN that intervenes in a domestic dispute within another nation. In the former Yugoslavia, intervention by UN or in the name of the UN remains unappraised and unjustified. Needs that are innate characteristically are chronically, regularly, satisfied over decades, if not lifetimes. People must always eat. From birth, they have an undying desire for affection. And they develop, early on, a seemingly insatiable desire to be recognized, to be dignified, and to fulfill themselves. Neither infants nor children nor adults like to be ignored or humiliated or denied recognition for doing self-fulfilling work. There is only consensual rather than objective evidence that the desire to kill, maim, or destroy is innate. People may even be thrilled by it, but the desire seems to pass quickly among at least most people. They admire bravery in others and themselves. They admire the sacrifice that must occur when individuals forsake their private lives, put on uniforms, and learn the skills of killing, but then abandon these desires then they return to civilian life. Except for brief periods, they would rather be doing something else. A sense of guilt lingers, even when the killing results in vanquishing the enemy. Attempts to suppress guilt and forget the horror of violent conflict – products of very brief personal experience in combat – linger on for years and may never be lost from the unconscious. One seldom

feels guilt for eating, for giving and receiving affection, for being dignified, and for creating a poem, writing a story, or fixing a broken chair. One is likely to feel guilt in such circumstances only if he or she realizes that eating deprives another, loving betrays another, or ignoring another may humiliate the person ignored. It is also evident that aggressive behavior is perhaps always the consequence of the frustration of needs, drives, expectations that quite surely are innate. Even the aggression that occurs within families and neighborhoods involves a previous frustration. A child denied food or affection within its family may in consequence turn violent. A child or young adult as an alienated member of an extra-familial group that is denied recognition may turn violent, as have thousands of individuals who identify themselves as members of a minority and are so identified. Nations that are enormously ambitious for recognition and power but have been denied these goods may launch very violent wars, as did Germany and Japan in the late 1930s and early 1940s. But to say that these transitory periods of enormous violence represent an innate human produces a few problems in the explanation. Although it is very common to say that aggressive acts are unprovoked, where are these acts to be found? When a member of a national majority expresses bafflement at the violence of minorities, has he or she satisfactorily determined that nothing is upsetting the minority? He or she might ask a minority member rather than come to conclusions about the innateness of violence. Justifiably or not, people do persuade themselves that their enemy – interpersonal or international – is claiming their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. They do not make these claims when they are threatened by something as relatively minor as not being able to see the sunrise, the cows come home, or the villain in a television program get his or her comeuppance.

Innate, that is, Natural Sources of Tension Views of human nature have become more complex in this century. In the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, notably in the writings of John Locke and Rousseau, two conclusions have, with scant analysis, been attributed to those who heavily emphasize the environment as a determinant of behavior. One is that people are naturally good and get damaged by bad experience. The other is that the mind is pretty much a blank sheet, on which the environment can write pretty much what it wants. That is, Locke, Rousseau, and Marx are credited also with making the moral judgment that it is institutions, both social and political, that are responsible for failing to let human beings achieve what they naturally want to achieve.

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Early in the twentieth century, perhaps partly because of the strong, worldwide influence of Marx, environmentalism flourished. Ivan Pavlov did brilliant new work in conditioning responses in dogs, making them drool when they had established a relationship between a bell ringing or a light turning on and the reward of food. This work was elementally consistent with the Marxist assumptions of the revolutionary government after 1917 in Russia and got strong support from the communist regimes. Similar work got established in the United States, first by J. B. Watson, who said that if he were given an infant, he could make out of him virtually any kind of skilled human being – butcher, baker, and candlestick maker. B. F. Skinner extended the work of Pavlov by getting pigeons to respond to a conditioning stimulus of light or whatever. Extrapolating from pigeons to human beings, he proposed establishing a good society by operant conditioning, which he declared was the responsibility of psychologists. It was not clear whether Skinner was influenced by Plato’s proposal in group l to put the intellectual elite of guardians, but the implication was again clear: that a small group of specialists could manipulate the bulk of humankind in the best interests of both the specialists and humankind. Heavy emphasis on environment not only frees individuals of responsibility for the existence and the development of institutions. It also produces a dead end in scientific pursuit of understanding: if human nature does not generate needs, demands, expectations, then where do they come from? The problem logically is like that in which Plato and others believing in a supra-human aristocracy have avoided the question as to who guards the guardians. What institutions spontaneously generate what internal tensions in human nature? If people want to eat, what institutions established that natural desire? If people need to get together, be together, and stay together, what institutions generate these social needs? If people want dignity – want to be recognized as distinct beings meriting deference and respect – what institutions elicit or establish that natural desire? Are the needs for food, association, and deference mere excogitations of philosophers, who implant these needs in infants and children but ignore adulthood manifestations of these needs? Investigators have faced the problem of the content of human nature only partially. Behavioral science for the most part has recognized that human beings share with all other life-forms a desire to be fed and to associate. But behavioral science has shied away from considering that human beings have – at least in larger measure than other life-forms, even other vertebrates – a natural desire for deference and respect or any other nonphysical need, unassociated with the need for food and for sex regarded solely as a means of species perpetuation.

Working mainly with insects, E. O. Wilson established a novel way of looking at behavior. He found that in the interests of perpetuating if not the species, at least the hive, ants were quite willing to sacrifice themselves. Without falling into a trap of saying that human beings should sacrifice themselves to perpetuate the species, Wilson clearly broadened the assumption of many investigators who followed Darwin’s views even more strictly than Darwin did. Wilson said that there was, in addition to the innate desire of individuals to survive, a desire of individuals to participate in making the species survive. Wilson’s frame of reference has evolved in the trend called ‘evolutionary psychology’, whose assumptions include an innate desire to survive but also a desire to associate and to associate amicably. If progress has been made in conceptualizing human nature, perhaps some consensus exists that human beings are born with more than the desire to survive: that they wish also to associate. Early work in the desire or the trend to associate was elementally addressed by ‘the cat at the U. of Chicago’, who examined not only the tendency of trees to associate but also of a wide variety of animal life. It now seems widely accepted that survival and the social needs are innate. Other tensions, needs, drives, are less accepted, except perhaps more or less by oversight. A great pioneer in political behavior, Harold Lasswell, posited that there was a natural need for deference and that governments had to address that need. The implications for democratic as distinct from aristocratic or plutocratic government are obvious. And behind Lasswell’s positing of a natural need for deference lie the ‘self-evident’ truths of Jefferson about human beings: that they have a natural right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Jefferson’s assumptions have origins in Locke and perhaps in a near-contemporary of Jefferson: Rousseau, whose two principal works, The Social contract and Emile, were published about 15 years before Jefferson composed the Declaration of Independence. It is this assumption of innate drives beyond self- and species-survival that needs to be addressed directly. It is not possible to say we have one or more useful models of human nature until we have systematically included metasurvival needs. Psychologists since Darwin who have assumed or stated more complex models of human nature have been remarkably neglected, in favor of the more simple, easy-to-conceptualize models of optimistic environmentalists, Locke, Rousseau, Jefferson, Marx, Watson, and Skinner. But the lineage is there. William James was perhaps the first to systematize a model of human needs that included drives beyond survival. He was followed by Freud, a pessimistic view of innate needs beyond survival. And after Freud came Henry Alexander Murray, who in his Explorations in personality (1938) produced a model of human nature that went

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beyond both James and Freud to include a long set of mental needs that included the desire not to be degraded (‘infavoidance’), not to be ignored or depreciated. Murray avoided classifying the long list as being innate or involving early conditioning. After Murray, Abraham Maslow developed a rather rigorous set of elemental needs and placed them in a hierarchy. He said that after the physical needs for food, good health, etc., people wanted security, love, self-esteem, and self-actualization – and they wanted them pretty much in that order. There has been resistance and indifference to the idea of positing some elemental needs that are beyond survival and sex, and resistance to the idea of establishing any priority among elemental needs. Some investigators have acknowledged that human beings have innate physical and love needs, but are not so confident that they also naturally want dignity and freedom to do their thing. There is some acceptance of the idea that (equal) dignity is innate, but skepticism about its naturalness may be related to the fact that philosophers – including Jefferson – may have called it innate, but not psychologists aside from James, Murray, and Maslow. That is, criticism may derive from the fact that dignity has not been very systematically or deliberately subjected to psychological analysis. Investigators have remained largely constrained by the very dubious assumption that the only innate needs relate to self- and species-survival. An additional argument is that the need for (equal) dignity is generated by – that is, originates in – childhood experience and long-term conditioning to values provided by moralists and religious leaders who have developed institutions that protect equality and that welcome efforts to dignify humankind. The inescapable problem with environmental determinism which limits innate drives to survival is to explain how metasurvival values got generated in the first place. Have theories of philosophers and moralists emerged spontaneously out of cosmic black holes, without their generators (natural rights theorists like Locke, Rousseau, and Jefferson; and moralists like Buddha, Jesus, and Mahomet) sensing within themselves and people they observed a profound and universal demand? Such speculations are perhaps unnecessarily argumentative. Rather than continuing a discussion that can be endless, it seems more appropriate to pursue experiments in which determinants that are innate can be more clearly separated from those that are purely products of conditioning or are at least contaminated by it. Such investigations are possible but they still present problems. If an electrode is implanted in a particular part of the brain where a certain behavior pattern is supposed to generate, is it an innate force if it requires the electrode to be activated? That is, how can an innate force exist if it requires a stimulus to function? One answer to this basic problem in causation is to recognize that there can be no

behavior that is not the product of the interaction between the organism and the environment. This is not to say that there are not areas in the brain with rather specific and specialized functions that are innate and have the potential of producing a specific, specialized response. A look at some experiments undertaken by neurophysiologists will show the progress that has been made in delimiting innate components in the interaction between organism and environment. Some of the research has been reported elsewhere in this encyclopedia but implications of the research merit examination in light of what it says about the innateness of violence.

Some Research in the Neurophysiology of Assertive and Violent Behavior The unique complexity of the human brain warns us that any findings about it can at best be only partial and tentative. Nonetheless, the complexity need deter us no more than natural scientists are faced with the considerably simpler working of the universe and of elemental, subatomic particles. Astrophysicists and nuclear physicists have progressed enormously on the foundations of Newton, Einstein, and other fundamentalists. We can quite confidently say that time and space are so intertwined that we cannot explain elemental phenomena if we consider them separately. We can say that light travels at a certain speed, but only for practical purposes like establishing just how long is an hour, a day, a century, and a millennium. We can accept as fact that energy has mass, though the difference in mass between energy and more palpable forms of mass like lead or water vapor is truly enormous. Correlatively, we can say that behaviors like a search for food or affection or for dignity have innate components, without thereby settling the dispute over the innateness of aggression, violence, dominance, or subservience. We have noted that theorists about human nature differ in their belief that violence is innate. Freud, Lorenz, and Ardrey build their basic theses on the assumption that aggression is innate. Other writers, notably Locke, Rousseau, and Jefferson, suppose that it is not. We can get at better bases for addressing the question if we look systematically at the way brain researchers organize their less-certain, less-definitive conclusions about human nature. The Triune Brain A physiologist, Paul MacLean, had divided the brain into three basic parts: the reptilian, paleomammalian, and neomammalian. The reptilian part is so named by MacLean because in it are contained behavioral functions that humans share with reptiles. That is, reptiles have

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been found to manifest these and other behaviors: (1) the establishment and marking of territory; (2) defense of territory; (3) fighting; (4) the formation of groups; (5) the establishment of social hierarchy; (6) courtship; (7) mating; (8) the breeding and sometimes the care of offspring. An anthropocentric view would describe these behaviors of reptiles as humanoid. MacLean’s nomenclature reminds us better of the continuity between the behavior of human beings and those of some of the lowest vertebrates. Between the most primitive, reptilian part and the most advanced, neomammalian part of the brain (otherwise called the neocortex, the ‘new’ cortex, where information is processed and decisions are made) lies the part which is most critical for our analysis: the limbic system. More than any other part, it is the seat of the emotions. The limbic system was ‘discovered’ by Paul Broca, in France in 1878. Its major parts are the hypothalamus, amygdala, hippocampus, and the septal area. In reptiles it is most of the brain. In Homo sapiens, it is a much smaller portion and is covered, wrapped around, by the very large neocortex, the thinking and feeling brain. Following Broca and Papez (1937), MacLean (1972), Delgado (1969), and many others have done extensive research within the limbic system, some of which are discussed here. To the extent that conflict behavior involves emotion, the limbic system is involved, and it is hard to conceive of emotion-free conflict behavior. However, it must always be borne in mind that bundles of nerves connect the limbic system with the neocortex and with the most primitive, ‘reptilian’ parts of the brain. One implication of these interties is that – physiologically speaking – there are probably few behaviors that are quite free of either the information-processing and decision-making functions of the neocortex or the most primitive ‘instincts’ of the sort that MacLean listed for reptiles. Another implication is that, to the extent that the primitive and the limbic systems ‘dominate’ overt behavior, people may not be totally aware and in control of their reasons for behaving as they do, notably in times of stress. Research in Nerves The brain’s activity is so complex and so interactive, both internally and with the environment, that the role of various factors can best be looked at by categories. Neural research is one of two major categories: neural and endocrine. Nerves and hormones interact continuously in the brain and in parts of the rest of the body that are directly under the brain’s control. A pinch or a stab wound may produce an immediate and violent response against the person who pinched or stabbed. This is primarily a neural response. The same stimuli also involve

activation of hormonal response: the person pinched or stabbed experiences a surge of noradrenaline or norepinephrine (NE) and adrenaline or epinephrine (E), and this surge may cause the whole organism, the whole person, to respond violently. The neural part of the brain’s activity does not act alone; neither does the hormonal part. The master, most universally controlling, gland in the brain is the pituitary, the hypophysis. It is the size of a pea. The pituitary is physically divided into a part that is composed of a tiny set of nerves, the neurohypophysis, and another part consisting of a tiny sac of hormones, the adenohypophysis. Functionally, the pituitary’s two separate parts themselves are in continuous interaction. First, let us examine research whose emphasis has been on nerves. One of the great early investigators was Walter Cannon, who did experiments with dogs, by ablating different parts of the brain or cutting connections between them. He found that when a main trunk of nerves high in the brain (connecting the neocortex with the limbic system) was cut, the animals became veritable engines of destruction, sizing up in a coordinated way whoever was near and waiting for the first opportunity to strike. The neocortex no longer inhibited a response that could be called rage or self-defense. When the cut was made lower, the animals became snarling, growling, uncontrolled, and undangerous animals. That is, the less involved the forebrain, the neocortex, the less controlled was the response behavior. Electrodes implanted in the brains of various vertebrates have again helped map the paths involved in violence. When electrodes were put in the brainstems (part of the ‘reptilian’ brain) of chickens and an electrical charge was fed into the electrode, the chickens, which previously had been friendly with their human attendants, pecked viciously at them. It is well to note that the chickens were not naturally, normally, hostile but the electrical charge made them so. It served the same function as ablation and cutting in the brains of Cannon’s dogs. Reis and co-workers in 1973 implanted electrodes in nine gentle cats, in a part of the brain immediately adjacent to the limbic system. When a current of 40 mA was introduced, the cats merely became alert. When it was increased to 50 mA, the cats started to groom them. When it was increased to 60 mA, five of the nine cats started to eat. When the current was increased to 70 mA, seven of the nine cats savagely attacked a rat placed in their cages. When the current was turned off, they stopped their attacks, and when it was turned on again they attacked again. In 1969, in an experiment with a group of monkeys housed in a single cage, Delgado noted unsurprisingly that the alpha male monkey, the top monkey, was, if not aggressive, at least assertive. He was the first to eat and sat wherever he wanted to. Delgado implanted an electrode

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in the caudate nucleus, a part of the limbic system, and on the cage wall he put an electrical switch that could send a current to the implanted electrode by remote control. The switch could be operated by any of the monkeys. One of the female monkeys discovered that by pressing the switch, she could stop the alpha’s dominant behavior. After pressing the switch, she could do what no subordinate monkey would dare do to an alpha: she looked him straight in the eye. After the effect had worn off, the alpha male was boss again. There is no evidence that the clever female had read the Declaration of Independence, but clearly she preferred at least equal deference and equal power. An idiosyncratic case emphasizes the role of the limbic system, the emotional brain, in determining behavior. A mentally healthy attorney started to take offense at offenses that for him became major crises. He got very angry at cocktail parties, pursued and tried to punish drivers who were rude or careless on freeways. He was getting short-tempered with his wife. Persistence and intensity of symptoms led to brain surgery. A tumor surrounded his hypothalamus, a major part of the limbic system. He died in the hospital. A young woman who had stabbed someone in the heart with a knife was put in hospital. She attacked a nurse with scissors. Brain surgery took the form of cauterizing and thus destroying the amygdala, another major part of the limbic system. It can confidently be said that the behavior of both the attorney and the young woman was violent: at least on the surface, overt evidence indicated conscious attacks on objects these two people considered appropriate. And it cannot be said with any confidence that either the attorney or the girl was responsible for his or her behavior. There are dozens of hormones – neurochemicals or endocrines – that interact with the nervous system as they control behavior. Their interaction is so reciprocal that one cannot confidently say that nerves control hormonal secretions or vice versa. But there are two categories of hormones that most directly relate to aggressive and violent behavior: the catecholamines and the steroids. The principal catecholamines relevant to aggressive behavior are NE and E. The sequence of production of these hormones is from dopamine to NE to E. The sequence of production has distinct significance for the kind of behavior each helps produce. Dopamine tends to produce interaction rather basically and positively. Nurses administering dopamine have been the objects of amorous advances from their patients. NE tends to produce broad, unspecified response to protect the organism from threat: ‘destroy that attacker or get me out of here’. E, the metabolite of NE, tends to produce specific, deliberated response: the best way to destroy that attacker is to put him on trial, convict him or her, and then hang him or her.

The ratio of NE varies from species to species. In chickens, lions, and whales, there is more NE than E. In human beings the ratio of NE to E is about 1 to 3. That is, human beings have more of the deliberative kind and other vertebrates more of the generalized kind. The second category of hormones relating to aggressive behavior is the steroids or sex hormones. The two kinds of steroids are the estrogens and androgens. Both males and females have both kinds: females have more estrogens than androgens and more estrogens than males, who have more androgens than estrogens. Both are metabolites of (are made from) cholesterol. Estrogen is associated with many kinds of behavior, but one of them is nurturance. Androgen is similarly implicated in producing overt behavior, but a principal one is assertive and aggressive behavior. The production of the steroids increases at puberty and at menopause the proportions change as between males and females. After menopause, women have less estrogen than androgen and have less estrogen than men. One indicator of these changes is that women often have facial hair that they never had before menopause; one indicator in men as they age may get less aggressive and more nurturant. That is, more nurturant than they were – and in some instances more nurturant than women. It is perhaps more difficult to separate out the behavioral consequences of different catecholamines than, perhaps, to isolate the effect of ingesting too much or too little salt, or too much or too little fatty food. But, without attributing physiological wisdom to the Roman Stoics, with their prescription, ‘nothing to excess’, it does appear that there is a normal range of amounts of catecholamines which, when it is not present, produces abnormal behavior. And that some of this abnormal behavior is clearly assertive and may be aggressive. Furthermore, variation in amounts of catecholamines may be partly under conscious control of the individual human being. And they can take various drugs to control the effect of catecholamines and steroids: among the commonest are alcohol, cocaine, and heroin. People do not need to know the physiology to enjoy or suffer from the effects of drugs on the natural production and effect of hormones. Research of this kind shows the behavioral consequences of direct intervention in the limbic system. The findings establish physiologically what Freud established psychologically: namely, that unconscious and often uncontrolled forces within human beings are major determinants of behavior. Freud discovered the unconscious origins of adult mental conflict in the (ontogenetic) development of humans as infants and children. What Broca, Papez, MacLean, and many others have done is to establish the similarities of brain structure and function between humans and lower vertebrates. They thereby have indicated that the emotional and some of the

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cognitive capacities of humans are phylogenetically rooted in the development of all vertebrate and, perhaps ultimately, all sensate species. Some later research illustrates the point by showing the interaction among neural structures, sex hormones, and various environmental factors in a species of lizard. These combine to produce certain complicated sex behaviors. We can infer that the neural structure of the lizard’s limbic system, its sex hormones, and various environmental factors interact within this reptilian brain in ways comparable to their functioning in human beings.

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where natural science was before Isaac Newton, but little is gained by arguing the matter. At least social science does not depreciate systematic investigation, however deficient it is in practicing it. But natural science can help enormously if it helps social science become more scientific, not just in its methods but also in the foci of its investigations. See also: Human Rights; Indigenous Peoples’ Responses to Conquest; Industrial Versus Preindustrial Forms of Violence

From Here, Where? Further Reading Hitherto in this article, first a definition of human nature that may indicate the area of focus that is appropriate for seeking forces within the human organism that relate to political peace and violence has been offered. Then some research that helps explain political violence has been cited. This kind of research is in its infancy: most relevant research has been evidently undertaken for other purposes than explaining violence. So the relevant fields of political psychology are hard to specify. We are about where Columbus was before he left on his first voyage. A major obstacle still remains the fact that most social scientists have not considered the need to get familiar with physiology as a step beyond social psychology. Another obstacle is the often scornful rejection of social science by natural scientists. Social science may be about

Davies, J. C. (1967). Aggression: Some definition and some physiology. Politics and the Life Sciences 6(1), 27–57. Dollard, J. L., Miller, N. E., Mowrer, O. H., and Sears, R. R. (1939). Frustration and aggression. London: Yale University Press. Einstein, A. and Freud, S. (1933). Why war? Paris: International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation. MacLean, P. (1972). The brain in relation to empathy and medical education. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 144, 374–382. Papez, J. W. (1937). A proposed mechanism of emotion. Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry 38, 725–743. Rackham, H. (trans.) (1932). Aristotle: Politics. London: Heinemann. Skinner, B. F. (1971). Beyond freedom and dignity. New York: A. A. Knopf. Von Holst, E. and von St. Paul, U. (1960). Von wirkungsgefu¨ge der triebe. Die Naturwissenschften 18, 409–422. Von Holst, E. and von St. Paul, U. (1962). Electrically controlled behavior. Scientific American 206(3), 150–159 (A less complete report of the research originally published in 1960).

Human Rights Alison Dundes Renteln, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction Principal Human Rights Instruments Human Rights Machinery Human Rights and Violence

Glossary Customary International Law Unwritten norms that are, by definition, binding on all states. Such a norm is identified by the behavior and attitude of the state or state practice and opinio juris.

Human Rights Issues Conclusion Further Reading

Derogation Refers to the ability of a state to suspend temporarily its international legal obligations, usually because of a national emergency. Human Rights The rights that individuals have simply by virtue of being human. Ius Cogens A fundamental right that is nonderogable.

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Opinio Juris Refers to a state’s belief that it is legally obligated to comply with specific international laws. Reservation A state can enter a reservation indicating that while it ratified the treaty, it will not be bound by a particular article. This is allowed unless the provision is

central to the ‘object and purpose’ of the convention or is proscribed by the treaty itself. Treaty A written document that must be ratified by states before entering into force, that is, becoming legally enforceable.

Human rights are rights that individuals have simply by virtue of being human. These rights are considered to be universal, nonconditional rights that states, governments, and private actors are required to respect. There are various types of rights, generally classified under the rubric of ‘generations’ of civil and political rights, economic, social and cultural rights, and solidarity rights. As the rights have become codified in various international instruments, this has resulted in the clarification of the norms and has led to the establishment of enforcement techniques.

essential to guard against the cruel, inhumane treatment of citizens. Some historical antecedents to the modern human rights machinery deserve mention. The international system had some mechanisms whose purpose was the protection of rights, prior to the establishment of the United Nations (UN) system. Of particular note were the League of Nations mandates system and the International Labor Organization (ILO). Although the Covenant of the League of Nations did not explicitly mention human rights, two provisions had implications for human rights. Article 22 established the mandates system, which governed former colonies of states that lost in World War I (territories taken from the German and Ottoman Empires). (The UN replaced this system with the UN Trusteeship System.) Article 23 dealt with ensuring proper labor conditions. The ILO helped to develop further international human rights standards pertaining to the workplace. Despite the absence of any minority rights provisions in its Covenant (a lacuna shared by the UN Charter), the League of Nations sponsored an international system for the protection of minorities, although the standards were applied almost exclusively within Europe. Although most of the system disappeared with the demise of the League, it is historically significant that some parts served as precursors to present-day human rights institutions. The idea of individual rights was presaged by a body of law concerning state responsibility for injuries to aliens according to which state treatment of aliens had to be consistent with a minimum standard of justice. States were held liable if aliens or their property were harmed within their borders. The fiction was that the state of the alien suffered the injury because traditionally only states were subjects of international law. The notion that a state could be held internationally responsible for its treatment of aliens was expanded in human rights law, so that states could also be sanctioned for the manner in which they treated their own citizens. With the emergence of human rights law, individuals became subjects of international law. The modern development of human rights occurred in the aftermath of World War II when there was a strong desire to establish international standards to prevent the sorts of atrocities witnessed during the Holocaust.

Introduction Historical Background The idea of human rights is an ancient one, dating back centuries. It is essentially the notion that there are higher laws that transcend human-made laws. The basic premise is that every human being has inalienable rights that cannot be denied by any regime, regardless of the justification. These rights are not conditional in any way. The precursor to human rights was natural law, a higher law that superseded government law. The conflict between higher law and positive law is illustrated in the famous play Antigone in which the heroine has to decide whether or not to bury a brother who violated the positive law by fighting against the city; to deny him a burial would violate a higher law. Prior to the post-World War II international campaign for human rights, the struggle for the protection of human rights was limited to national documents such as the Magna Carta, the American Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights, the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizens, and national constitutions. The term human rights replaced ‘natural rights’. Many associate human rights with the rationalistic thinking of the Age of Enlightenment. Eighteenthcentury philosophers relied on notions comparable to human rights to challenge political absolutism. A crucial part of the theory was the idea of limited government; the rule of law was necessary to prevent ruthless leaders from mistreating their subjects. Individuals rights were

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The experience at the Nuremberg tribunal persuaded leaders that it would be necessary to develop international standards to prevent gross violations of human rights. In 1945 a group of delegates from various countries met in San Francisco to draft the United Nations Charter, at which time many states and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) lobbied for the inclusion of an international ‘bill of rights’ in the Charter. Instead, the group decided to create a Human Rights Commission, whose purpose would be to establish international human rights standards. Latin American states wanted stronger language included in the UN Charter stating that the UN would ‘‘safeguard and protect’’ human rights, but the language adopted requires members of the UN system, by virtue of ratifying the UN Charter, to ‘‘promote’’ human rights. The Human Rights Commission convened for the first time in early 1947 with Eleanor Roosevelt as chair. By mid-1947 they began work on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the centerpiece of what would eventually be known as the International Bill of Rights. The Draft Committee drew on many different sources, including various national constitutions. They examined draft proposals submitted by the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as various (mainly US) NGOs, including the American Jewish Committee, the American Law Institute, the American Federation of Labor, the Commission to Study the Organization of the Peace, the World Government Association, the International Law Association. The Organization of American States and H. G. Wells proposed drafts. The draft declaration of the UDHR was debated over a period of several months in the Third Committee of the General Assembly on social and humanitarian issues. After making only slight changes, the committee forwarded the UDHR to the General Assembly, which adopted it on 10 December 1948, with 48 votes in favor and 8 abstentions. The communist bloc abstained, as did South Africa and Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia appealed to cultural and religious differences as the basis for objecting to part of the UDHR. One objection was to Article 14, which provides for the equal rights to marriage for men and women of full age, and was intended to discourage child marriage, and another was to Article 18’s guarantee of the right to change one’s religion. With 30 articles, the UDHR was the first attempt to establish universal standards meant to serve as a ‘‘common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations.’’ It is remarkable that despite their differences, the vast majority of countries agreed to support a declaration that contains different types of rights. The UDHR is a document that has acquired significant juridical status in the world. In contrast to a treaty, a declaration is ordinarily nonbinding. However, it is often argued that the UDHR is legally binding, for three reasons: (1) it provides the authoritative interpretation of

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Articles 55 and 56 of the UN Charter (its human rights provisions); (2) it has been followed so faithfully that it has become part of customary international law (see below); and (3) it has been incorporated into many domestic legal systems. Because the UDHR was not viewed as legally binding at the time of its drafting, the international community subsequently drafted several human rights treaties which were intended to have the force of law. These were the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). These covenants, as well as the human rights provisions of the UN Charter, the UDHR, and the Optional Protocol to the ICCPR, are referred to collectively as the ‘International Bill of Rights’. Philosophical Foundations The debate as to whether human rights are Western or Eurocentric has recurred throughout the history of UN human rights institutions. Proponents contend that, despite its ‘Western imprint’, the notion of human rights is universally applicable, or that it is possible to forge a consensus through cross-cultural dialog. Opponents argue that the extraordinary diversity in moral systems may preclude any sort of agreement as to the universal applicability of human rights standards. Although this argument is usually advanced under the heading of ‘cultural relativism’, some cultural relativists believe that cross-cultural research may reveal human rights equivalents in other cultures. In the twenty-first century scholars continued to ask whether the foundations of the human rights reflect primarily European traditions. Scholars like Balakrishnan Rajagopal and Makau Mutua analyzed the normative assumptions underlying human rights treatises to show their specific intellectual underpinnings. Their central claim is that universal human rights mask ideological premises that privilege individuals in the First World. In other scholarship, social scientists have argued that the time has come to transcend the universalism versus relativism debate. According to them, the forces of globalization have made human rights standards relevant to local contexts around the world. In their view there is clearly a universal desire for the implementation of global human rights standards. Another development has been scholars voicing a concern that the academic study of human rights has been dominated by lawyers. Those charging that the discipline is overly legalized, for example, Meckled-Garcia and Cali, argue for more empirically oriented research acknowledging that human rights are social constructed in particular contexts. Historically the most fundamental human rights have been called ius cogens or peremptory norms. They are at the pinnacle of the human rights normative hierarchy.

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Any policy or treaty that conflicts with a ius cogens is presumptively invalid. A ius cogens can only be superseded by another ius cogens. To date there is only agreement with respect to a few rights such as the right against slavery and the right against genocide. The challenge for the international community has been how to go about identifying these fundamental human rights in a world of diverse cultures.

Principal Human Rights Instruments Sources of Human Rights: Treaties and Custom Because significant ideological differences existed, a decision was made to create two distinct human rights instruments, the ICCPR and the ICESCR. The Western nations favored civil and political rights whereas the socialist nations emphasized economic rights. The two covenants were completed in 1966 but did not enter into force, that is, become legally enforceable until 1976. The logic of having different sets of rights has endured. So-called first-generation rights refer to civil and political rights; second-generation rights to economic, social, and cultural rights; and third-generation rights to solidarity rights. Many contend that the first two sets of rights are interdependent. With respect to third-generation rights, there is debate as to whether they exist at all. Although there is no consensus on this point, some believe that there is an implicit hierarchy in the generational scheme with first-generation rights as the most important. In the past few decades many other human rights treaties have been drafted. Some instruments are concerned with the prevention of discrimination, for example, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. Other important ones include the Slavery Convention, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment of Punishment, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Treaties are only binding on those parties that have ratified them, unless the treaties represent the codification of customary international law. They only enter into force when the requisite number of states ratify them, a number which is specified in each treaty. Many instruments are, in fact, based on the other major source of international law norms besides treaties, namely custom. It turns out that the most fundamental human rights norms emerged as part of customary international law. Indeed, many of the norms embedded in the treaties were originally customary and were subsequently codified in the conventions. For a norm

to be designated as customary international law, two requirements have to be met. First, state practice must demonstrate that states adhere to the norm in question. Second, the states must comply with the standard because of a sense of legal obligation known as opinio juris, otherwise their prior compliance may be merely coincidental rather than reflective of an underlying legal commitment. Each requirement has its own difficulties. State practice is problematic for human rights norms because states generally violate the human rights standards; hence if a state practice of respecting human rights standards is necessary, it may seldom, if ever, be possible to proclaim that a given norm is part of customary international law. Consequently, Philip Alston and Bruno Simma argue that state practice should be interpreted as the public pronouncements of state officials regarding state practice, rather than actual practice. The concept of opinio juris is somewhat murky and leads to a temporal paradox. If a norm is part of customary international law, that is because there is opinio juris, but prior to the moment when a legal obligation is recognized, the state was adhering to the norm that it mistakenly presumed to be legally binding (but it was not yet). Despite the challenge of identifying customary international law norms, some human rights are considered to be part of this corpus of law, namely, the rights against genocide, slavery, torture, and piracy. Other rights are said to be emerging. Whereas treaties are only binding on those states that have ratified them, customary international law has the advantage of being binding on all states, by definition. When a treaty represents the codification of customary international law, the human rights norms are technically both conventional, as well as customary. States may try to avoid being bound by human rights standards in the case of treaties, by entering reservations to provisions that they find unacceptable. This is allowed as long as the article in question is not central to the ‘object and purpose’ of the treaty. In the case of customary international law a state may try to evade human rights standards by being what is known as a ‘persistent objector’. If the international community accepts a state’s frequent protestations that it will not be bound, the state may be permitted not to respect a particular standard that would normally be considered binding on all states. The UN plays a crucial role in the progressive development of new international human rights instruments. For instance, the International Law Commission (ILC) and the Commission on Human Rights (see below) have drafted new conventions. Human rights treaty committees (see below) develop interpretation of norms through issuance of general comments on particular articles in the treaties they enforce. For example, because there has been a concern that states have

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entered too many reservations to human rights treaties, the Human Rights Committee, which enforces the provisions of the ICCPR, issued a general comment that recommends that the use of such reservations be minimized to the greatest extent possible.

Human Rights Machinery UN Institutions Nation-states dominate the international system. This makes it exceedingly difficult for individuals to challenge violations of human rights because the state plays a dual role as both the protector and the violator of human rights. Since only states may submit disputes to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), and most often states violate the human rights of their own citizens, it is unrealistic to expect them to enforce human rights standards adequately. Consequently, the emergence of human rights institutions that review petitions from individuals whose human rights have allegedly been violated is a remarkable and important development. The main international human rights institutions are based on either Charter provisions or specific human rights treaty provisions. UN Charter Article 68 mandated that the Economic and Social Council establish commissions designed to promote human rights. In 1947 the Human Rights Commission was created. Originally consisting of 18 members, by the 1990s it had 53 members. The gradual expansion reflected the need to have equitable geographical distribution. It is noteworthy that the individuals on the Commission on Human Rights were government representatives, meaning that they served as officials of their governments and not in an independent capacity. Early on the Commission on Human Rights played a crucial standard-setting role by drafting new international instruments. Although it suffered a self-inflicted wound in 1947 when it concluded that it lacked the power to investigate human rights violations, it gradually acquired the ability to engage in monitoring functions. After 20 years the position of the Commission that it had ‘‘no power to take any action in regard to any complaints concerning human rights’’ was questioned. Two procedures were established: Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) Resolution 1235 authorized the consideration of violations in public debate before the Commission. The other, ECOSOC Resolution 1503 created a confidential procedure that permitted private consideration of situations that appeared to reveal ‘‘a consistent pattern of gross and reliably attested violations of human rights’’ in consultation with the governments concerned. Since the 1970s it has met annually to consider complaints filed by individuals alleging specific violations

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of human rights. ‘Thematic’ procedures evolved as well that permit careful study of specific types of human rights abuses. The Commission had some notable successes: it was responsible for drafting the early human rights treaties, it also played an important role in the worldwide condemnation of apartheid by calling for the imposition of economic sanctions on South Africa, it devised procedures for addressing the disappearances of many individuals in South America, and it established some fact-finding techniques that were indispensable for documenting gross violations of human rights around the world. The Sub-Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and the Protection of Minorities (since 1999 called Sub-Commission for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights) also met annually to ascertain which complaints should be referred to the Commission. It consisted of 27 members elected by the Commission from a list of nominees submitted by member states of the United States. Because these individuals served in their personal capacity, independent of their governments, this was the human rights institution most likely to be sympathetic to human rights issues. The SubCommission had many functions including sponsoring research, standard setting, and creating procedures for investigating human rights abuses. Technically, it was subordinate to the parent body, the Commission on Human Rights, and it had a complicated relationship with the Commission over the years. The SubCommission studied human rights problems and also helped determine UN responses to them. It devoted most of its time to reviewing allegations of violations. The Sub-Commission had working groups that evaluated particular issues such as communications (complaints), contemporary forms of slavery, the rights of indigenous peoples, traditions harmful to children, judicial independence, and detention. In addition to these thematic studies, the Sub-Commission has undertaken country-specific research as well, though this has often proven to be controversial. As the original name would suggest, the SubCommission consistently focused on the rights of minorities. In 1971 it appointed Francesco Capotorti as Special Rapporteur to write a report on the implications of Article 27 of the ICCPR, which is the main human rights provision concerning minority rights. It provides that: ‘‘Persons belonging to ethnic, religious, and linguistic minorities shall not be denied the right, in community with other members of their group, to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practice their own religion, or to use their own language.’’ Subsequently, the Commission asked the Sub-Commission to define the term ‘‘minority.’’ Jules Deschenes proposed in 1985 that the term exclude indigenous people, noncitizens, and oppressed majorities. No consensus on the precise definition emerged, but all

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concerned agreed that one ought to distinguish between indigenous and ethnic groups. A separate effort to develop standards for indigenous peoples resulted in the Draft Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Persons which the UN General Assembly adopted in September 2007 (143 votes in favor; 4 against: Australia, Canada, US, New Zealand). Religious minorities also have the Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Religious Intolerance. In 1992 the Sub-Commission helped draft the Declaration of the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities. Despite having labored to create various approaches for documenting and addressing human rights violations, the Commission on Human Rights came increasingly under attack for having become overly politicized. Other complaints were that its procedures were inefficient and unmanageable, that it did not act quickly enough when there were emergency situations, and that some of the members had poor human rights records. The Commission held its last meeting 27 March 2006. On 3 April 2006, due to growing dissatisfaction with the apparently dysfunctional Human Rights Commission, the United Nations discarded it. In May 2006 the United Nations Human Rights Council was established to handle the responsibilities previously assigned to the older mechanisms. That it was renamed as a Council signified that it was no longer subordinate to the Economic and Social Council and the Security Council but was rather a more authoritative, coequal body. Candidates for the Council were required to have their governments’ human rights records evaluated. The principle of geographic representation was incorporated: 13 seats for Africa, 13 for Asia, 6 for Eastern Europe, 8 for Latin America and the Caribbean, 7 for Western Europe and other countries. To avoid having individuals from countries with poor records, members of the Council had to pledge to promote human rights. When the US announced it would support but not seek a seat on the new Council, there was speculation that this was based on a fear of inspection at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The UN elected 47 countries to the Council. As for any change in substantive concerns, there was an expectation that the Council would pay attention to the right to development given the adoption of a resolution at the first meeting. On 18 June 2007, the Human Rights Council announced that it would replace the SubCommission with an Advisory Committee comprised of 18 members serving in their individual capacity. It also said it would continue using a confidential complaint procedure comparable to the ‘‘1503 procedure.’’ It also intended to establish two working committees, one to screen communication bringing to the attention of the Council ‘‘gross and reliably attested violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms.’’ Although some are

skeptical about whether the new machinery will avoid excessive politicization, it is premature to judge its potential efficacy or success. Human rights treaty bodies also play a vital role in the enforcement of the global standards. Each human rights treaty has its own committee that considers complaints filed under the instrument. This is sometimes only possible when the state being accused of the violation has ratified the Optional Protocol to the substantive treaty, giving the treaty committee the power to review the complaints about its conduct. The committee also reviews periodic reports filed by states in which they detail the extent to which their policies are in compliance with each of the articles in the treaty. It is within the purview of the committee, when problems are found, to work with states to make changes needed to improve human rights conditions. Despite the small size of a treaty committee, it has the potential to effect significant change. For instance, in 1992 the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Committee prevented the eviction of 19 000 families from their homes in the Dominican Republic. The committees also generate decisions which have jurisprudential significance which often take the form of general comments. Another key international institution is the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights that was established in 1994 in accordance with the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action. The Commissioner, appointed by the Secretary-General to a 4-year term, is subject to confirmation by the General Assembly. The Commissioner, who has the rank of Under-SecretaryGeneral of the UN, is responsible for supervising the Geneva-based Human Rights Center, coordinating all the UN human rights activities, and promoting international human rights. In 1998 the Commissioner had a budget of approximately $73 million and a staff of 300 employees. The first commissioner was Jose Ayala Lasso from Ecuador (1994–97), followed by Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland (1997–2003), Mr. Sergio Viewira de Mello (2002–03), Bertrand Ramacharan, Acting High Commissioner (2003–04) due to de Mello’s death in Iraq, and Louise Arbour (2004–present). The UN High Commissioner has been asked to intervene in trouble spots around the world. In 2007 it had regional offices in Bangkok, Thailand; Santiago de Chile, Chile; Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Almaty, Kazakstan; Beirut, Lebanon; Pretoria, South Africa; and Yaounde´, Cameroon. Although it was initially limited by a lack of resources, the influence of the Office of the UN High Commissioner has grown since it was created. Regional Institutions Regional human rights institutions have developed their own jurisprudence. The Council of Europe set up the

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system that relies on two major texts, the European Convention of Human Rights (entered into force in 1953 and ratified by 40 states) and the European Social Charter, which contains economic rights. This catalog of rights has been expanded by protocols. The European system originally operated with a commission, which engaged in fact finding, and a court, which heard appeals by states or the commission. Although the court at first had no power to issue advisory opinions, a limited power to do so was added by Protocol 2. When Protocol 11 entered into force in 1998, the commission and court were merged into a single court. The arrangement consists of a chamber and a Grand Chamber with somewhat complex jurisdictional rules. Further administrative reforms were authorized by Protocol 14 which was adopted in 2004. The European human rights system is considered to be the most well-established system, having decided 1560 cases as of 2006. By the end of 2007 there were approximately 103 000 cases pending. Most of its early cases concerned due process, such as pretrial detention, and the right to privacy. It has rendered decisions on many topics, such as terrorism, sexual orientation, freedom of expression, freedom of association, and torture. The first case to reach the Court was the Lawless Case, which involved the question of state derogations during national emergencies. Although the Court found that states parties had a ‘‘margin of appreciation,’’ it was not an unlimited power. The margin of appreciation doctrine in the European system has generated controversy. It involves a significant question: to what extent should nation-states have latitude to interpret provisions in the European human rights system so that they do not have to comply with the standards? Whereas the right of individual petition was originally optional for states parties to the European Convention, signatories are automatically bound by the interstate complaint process. Article 24 provides for an interstate procedure according to which a state can refer a breach of the Convention to the Commission. This means that ‘state A’, by ratifying the European Convention, agrees to be subject to investigation by the system if ‘state B’ files a complaint accusing state A of human rights violations under the Convention. By 1995 all parties to the European Convention had also accepted both the right of individual petition and the jurisdiction of the Court, Articles 25 and 46, respectively. Under Article 25 the Commission could process complaints from an individual, NGO, or group alleging violations of the Convention, provided the state in question had formally accepted the competence of the Commission to review applications. Although initially the Convention did not permit petitioners before the Commission to take their cases to the Court, when Protocol 9 came into force in 1994, it

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enabled individuals in a minority of states to do so (Protocol 11 subsequently superseded Protocol 9). The relationship between the European human rights machinery in Strasbourg and the European Court of Justice of the European Union is evolving. The European Court of Justice has rendered some decisions that have human rights implications, and relies on cases decided in the Strasbourg system. Furthermore, member states of the European Union have ratified the European Convention of Human Rights and have accepted the Court’s jurisdiction, which should minimize conflict between the two systems. Created by the Organization of American States (OAS) 50 years ago, the inter-American human rights system is based on the OAS Charter and the American Convention on Human Rights (entered into force in 1978 and ratified by 26 states). It differs from the European human rights system in important respects. In this system the individual petitions process is mandatory, but the interstate complaint procedure is optional. It has always had the power to issue advisory opinions (the European system acquired a limited power only recently). Perhaps most significant is that the inter-American system has had to contend with governments hostile to its human rights work. Whereas states of emergency are rare in the European context, they have been frequent in Latin America. The inter-American human rights system is known for having the most impressive fact-finding techniques. Among its most significant decisions is the landmark Velasquez Rodriguez case (1988), which involved the disappearance of Rodriguez in Honduras. The Inter-American Court held that a state is responsible if it fails to take steps to prevent human rights violations. This suggests that nonaction or omission by the state – that is, if a state fails to protect individuals within its borders from actions by private parties that violate their human rights – can also give rise to liability under international law. In addition to the European and inter-American human rights systems, there is an African Commission on Human and People’s Rights that was created by the Organization for African Unity in 1981. The (Banjul) African Charter of Human and Peoples Rights (ratified by 53 states, as of 2006) contains some rights not enumerated in the other regional and international human rights instruments, and the formulations of rights in the Banjul Charter differ somewhat. The African human rights system has not promoted human rights as energetically as some had hoped. The reports filed by states parties, for example, contained only formal law and not any accounts of how laws were put into practice. The main criticism of the African system has been that it lacks a serious enforcement mechanism, and, therefore, many believed it should establish a court. There was some progress in this direction. In January 2004 the Protocol

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Establishing an African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights entered into force because it received the requisite 15th ratification by the Union of Comoros. Commentators believe the Protocol will pave the way to the Court. On 2 July 2006, 11 judges were actually sworn in. There has been discussion about the relationship between the new African Court of Human and Peoples’ Rights and the African Court of Justice and also its relationship with the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights. Once the Court is operating fully, it may be able to address some of these longstanding concerns. This Court differs from the other regional tribunals, for example, insofar as some NGOs and individuals are expected to have some ability to bring matters to it. There is no question that the Court is much needed and that it could play a crucial role in addressing extreme violations of human rights such as genocide. While there are interesting statements of principles, for example, the Islamic Declaration of Human Rights (1968) and the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam, there is only a dormant Arab human rights apparatus. Likewise, Asian-Pacific NGOs met and adopted instruments, for example, the Asian Human Rights Charter (1998), but as of 2007 no government had accepted it. Neither has, as of yet, contributed much to the promotion of international human rights. There is serious debate about the desirability of regional human rights institutions. Those in favor argue that their normative principles are more likely to resonate with local cultures, that the enforcement will seem less imperialistic, and that investigation of alleged abuses is facilitated by regional institutions. Those opposed argue that the existence of multiple regional bodies will likely give rise to conflicting interpretations of human rights and that it will not be a trivial matter to harmonize divergent interpretations of specific human rights norms. Domestic Courts Domestic courts are another important institution for the enforcement of human rights. This method avoids some of the difficulties associated with enforcement of international law in international tribunals. Human rights law is used in national courts either as the basis of the decision or as an interpretive guide for domestic norms, for example, invoking human rights norms to clarify the meaning of the 8th Amendment prohibition of ‘‘cruel and unusual punishment.’’ In the United States treaty law has seldom been used because (1) the United States did not ratify some of the major treaties until the 1990s, (2) the US adheres to the non-self-executing treaty doctrine according to which ratified treaties do not come into effect until enabling legislation is enacted, and (3) the United States objects to the idea that Americans would be subject to international law in tribunals abroad. Instead of using

treaties, litigants have successfully invoked customary international law in US courts. The landmark case in the United States that established the propriety of relying on customary international human rights law was Filartiga v. Pena-Irala (1980). The former chief of police in Paraguay tortured the son of a prominent doctor to death. Dr. Filartiga and his daughter, assisted by the Center for Constitutional Rights, filed a lawsuit against the torturer, Pena-Irala, in federal district court in New York. The court ruled that it had jurisdiction under the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA), which gives US federal courts the authority to hear aliens’ tort claims involving a violation of the law of nations if it has jurisdiction over the defendant. The court awarded $10 million to Dr. Filartiga and his daughter. Although they were unable to collect this sum, the decision conveyed the symbolic message that human rights violations will not be tolerated. It paved the way for hundreds of other human rights lawsuits. In subsequent litigation, new issues have emerged, such as whether sovereign immunity bars lawsuits, whether nonstate actors can be held liable under international law, and whether this activity potentially interferes with the executive branch by threatening to undermine diplomacy. After the ‘Filartiga’ decision there was some question as to whether the Alien Tort Claims Act authorized human rights lawsuits of this kind. Federal Court of Appeals Judge Robert Bork, in Tel-Oren v. Libyan Arab Republic (1984), specifically challenged the idea that the statute permitted them. Although the Supreme Court declined to review the case, Congress clarified this matter when it passed the Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA) of 1992, which gives federal courts jurisdiction over human rights lawsuits involving torture, summary execution, and similar abuses. It empowers both aliens and also US citizens to bring suit. The TVPA is narrower than the ATCA with regard to the types of violations it covers, but it is broader because it allows US citizens to file suit. Had the US Supreme Court decided to hear the appeal in ‘Tel-Oren’, human rights advocates thought it might have prevented any further human rights litigation under ATCA. The US Supreme Court had another opportunity to put an end to ATCA human rights litigation in Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain (2004). The case involved a Mexican, Dr. Alvarez-Machain, who allegedly participated in the torture and murder of a Drug Enforcement Administation (DEA) agent and was subsequently abducted and transported to the US to stand trial. After he was acquitted in federal court in Los Angeles in 1992, he sued under ATCA, and the court awarded him $25 000 in damages. When appealed to the Supreme Court, the Court upheld the Alien Tort Statute, saying it did create a cause of action for a limited number of human rights violations, but said it was not appropriately invoked in

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this case because the right against arbitrary detention had not achieved the status of being a recognized norm of customary international law. As the Court left the door open, attorneys and organizations like the Center for Constitutional Rights have continued to bring important human rights lawsuits to US federal courts. Jurists believe plaintiffs bringing cases involving genocide, slavery, torture, and other violations of that magnitude are the most likely to succeed. Sovereign immunity has been held to bar lawsuits against leaders who have allegedly violated the human rights of their citizens. It prevents courts from exercising jurisdiction over cases involving atrocities committed by current and former leaders. In the US this matter is covered by the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) which does not include ius cogens violations as one of the exceptions to the application of immunity. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held in Siderman v. Argentina (1992) that because the US Supreme Court explicitly stated in Amerada Hess (1989) that the only permissible exceptions to sovereign immunity are those listed in the FSIA, immunity applies even when governments stand accused of gross violations of human rights. This question of whether leaders can be subject to the jurisdiction of courts has been problematic because the doctrine of sovereign immunity is a wellestablished rule in international law (in the US the act of state doctrine is a domestic analog). If this doctrine retains legitimacy, it will effectively undermine the ability of advocates to ensure the enforcement of international human rights. The landmark Pinochet case in the United Kingdom led, some say, to the demise of the doctrine of sovereign immunity. The litigation involved an attempt to bring to justice Augusto Pinochet, a former dictator, who was responsible for the deaths and disappearance of thousands in Chile. When Judge Garzon requested his extradition to Spain, so that Pinochet could be held accountable for atrocities, the question eventually turned on whether or not the UK court had jurisdiction. Eventually, after protracted litigation, the Law Lords, the court of last resort in the United Kingdom, ultimately ruled that sovereign immunity does not prevent courts from exercising jurisdiction for gross violations of human rights that occurred after the date when the Torture Convention was incorporated into the domestic English legal system. This was considered a monumental victory for the human rights movement. Even though the precedent is only binding in common law countries (nations in the civil law tradition do not adhere to the doctrine of stare decisis) and even though the case is technically only binding on courts in the UK, human rights advocates around the world hailed the House of Lords decision as signifying the end of sovereign immunity. There was a basic logic to the decision: if sovereign immunity does not

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constitute a defense against war crimes and crimes against humanity in a criminal proceeding, then it should not block civil litigation against human rights violators either. The case motivated others to seek justice by filing lawsuits against current and former heads of states and others responsible for gross violations of human rights, a phenomenon Naomi Roht-Arriaza calls ‘‘the Pinochet effect.’’ As a consequence of the Pinochet ruling, no dictator should feel safe traveling because he can no longer escape the jurisdiction of courts by invoking sovereign immunity. Victims of human rights violations have also tried to hold so-called nonstate actors accountable. Sometimes it has not been obvious whether the defendant is or is not a state. For instance, in Kadic v. Karadzic (1992), the district court dismissed allegations of torture, summary execution, genocide, and war crimes because it found no state action. However, in 1995 the US Court of Appeals reversed, because the court found that he was the leader of a de facto regime and therefore met the state action requirements for torture and summary execution and because the court held that the crimes of genocide and war crimes do not require state action. A dilemma that exists is that if the court considers a person to be a de facto leader in order to hold him responsible for conduct that must be state sponsored, the court thereby enshrouds the defendant with immunity. Human rights advocates also began to target corporations in domestic litigation. The most famous one to date was the Unocal case. In John Doe I. et al. v. Unocal, (1997) a federal judge held that a US company, Unocal, was responsible for gross violations of international human rights committed by a foreign partner, in this case a state-owned oil and gas company in Myanmar, the former Burma. That nonstate actors are held responsible under international law, represents an important development in the field. A significant aspect of the case was government complicity with Unocal’s actions. The Unocal litigation proceeded in both state and federal court for 8 years before settling out of court. Although Earthrights International, the human rights group representing the Burmese plaintiffs, and the plaintiff attorneys were pleased with the result, questions remain about some of the issues involved. This type of litigation may depend ultimately on the sort of human rights violations alleged, as some, like genocide, are defined in such a way that nonstate actors are clearly liable, whereas other abuses like torture have to be state sponsored. NGOs Nonstate actors are often the most serious champions of human rights. Indeed, NGOs play a critical role in raising consciousness about human rights. The largest global human rights NGO is Amnesty International, which has

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its headquarters in London. It concentrates on civil and political rights, primarily the rights of freedom of expression and assembly. A grassroots organization, Amnesty relies heavily on chapters’ letter-writing campaigns designed to pressure governments to release political prisoners from incarceration. The largest US NGO is Human Rights Watch, which is based in New York. Human Rights Watch is run by professional staff organized in different geographical and subject-matter units, such as Asia Watch, Middle East Watch, the Children’s Rights Project, Arms Control Project, and the Women’s Rights Project. Some other human rights organizations include the Minority Rights Group, Anti-Slavery International, the International Committee of Jurists, Cultural Survival, the International Committee of the Red Cross, Realizing Rights, and many others. They differ in the scope of their mandates, the nature of their collective actions, and the extent of their influence with governments. Despite differences of opinion about the proper role of human rights NGOs, there is no question that their research often affects decision making by governments, the UN, and regional human rights institutions. Their reports are read widely by these institutions, their staff members give testimony in legislatures, and they try to generate public support for human rights. They may also file amicus curiae briefs in court cases. Another important method of promoting human rights is through the foreign policy of nation-states. When states are displeased with the actions of others, they may impose economic sanctions, either bilateral or multilateral ones. This can be a desirable approach inasmuch as it avoids the use of force. It can, however, be unattractive if the sanctions end up hurting the individuals whose human rights are in question. Some commentators thought this was the case in South Africa and also in Iraq. Some governments collect human rights data to aid the foreign policy decision-making process. For instance, the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, which the US Department of State has compiled since 1977 and the religious freedom reports produced since 1999, are submitted to the Congress as required by law. In 1977 the reports were only for the 82 countries receiving US aid, but 20 years later, in 1997, 194 reports were submitted to Congress. In the United States responsibility for human rights data gathering in embassies was handled by the Bureau of Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs. In 1994 the Bureau was renamed the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. The data is compiled by the embassies and subsequently corroborated by State Department officers. The reports contain useful overviews of human rights conditions across the globe, although there are claims that the measures used to assess violations are politicized. Scholars have analyzed various measures to see what gives the most accurate picture of a nation’s human rights record.

Human Rights and Violence Humanitarian Intervention Many rules of international human rights law were designed to limit violence. Norms pertaining to humanitarian intervention, the law of war, and rules governing national emergencies show the logic of the international system with regard to the proper management of conflict. A perennial question is: When is intervention by one state in the territory of another justified in order to protect human rights? Most scholars prefer multilateral intervention to unilateral intervention because they consider it less susceptible to abuse. Indeed, the debate about whether customary international law permits humanitarian intervention has been contentious. The ICJ addressed the legitimacy of humanitarian intervention to protect human rights in its 1986 judgment in the Case Concerning Military and Paramilitary Activities in and Against Nicaragua. The World Court stated that the use of force to protect human rights, in the context of that case, could not be justified under international law. The entire premise seemed illogical: . . . the protection of human rights, a strictly humanitarian objective, cannot be compatible with the mining of ports, the destruction of oil installations, or again with the training, arming and equipping of the contras. The Court concludes that the argument derived from the preservation of human rights in Nicaragua cannot afford a legal justification for the conduct of the U.S. . . .

As for treaty-based justification, the United Nations Charter stipulates in Article 2(7) that the UN shall not intervene in ‘‘matters which are essentially within the jurisdiction of any state’’ but makes no mention of a similar prohibition for member states. Article 2(4) prohibits the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. It does not mention intervention per se. The UN can intervene if a situation poses a ‘‘threat to the peace’’ within the meaning of Article 39 of the United Nations Charter. Article 42 specifies what steps the UN Security Council may take, such as demonstrations, blockade, and other operations by air, sea, or land forces, in order to restore international peace and security. The Security Council invoked these powers when it imposed economic sanctions against Southern Rhodesia in 1968, and an arms embargo against South Africa in the early 1970s. In the Gulf War, the Security Council relied on Resolution 688 (1991), which made a reference to Chapter VII of the UN Charter, the Council’s obligation to maintain international peace and security. The decision to use force against another state can be justified if it is in self-defense. Although less well established is whether this right can be exercised before an

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attack occurs. The controversial doctrine of anticipatory defense was invoked, for example, in 1982, when Israel attacked a nuclear reactor in Iraq. In 2002 the United States relied on a similar argument; it invaded Iraq claiming this action was justifiable on the basis of preemptive force on the theory that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. Ostensibly the distinction between older doctrine of anticipatory self-defense and the newer policy, preemptive force, is that the former involved an imminent threat of imminent harm. When US forces did not discover any stockpile of weapons in Iraq, the Bush Administration then emphasized that Saddam Hussein had committed terrible acts including the use of nerve gas against the Kurds, the torture and killing of Iraqi citizens, and other gross violations of international human rights laws; the possibility that Iraq was the training ground for terrorists was also noted. While there has been substantial documentation of these horrendous acts, there was also grave concern about the conduct of US military personnel and private contractors. The Taguba Report provided extensive evidence of the extent of the abuses in the Abu Ghraib prison. The notorious photographs from the Abu Ghraib prison, revealing the sadistic treatment of those detained inside, shocked the international community. There were also documented killings of civilians as in the village of Haditha in Western Iraq in 2005. Media coverage of the Haditha killings led to court martials under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. In the Iraq war many companies supplied personnel, some of whom violated international law. This raised new questions about the application of global standards to private military contractors. In the United States there was a call for investigation into the role of companies such as Blackwater, one which was accused of responsibility for the deaths of civilians. Although Congress had enacted laws to clarify the fact that the contractors were subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice (the Military Extraterritorial Jusiction Act), the US government was slow to enforce the relevant laws. The Law of War There is some degree of overlap between humanitarian international law and international human rights law. The main difference between the two is that whereas humanitarian law only applies during wartime, international human rights law is always in effect. The law of war consists of customary international law norms dating back centuries. After World War II, states codified the law when they adopted the four Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949. Initially, some argued that the rules should apply to both civil and international conflicts, but in the end it was decided that they would not apply to ‘‘internal’’ armed conflicts. Some states were concerned

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that if the rules applied to internal conflicts, this would give rebels de facto status as belligerents and possibly even de jure legal recognition. Basically, states did not want to create a mechanism that would confer legitimacy on rebels. Since these same states were opposed to giving rebels prisoner of war status partly because they wanted to discourage rebellion, they persuaded the diplomatic conference to make the rules applicable only to international armed conflicts. The compromise, which became known as the ‘Common Article Three’ (because it is in all four Geneva Conventions), protects combatants and civilians during ‘‘non-international conflicts.’’ It sets forth a bill of rights for noninternational armed conflicts, and, at the time of its adoption, was considered to be a significant development. Because it is not clear precisely what constitutes ‘‘non-international armed conflict’’ and because states worried that rebels will gain international legal status as belligerents if Common Article Three is applied to their internal conflicts, the provision has not had the practical success desired. In the late 1970s there was an attempt to expand Common Article Three through two Additional Protocols (1977). Protocol 1 dealt with the phenomenon of anticolonial conflicts, so-called wars of national liberation. It was designed to recognize the international character of wars of national liberation based on the right of self-determination, a right so vital that it appears as Article 1 in both the ICCPR and the ICECSR. Western nations abstained when the final vote was taken, with only Israel voting against. Article 4 was controversial because it seemed to accept the notion of ‘‘just wars.’’ Protocol 2 (Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and Relating to the Protection of Victims of Non-International Conflicts), expands protections concerning medical personnel, judicial guarantees, and human treatment. A question about Protocol II has been what level of conflict triggers its application. One of the questions in the twenty-first century was to what extent the law of war applies to nonstate actors, as in the past it had generally been applicable to conflicts between states. With respect to those detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the Bush Administration claimed that the Geneva Conventions protections did not apply, primarily because those held there were designated as illegal enemy combatants. Attorneys like John Yoo argued for a new paradigm of illegal enemy combatants because terrorists, on his view, were neither soldiers nor civilians. According to a Presidential memorandum (7 February 2002), the Geneva Conventions did not apply to the conflict with Al-Qaeda and although they applied to the conflict in Afghanistan, the Taliban were treated as unlawful combatants. As illegal enemy combatants, that is, individuals who do not wear uniforms or carry their arms openly, they did not have the status of being prisoners of

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war, and could not benefit from the protections guaranteed by the Geneva Conventions, such as not being subject to prosecution for killing. The US government also relied on reservations to key treaties as a reason for denying protection to the detainees, even though some considered them invalid reservations because they were inconsistent with the object and purpose of the treaties. Furthermore, the US government argued that because they were held outside the US, they were also not entitled to constitutionally guaranteed due process protections. While some argue that the war on terror is neither an armed conflict between states nor a conflict of a noninternational character, others contended that the traditional law of war could be applied to terrorists without tremendous difficulty. Even civilians receive protections under the Fourth Geneva Convention and the Common Article Three. Consequently, those held in Guantanamo should have received, at the very least, the rights guaranteed to civilians, which include the right to a hearing before a magistrate and humane treatment. In short, the dominant view in international law was that the Common Article Three was intended to provide at least a basic minimum of protection in situations of conflict that did not otherwise fit the scope of coverage provided by the Geneva Conventions. According to this logic, enemy combatants should benefit from the protections afforded civilians under the Common Article Three. The US Supreme Court deals with questions about the extent to which international law and constitutional principles are applied to the detainees in a trilogy of cases. The first prisoners were taken to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, 11 January 2002. Although the Bush Administration did not release statistics about the number held, several hundred individuals from over 44 countries are believed to have been held there in indefinite detention. They were in a legal limbo, as the US government did not file charges against them; 5 years later charges were only filed against ten detainees. Most were held for over a year in deplorable conditions, and they were not allowed contact with their families or attorneys. The Center for Constitutional Rights took the lead in filing suits on behalf of the detainees. On 28 June 2004, the US Supreme Court vindicated their rights. In Rasul v. Bush the Court held that those held on Guantanamo Bay, Cuba were entitled to challenge the legality of their detention. In Hamdi v. Rumsfeld the Court concluded that detainees were entitled to challenge the legality of their detention in habeas corpus proceedings. Rumsfeld v. Padilla was dismissed on procedural grounds (the case should have been filed in South Carolina where Padilla was held rather than New York). The overall result was a great victory, as the US Supreme Court rejected the notion that the detainees were without legal recourse and ruled that they could challenge their detention in court. As Jonathan Hafetz eloquently states: ‘‘The broader principles underpinning

these cases suggest that neither citizenship nor the place of detention can conclusively determine the scope of available legal protections.’’ This reinforces the core idea of human rights, that they are not contingent on nationality, geographical location, or any other attribute. In response to the decisions the US government established Combatant Status Review Tribunals to decide if detainees were enemy combatants. On 30 December 2005, President Bush signed into law the Detainee Treatment Act. In Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the Court said the military commissions violated US and international law. The Common Article Three of the Geneva Conventions did apply to Guantanamo detainees. The case involved the question of whether the President had exceeded his authority by establishing the commissions without the support of Congress. To rectify that, Congress then passed the Military Commissions Act (MCA) which Bush signed into law on 17 October 2006. As it attempted to limit habeas corpus proceedings further, lawsuits were filed challenging the continuing denial of habeas corpus and the validity of the MCA of 2006. Some members of Congress disagreed with the Bush Administration. For instance, Senator Tom Harkin, a Democrat from Iowa, who introduced a bill to close the Guantanmo Bay detention facility in June 2007.

Human Rights during Civil Strife: Derogations When there is domestic turmoil and the law of war does not apply, the international law of human rights concerning states of emergency is used. Under these circumstances states will claim that they must suspend or ‘derogate from’ international human rights standards. Article 4 of the ICCPR, concerning the issue of when a public emergency threatens the life of the nation, permits derogation for some human rights, but not for fundamental ones such as the right to life, the right against genocide, the right against torture, the right against slavery, and the right against arbitrary arrest and detention. Article 15 of the European Convention on Human Rights also allows for derogations ‘‘to the extent strictly required by the exigencies of the situation’’ in the case of public emergency or in time of war. The American Convention on Human Rights contains Article 27, Suspension of Guarantees, which permits derogation ‘‘in time of war, public danger, or other emergency that threatens the independence or security of a State Party.’’ While its formulation seems to provide the easiest means of justifying derogation, the drafting history (travaux preparatories) suggests otherwise. All three treaties include the key concept of proportionality, permitting derogations only to the extent ‘‘strictly required by the exigencies of the situation.’’ All three also require formal notification of authorities who

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can monitor the implementation of the derogation policies. Where they differ is in the rights that they define as absolute rights that can never be suspended, that is, nonderogable rights. In August 2001 the Human Rights Committee issued a General Comment on Article 4 of the ICCPR specifying the necessary limits on derogations in a democratic society. It was remarkable that it disseminated the policy days before the tragic 9/11 attacks. One of its most noteworthy points is that certain rights can never be suspended, no matter what type of public emergency a state faces. One of these is the prohibition against torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment. The challenges to human rights policies such as this one in the twenty-first century will involve counterterrorism policies adopted in the aftermath of the tragic events associated with 11 September.

The International Criminal Court There has long been a need for an international court with the authority to enforce international human rights law and humanitarian law. For decades there were proposals on the table to establish a permanent international criminal court that would have the power to punish those responsible for the worst atrocities. In the aftermath of the genocides in the former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda when the international community established ad hoc tribunals to address the atrocities committed in these special locations, a perceived need to have a permanent institution to prosecute violators of these norms led to renewed efforts to establish such a tribunal. The arguments for its creation include: deterring future atrocities, avoiding the conflict of interest inherent in domestic court martials, and obviating the need to kidnap defendants to put them on trial, as in the Eichman and Alvarez-Machain cases, or to go through the cumbersome process of extradition, as in the Soering case. In July 1998 a preparatory conference met in Rome to finalize a statute for the proposed permanent international tribunal. One hundred and twenty states voted to approve the final document, and the International Criminal Court (ICC) was established in July 2002, a month after 60 states ratified the treaty. Article 5 of the Rome Statute of the ICC lists four categories of crimes which fall under the Court’s jurisdiction: genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and aggression. Situations can be referred to the ICC by states parties, the prosecutor, or the Security Council. As it does not have retroactive jurisdiction, it can only hear matters that occur after the point in time that the Rome Statute came into effect, that is, 1 July 2002. The ICC operates according to the principle of complementarity, which means that it can prosecute individuals if the state with jurisdiction over the matter is unwilling or unable to do so.

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Although the completion of the Statute was a victory, human rights advocates had some serious criticisms. First, the jurisdiction of the tribunal remained unclear because the conference did not interpret some of the crimes. Although crimes of aggression appear in the Statute, they are not defined. A concession to Security Council members wielding nuclear power resulted in defining war crimes so that they did not include any reference to nuclear weapons. In addition, landmines were excluded from the Statute, due to opposition by the United States, Russia, China, and Britain. Although the Statute mentions ‘‘enforced disappearances of persons’’ as a crime against humanity, there was an unfortunate stipulation that the disappearances may be prosecuted only if they occur for a ‘‘prolonged period of time.’’ Another controversy revolved around the child soldier provisions. Article 8(2)(e)vii of the Statute holds that it is a war crime to conscript or enlist children under the age of 15 in armed forces or groups or to use them in armed conflict, even though most human rights activists argued strongly for raising the age limit to 18. The United States led the campaign to lower the age to 15 because of its practice of recruiting 17 year olds. Despite the 15-year rule, the Statute specifies that the ICC will not have jurisdiction over children who were under 18 at the time of the alleged commission of crimes (Article 26). Another major criticism is that the Statute accepts the defense of superior orders in Article 33, even though this defense has never been recognized in international law and was rejected at the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals. The rationale for the defense is that soldiers should not be held responsible for crimes committed when they are following the orders of their superior officers. A potential inequity may result because the international tribunal, like the Yugoslav and Rwandan tribunals, will not have the power to impose the death penalty, even though domestic courts may wield this power. Consequently, the more senior officials, if prosecuted in the international criminal court, will face less severe punishment than would junior officers tried in national courts. It is noteworthy that there were earlier efforts to formulate a code of international crimes. Inspired by the Nuremberg principles, the ILC worked on a Draft Code of Crimes Against the Peace and Security of Mankind. In 1954 the ILC forwarded the document to the UN General Assembly, which took 27 years before sending it back to the ILC for elaboration. Another version was finished in 1991. It applies only to individuals, and not to states. A separate instrument, the Draft Articles on State Responsibility, includes a provision indicating that the prosecution of individuals for crimes against the peace and security of mankind does not relieve the state of responsibility under international law.

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Although the ICC has only been in operation a few years, four situations have been referred to the Prosecutor. Three were submitted by states parties about problems within their borders. The Security Council referred the situation in Darfur because Sudan is not a party to the Rome Statute. After undertaking some research, the Prosecutor began to investigate three of them – in Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Darfur, Sudan. In July 2005 the office began to issue arrest warrants. The ICC is considered a remarkable achievement in the international community. One innovation was including sexual violence in the definition of crimes against humanity in Article 7(1)(g). The Statute lists various forms of sexual violence as crimes against humanity: rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity. The term ‘‘forced pregnancy’’ was included although antiabortionists expressed concern that this phrase would imply support for legal abortion. Outspoken opponents included the Vatican, Ireland, and antiabortion NGOs. In reality the Statute in Article 7(2)(f) says that the definition of forced pregnancy shall not in any way be interpreted as affecting national laws relating to pregnancy. Inclusion of the phrase was considered an important victory because the practice of forced pregnancy was a key strategy in ‘ethnic cleansing’ policies in the former Yugoslavia; soldiers deliberately raped women of the enemy ethnic group, forcing them to carry the pregnancies to term. The idea was to change the ethnic composition of the population (as the child had the father’s identity). Women were rejected by their husbands and communities; they either rejected the offspring or in interviews said they would raise them to retaliate against their fathers. International lawyers also insisted that rape be recognized as a war crime. Although the ad hoc international criminal tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda were somewhat hesitant to do so, rape is considered a war crime in the statute of the ICC. Another innovation was allowing victims to participate in the legal proceedings and to receive reparations. The ICC is also expected to establish a trust fund for victims of atrocities.

Human Rights Issues Of the many significant human rights issues, one of the most troubling is certainly genocide. Despite the best efforts of well-intentioned human rights advocates, genocide continued into the twenty-first century. There is no question that international law proscribes genocide, a term coined by Raphael Lemkin. The right against genocide is a ius cogens norm, it is part of customary law, and it is codified in the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and

Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in Article 2. It means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, as such: genocide is broadly defined to include killing, physically harm, forcible adoption or transfer of children, and preventing births within a group as with compulsory sterilization. The conceptualization requires an intent to destroy the group in whole or in part. As a political matter, governments have been reluctant to apply the term to situations because this requires action on their impact. Even when it is clear there is an international obligation to intervene on humanitarian grounds, multilateral action has been sorely deficient. In 1995 during the tragic Rwandan genocide 800 000 people were killed in a few months. The international community also proved to be incapable of stopping the genocide carried out under the euphemistic policy of ‘ethnic cleansing’ in the former Yugoslavia. When the ICJ took up the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia, in a major contentious case, it ruled in a decision by Chief Judge Rosalyn Higgins that the massacres constituted genocide under the Convention, but concluded that Serbia could not be considered complicit; however Serbia had violated its international obligations to prevent genocide, to hand over Mladic over to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and to institute the provisional measures ordered by the ICJ. Although international attention later was focused on the plight of many suffering in Darfur, Sudan, in late 2007 there was no end in sight to the genocide underway there. The mobilization of shame again was an insufficient catalyst to mobilize the international community. The failure of governments to ensure the protection of political freedom of their citizens has often given cause for alarm. In many parts of the world governments deny individuals the right to petition for redress of grievance, to criticize the government, and to associate with others in groups deemed subversive. Some human rights organizations measure the extent of censorship in their indexes. Freedom House is a conservative organization that provides data scoring the relative degree of repression in various regimes. In the academy there have been debates about the proper way to measure the human rights records of specific political systems. As the human rights movement depends on media coverage of atrocities to inspire action to rescue victims of human rights violations, freedom of the press is another important human right. Information about the extent of media freedom can be found in reports issued annually by groups such as Freedom House and the Committee to Protect Journalists. NGOs monitor attempts to silence journalists who cover human rights abuses. The Committee to Protect Journalists publishes reports and a magazine, Dangerous Assignments. Although focusing media attention on human rights

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violations is presumed to result in the ‘mobilization of shame’, this does not always occur. Scholarship such as that of Stanley Cohen, identifies mechanisms by which observers absolve themselves of responsibility so that they do not feel compelled to act. Prisoners’ Human Rights In the field of human rights fact finders often begin their missions by visiting prisons. That is because of the expectation that incarcerated individuals are likely to be the worst treated in any society. Among the many forms of inhumane treatment to which prisoners are known to have been subjected are medical experimentation, the harvesting of their organs, as in China, and brutal physical abuse. The international community promulgated model rules, the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, designed to improve the conditions if states incorporated them into their domestic systems, but inhumane conditions persist throughout the world. Although there has long been serious concern about prison conditions as a human rights issue, the events that transpired after 11 September 2001 intensified these concerns. During the US war against Iraq individuals taken into custody were placed in facilities where torture was used. Abu Ghraib was one of the most notorious of these. This revived a debate about the limits of coercive interrogation and also the defense of superior orders, long considered illegitimate in international law. While human rights advocates emphasized that the right against torture is a peremptory norm and nonderogable right, some American scholars and policymakers argued for the use of torture as a necessary part of the ‘War on Terror’. Debate raged over what constituted legitimate methods of interrogation. In one of the Torture Memos the attorneys narrowed the scope of what constituted torture, arguing that only techniques that resulted in major organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or death would be considered illegal. Psychological harm would only count as mental torture if it lasted months or years. Counterterrorism policies were also subject to other human rights criticisms. There was a lack of due process for those held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. US government lawyers argued that the prisoners were not entitled to raise habeas corpus challenges to question the legality of their detention. As discussed above, the US Supreme Court rejected the Bush Administration position that those held on a military base outside the United States could be denied fundamental rights such as the right to a fair trial, the right to counsel, and others. Access to justice was also problematic for those inmates who were held in secret prisons in European countries that prohibit torture and then transferred to countries in the Middle East without policies proscribing

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harsh forms of coercive interrogation. The covert transfer of prisoners by extrajudicial means is a policy that came to be known as extraordinary rendition and also ‘outsourcing torture’. Although the US government denied official use of extraordinary rendition, a policy dating back to the Clinton Administration, the Washington Post revealed that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was holding alleged terrorists in secret prisons in Poland and Romania (November 2005). The European Union condemned those who cooperated with the implementation of the policy (14 February 2007). The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Manfred Nowak, the Secretary General, and the High Commissioner for Human Rights, all expressed grave concerns about the practice. Not only does it violate Articles 7, 9, and 10 of the ICCPR that prohibit arbitrary detention, torture, and inhuman treatment, but it also clearly violates Article 3 of the UN Convention Against Torture and Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment that provides that ‘‘No state shall expel, return (‘refouler’) or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.’’ Several countries including the US, UK, Canada, France, Sweden, and Kyrgystan were criticized for deporting alleged terrorists to countries such as Egypt, Syria, Algeria, and Uzbekistan. Although states must institute procedures to prevent terrorism, the UN insisted that they have to confirm to the requirements of international law. Reinforcing this message, the Eminent Jurists panel of the International Commission on Jurists noted that the adoption of counterterrorism policies had a disproportionate effect on Muslim communities and recommended that the policies be reformulated to be consistent with the principle of antidiscrimination. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed suit on behalf of some held under the rendition policy in late 2007. In one case appealed to the US Supreme Court, El-Masri v. Tenet, the ACLU argued that CIA Director George Tenet and the corporations that owned the aircraft violated US and international law when they allowed El-Masri to be taken forcibly by plane to a secret prison in Afghanistan for questioning. Those held in penal institutions often experience the most extreme violations of human rights. Because of their predicament, it is exceedingly difficult for them to challenge the legality of their incarceration. Another human rights movement affecting those in the criminal justice system is the international campaign to abolish the death penalty. This was evidenced by the completion of the Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty, the Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights to Abolish the Death Penalty, Protocol 6 to the European Convention on Human Rights, and the abolition of the

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death penalty for juveniles in virtually all legal systems across the globe. At present, the death penalty is not per se a violation of international human rights law, but through the progressive development of international norms, it may eventually be. A related issue has been the failure of states to notify foreign defendants in the United States that they had a right to be in contact with their consulates. When individuals were convicted of crimes and sentenced to death, they would then argue that the prosecution had been in violation of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. For example, the Breard case reached the United States Supreme Court and the ICJ on the question of whether the proceedings that led to the imposition of capital punishment constituted a violation of international law.

Equality and Nondiscrimination Human rights institutions have begun to address rights against discrimination based on various social attributes like race, gender, disability, and sexual orientation, which had previously been ignored because of their controversial nature. Racism has been a dominant concern in human rights institutions. Issues of racial superiority permeated the atmosphere even at early UN meetings. Delegates from Asia, Africa, and South America experienced discrimination. It was considered a great achievement when the Commission on Human Rights completed the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination. Throughout the decades since the human rights machinery was established concerns remained about social equality, economic disparities, and racial hierarchies. At the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance held in Durban, South Africa in 2001 there was discussion of the devastating consequences of colonialism, particularly in Africa. The conference noted the predicament of indigenous peoples who have no real representation in the UN because it is state centered. Apartheid and genocide were condemned as crimes against humanity. Although there were plans to discuss caste, India lobbied against having this subject on the agenda. There was mention made of the special types of discrimination against women, children, individuals affected by HIV/AIDS. Although women’s rights were traditionally relegated to the Commission on the Status of Women, which was set up at the same time as the Commission on Human Rights, in the 1990s human rights institutions began to embrace women’s rights as well. In the 1990s there was a movement to focus attention on the experience of women. The World Conference in Beijing in conjunction with the publication of major works on women’s rights as human rights challenged the marginalization of women.

At the same time, international institutions began to place more emphasis on violence against women. In 1993 the General Assembly adopted a Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women. Pressure was brought to include gender-specific violence such as mass rapes in the statutes of the ad hoc tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda and in the statute for the Permanent International Criminal Court. The UN appointed a Special Rapporteur, Radhika Coomaraswamy, a distinguished Sri Lankan jurist, to document the global trends in violence against women, and she issued several reports on this subject. They show that the suffering of women takes many forms such as acid violence, honor killings, mass rapes, and trafficking in women and girls. Other special rapporteurs have continued to do fact-finding on these disturbing patterns of behavior. Tribunals have begun to recognize that violence against women constitutes violations of both international human rights law and the law of war. For instance, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in 1998 ruled in the Akayescu case that mass rape is a form of genocide. The Rome Statute of the ICC (see below) also incorporates this interpretation. In national contexts, because of increased awareness about the plight of women, Canada and the United States changed their immigration policies to permit women to seek political asylum on the basis of gender persecution. In the past political persecution was construed as deliberate acts to harm women. In the 1990s the failure of government to protect women from cultural traditions such as female genital cutting began to be considered grounds for political asylum. The landmark case in the United States that prompted the policy change was that of Fausiya Kasinga from Togo. The US government expanded its measure of human rights in the country reports to include violence against women, requiring amassing data on gender-specific violence. In the past, the predicament of women was that the violations of their rights took place in the ‘private’ realm of family, religion, or culture and thus were beyond the reach of the law. The trend toward holding governments accountable for the failure to protect women from harm perpetrated by private actors has helped break down the ‘public/private’ distinction. The particular human rights issues affecting children received increasing attention at the end of the twentieth century. The establishment of the International Journal on Children’s Rights published innovative scholarship documenting the specific topics. Although jurists have carried out research on questions such as right to refuse medical treatment, child marriage, and the child soldier, scholars have begun to tackle even more difficult topics such as the specific rights of the children who are the result of mass rapes.

Human Rights

The international community addressed minority groups whose concerns had been overlooked for a long time. For instance, a new treaty guarantees the rights of persons with disabilities, a group whose members have been among the most marginalized groups in society. Akiko Ito, Chief of the United Nations Global Programme on Disability in the Division of Social Policy and Development Chief, coordinated a series of meetings around the world to canvass experts and public about whether there was a need for a new treaty. The campaign culminated in the UN adoption of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in March 2007. The process of ratification is underway, and an international meeting with disability rights NGOs met in Seoul in September 2007 to discuss the prospects for implementation. Although there is as of yet no treaty for gays and lesbians, the rights of sexual minorities have been recognized in major court decisions in appellate courts and regional human rights institutions. The worldwide trend toward the acceptance of same-sex marriage became part of mainstream political discourse. Despite the backlash against decisions favoring gay and lesbian rights in a few places, there is much greater acceptance of the notion that rights of sexual minorities must be protected. The victories generally turn on more expansive interpretation of principles such as equal protection, nondiscrimination, and privacy. Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights Although economic rights have sometime been treated as aspirations because governments lack the resources to provide them, there is increasing recognition of the importance of subsistence rights. Although the ILO efforts to safeguard some labor rights predates the modern human rights machinery, labor rights have received increasing attention. Advocates focus on topics such as child labor, pay equity, and inhumane working conditions. One of the most significant achievements was the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of Migrant Workers which reflects the social movement toward greater recognition of labor rights. In addition, NGOs like Anti-Slavery International focus on working conditions that constitute slavery-like practices. For instance, boys have been abducted from Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan to work as camel jockeys in the United Arab Emirates and other Gulf states. This practice, in violation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and ILO Convention 29 on Forced Labor and ILO Convention 138 on Minimum Age, has apparently been brought to a halt. Human rights NGOs have challenged corporations for instituting practices that violate fundamental human rights, in some cases with government complicity, for example, forced labor in Myanmar. Women have

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experienced humiliating treatment such as preemployment pregnancy testing in Mexico designed to prevent their hiring pregnant workers. In 2000, when Sudan banned women working in public places, an international outcry led the government to rescind the policy. Corporations have sometimes responded to public criticism of their labor practices. When it became known that most soccer balls were stitched by young children in Pakistan, Reebok orchestrated a campaign to halt the sale of balls made by children. Many brands in the US now carry a label saying ‘‘No child or slave labor used on this ball.’’ There remains skepticism about the efficacy of Corporate Codes of Conduct because they are followed on a voluntary basis. Self-regulation is not a reliable basis for ensuring compliance with international human rights standards. Another issue that the human rights community embraced was human rights and the environment, even though ecological issues had usually been handled by the UN Commission on Sustainable Development. In the 1990s Fatma Zohra Ksentini, the UN Special Rapporteur, conducted research on the relationship between human rights and the environment. Her final report was an important contribution in many ways because of its documentation of phenomena such as ‘environmental refugees’ (individuals forced to move because of environmental degradation), its compilation of 50 national constitutional provisions guaranteeing a right to a clean environment, and an appendix, ‘A Draft Declaration of Principles on Human Rights and the Environment’. In the twenty-first century advocates developed a movement to bring together health concerns and human rights. A journal, Health and Human Rights was established at the Harvard School of Public Health. A number of books appeared such as: Health and Human Rights: A Reader, Health Policy in a Globalising World, War or Health? A Reader and The Right to Health as a Human Right in International Law. Topics that are part of this new field include medical experimentation and informed consent, blood policy, biotechnology, the sale and theft of organs, bioterrorism, access to drugs and the Doha Declaration, gun violence, and reproductive rights. The related right to water has emerged on the horizon as a crucial component of the health and human rights campaign. Conflicts between rights have also occurred giving rise to heated debate. Cases involving hate speech put this issue in stark relief as there is a basic tension between two human rights, namely the right to racial equality and the right to freedom of speech. For example, should newspapers publish cartoons portraying religious figures if this is highly offensive to the followers of that religion? This was precisely the issue in the Danish cartoons controversy. It was reminiscent of the earlier case, Jersild v. Denmark, in which the European Court of Human

984 Human Rights

Rights decided whether punishing the media for airing televised interviews with racist youth known as the ‘Greenjackets’ violated the principle of freedom of expression. The European Court of Human Rights ruled 12 to 7 that there had been a violation of Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights. Laws prohibiting denial of the Holocaust implicate similar rights considerations. Increasingly European states have enacted policies banning Holocaust denial, according to which it is not a protected form of speech. In 2007 the European Union adopted new legislation that made Holocaust denial punishable by jail sentences, and the General Assembly of the UN adopted a resolution condemning any denial of the Holocaust (26 January 2007). This may not resolve the conflict, as there has been debate about the scope of the application of the policies. The field of human rights has become institutionalized in government and academe. There are professional journals such as the Human Rights Quarterly in which scholars and policymakers publish new paradigms, analyses of mechanisms, and proposed techniques for enforcement. Law schools have human rights clinics that train students in advocacy, for example, the University of Cincinnati College of Law with its Urban Morgan Institute and the Schell Center at Yale Law School. Universities have also launched new interdisciplinary programs in human rights, for example, the London School of Economics, the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Connecticut, Storrs, and the University of Essex. The field of human rights is relatively new, and there were remarkable successes in the twentieth century. Within the UN, regional bodies, and domestic politics systems, there were great strides made in standard setting in many different areas and the creation of permanent human rights institutions. One of the most exciting developments has surely been the establishment of the permanent ICC which has enormous potential to enforce global standards. Although it remains to be seen whether the International Human Rights Council can overcome the difficulties of its predecessor, the fact that an international body persists within the UN at a high level attests to the enduring importance of human rights. In the twentyfirst century the challenge will be the enforcement of the new law. The responsibility for upholding global standards rests not only with lawyers but with people in all fields as this is an interdisciplinary endeavor. The mainstreaming of human rights in many disciplines also reflects the growing importance of this normative framework.

Conclusion The notion of human rights has become a well-accepted idea across the globe. Human rights advocates have had notable success at both standard setting and enforcement.

One of the major tasks which lies ahead is that of harmonizing human rights, given the conflicting interpretations of particular norms in a multicultural world. Where there is a clear consensus on human rights, governments cannot justifiably circumvent those standards which have been universally embraced. As cross-cultural agreement legitimizes global standards, there is an urgent need to create more effective enforcement mechanisms to protect vulnerable peoples around the world. See also: Civil Society; Collective Security; Moral Judgments and Values; Peace Organizations, Non-Governmental; War Crimes

Further Reading Alston, P. (ed.) (1992). The United Nations and human rights: A critical appraisal. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide: Bosnia and Herzegovina vs. Serbia and Montenegro (2007). Bozeman, A. B. (1971). The future of law in a multicultural world. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Bradley, P. M. and Petro, P. (2002). Truth claims: Representation and human rights. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Brody, R. and Ratner, M. (eds.) (2000). The Pinochet papers: The case of Augusto Pinochet in Spain and Britain. The Hague: Kluwer Law International. Bruno, S. and Alston, P. (1992). The sources of human rights law: Custom, Jus Cogens, and general principles. Australian Year Book of International Law 23, 82–108. Compa, L. A. and Stephen, F. D. (eds.) (1996). Human rights, labor rights, and international trade. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Caportorti, F. (1979). Study on the rights of persons belonging to ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities. UN Sales No. E78.XIV.1. Carpenter, R. C. (2007). Born of war: Protecting children of sexual violence survivors in conflict zones. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press. Conant, L. (2006). Individuals, courts, and the development of European social rights. Comparative Political Studies 39, 76–100. Cook, R. J. (ed.) (1994). Human rights of women: National and international perspectives. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Dallmeyer, D. G. (ed.) (1993). Reconceiving reality: Women and international law. Washington, DC: American Society of International Law. Danieli, Y., Stamatopoulou, E., and Dias, C. J. (eds.) (1999). The universal declaration of human rights: Fifty years and beyond. Amityville, NY: Baywood Publishing Company. Danner, M. (2004). Torture and truth: America, Abu Ghraib, and the war on terror. New York: New York Review of Books. de Neufville, J. I. (1986). Human rights reporting as a policy tool: An examination of the state department country reports. Human Rights Quarterly 8, 681–699. Degener, T. and Koster-Dreese, Y. (eds.) (1995). Human rights and disabled persons: Essays and relevant human rights instruments. Dordrecht, Boston, and London: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. Donnelly, J. (1982). Human rights and human dignity: An analytic critique of non-Western conceptions of human rights. American Political Science Review 76, 303–316. Eide, A., Alfredsson, G., and Melander, G. (eds.) (1993). The universal declaration of human rights: A commentary. Norway: Scandanavian: University Press. Emerson, R., Christine, A., Andrew, B., and Jane, C. (eds.) (2005). International women’s rights cases. London: Cavendish; Routledge, 2007.

Human Rights Hafetz, J. L. (2005). The Supreme court’s enemy combatant decisions: Recognizing the rights of non-citizens and the rule of law. Temple Political and Civil Rights Law Review 14, 409. Hannum, H. (1990). Autonomy, sovereignty, and self-determination: The accommodation of conflicting rights. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Henkin, L. and Hargrove, J. L. (eds.) (1994). Human rights: An agenda for the next century. Washington, DC: American Society of International Law. Hersh, J. (1969). Birthright of man: A selection of texts. New York: UNESCO. Human Rights Committee (1994). General comment on issues relating to reservations made upon ratification or accession to the covenant or the optional protocols, or in relations to declarations under article 41 of the covenant. International Legal Materials 34(IX.M.): 839 (1995). Humphrey, J. (1984). Human rights and the United Nations: A great adventure. Dobbs Ferry, NY: Transnational Publishers. Ito, A. (2007). Future implementation of the United Nations International Convention on disability: Promoting the human rights of persons with disabilities in development. International Studies Review 8(1). Jabine, T. and Richard, C. (1992). Human rights and statistics: Getting the record straight. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Kahn, R. A. (2004). Holocaust denial and the law: A comparative study. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Korey, W. (1998). NGOs and the universal declaration of human rights: A curious grapevine. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Ksentini, F. Z. (1994). United Nations Economic and Social Council Final Report, Special Rapporteur, Annex I, Draft principles on human and the environment, pp 74–78, E/CN.4/Sub.2/ 1994/9. Lauren, P. G. (2007). To preserve and build on its achievements and to redress its shortcomings: The journey from the commission on human rights to the human rights council. Human Rights Quarterly 29(2), 307–345. Lauren, P. G. (1998). The evolution of international human rights: Visions seen. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Laqueur, W. and Rubin, B. (eds.) (1989). The human rights reader, revised edn. New York: New American Library. Lockwood, B. B. (2006). Women’s rights. A human rights quarterly reader. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Mayer, J. (2005). Outsourcing torture: The secret history of America’s extraordinary rendition program. The New Yorker, 105–121. McGoldrick, D. (1994). The human rights committee: Its role in the development of the International Covenant on civil and political Rights. Oxford: Clarendon. Meckled-Garcia, S. and Basak, C. (eds.) (2006). The legalization of human rights: Multidisciplinary perspectives on human rights and human rights law. London: Routledge. Merry, S. (2005). Human rights and gender violence: Translating international law into local justice. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Mutua, M. (2002). Human rights: A political & cultural critique. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Panikkar, R. (1982). Is the notion of human rights a western concept? Diogenes 120, 75–102. Peerenboom, R., Carole, J. P., and Albert, H. Y. C. (2006). Human rights in Asia: A comparative legal study of twelve Asian jurisdictions, France, and the USA. London: Routledge. Pollis, A. (1996). Cultural relativism revisited: Through a state prism. Human Rights Quarterly 18, 316–344. Pollis, A. and Schwab, P. (eds.) (1979). Human rights: Cultural and ideological perspectives. New York: Praeger. Rajagopal, B. (2003). International law from below: Development, social movments and third world resistance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ratner, S. R. and Jason, S. A. (2001). Accountability for human rights atrocities in international law: Beyond the Nuremberg legacy, 2nd edn. New York: Oxford.

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Rasul vs. Bush, 542 U.S. 466 (2004). Renteln, A. D. (1990). International human rights: Universalism versus relativism. Newbury Park: Sage Publications. Reisman, W. M. and Armstrong, A. (2006). The past and future of the claim of pre-emptive self-defense. American Journal of International Law 100, 525–550. Rodley, N. (2000). The treatment of prisoners under international law, 2nd edn. New York: Oxford University Press. Roht-Arriaza, N. (2005). The Pinochet effect: Transnational justice in the age of human rights. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Rosencranz, A. and Louk, D. (2005). Doe v. Unocal: Holding corporations liable for human rights abuses on their watch. Chapman Law Review, 130–147. Stephens, B. and Ratner, M. (1996). International human rights litigation in US Courts. Irvington-on-Hudson, NY: Transnational Publishers. Tolley, H., Jr. (1987). The UN commission on human rights. Boulder and London: Westview Press. Roosevelt, E. (1958). On my own. New York: Harper. United Nations (1994). Human rights: A compilation of international instruments., vol. 1, parts 1 and 2: Universal Instruments. New York and Geneva: United Nations. UNESCO (1949). Human rights: Comments and interpretations. London: Allan Wingate. United Nations (2007, August 31). General Comment No. 29 States of Emergency (Article 4). CCPR/C/21/Rev.1/Add.11. Vela´squez Rodri´guez case, Judgment of July 29, 1988, InterAm.Ct.H.R. (Ser.C) No.4 (1988). Welch, C. E., Jr. (2001). NGOs and human rights: Promise and performance. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Welchman, L. and Hossain, S. (eds.) (2005). ‘Honour’ crimes, paradigms, and violence against women. Victoria: Spinifex Press. London: Zed Books. Wilson, R. J. (2005). Defending the detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Human Rights Brief 12 , 1.

Relevant Websites http://material.ahrchk.net/charter/ – Asian Human Rights Charter. http://www.cpj.org – Committee to Protect Journalists. http://www.unhchr.ch – Convention against Torture and Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. http://www.coe.int/t/dc/files/themes/cedh/default_en.asp – Council of Europe. http://www.echr.coe.int – European Court of Human Rights. http://news.bhc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/country_profiles/ 4789300.stm – European Court of Human Rights. http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=1 – Freedom House. http://hrw.org – Human Rights Watch. http://www.icc-cpi.int/home.html – International Criminal Court. http://www.ohchr.org – Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. http://www.uscirf.gov – US Commission on International Religious Freedom. http://www.un.org/disabilities/ – UN Secretariat on the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilites.

I Identity Politics See Ethnicity and Identity Politics

Imperialism See Colonialism and Imperialism

Indigenous Peoples’ Responses to Conquest Franke Wilmer, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT, USA ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction Who are Indigenous Peoples? Indigenous Peoples and Conquest Indigenous Peoples’ Responses in Settler States

Glossary A Priori Rights Rights that are assumed to precede, and thus take precedence over other rights. Under international law, some states argue that the exercise of self-determination by indigenous peoples cannot disrupt the existence of the state, for example, by their attempting to claim a right to secede or withdraw from the state, since the state existed prior to the granting of self-determination to indigenous peoples. Indigenous peoples counter this claim by asserting that they were self-determining prior to the creation of the state, and so their rights have an a priori status. Global South Those states created in the middle of the twentieth century formerly referred to as ‘Third World’ who share the common experience of having been colonized, and now with generally lower levels of economic development compared to the industrialized states, many of which are former colonial powers or benefited from the economy of European colonization. Indigenous Refers to the people who lived in self-determining societies in an area prior to European colonization, and, subjected to domination and ‘conquest’ by European settlers, have struggled to regain self-determination and land and resource rights following the establishment of a settler state.

Indigenous Resistance in Central and South America Conclusion Further Reading

NGOs or Nongovernmental Organizations International organizations whose membership is made up of individuals who represent only themselves and do not represent states. This contrasts with IGOs or International Intergovernmental Organizations like the United Nations whose members are states. Indigenous peoples have formed hundreds of NGOs as a consequence of their transnational and international activism and alliances. As many as 15 indigenous NGOs have been granted consultative status at the United Nations. Norms Refers to the sociological phenomenon where social practices over time become accepted as legitimate uses of power and authority. Pakeha Maori word for settlers. Its use has become widespread among both Maori and Pakeha people in New Zealand. It should also be noted that Maori refer to New Zealand by the Maori name of Aotearoa. Postcolonial States States formed in the aftermath of European decolonization, primarily since the creation of the League of Nations and the United Nations which sought to oversee the transition of colonized peoples to independence. Self-Determination An international term referring to the ability of a people or society to control its own

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988 Indigenous Peoples’ Responses to Conquest

political destiny. People living under colonial rule were deprived of self-determination and have made claims to restore it in the aftermath of decolonization. Settler States States created by European colonization where a settler population established dominance and controlled the process of state-building. These are mainly Canada, the US, New Zealand, Australia, and the states of Central and South America. Termination Policies Were pursued in the US aimed at ‘terminating’ the distinct collective existence of indigenous tribes and thereby assimilating individual indigenous peoples into the mainstream society. When a tribe was determined by the US government to be ‘ready’ for termination, it was usually offered monetary compensation in exchange for abandoning tribal claims to land and resources. The monetary settlement was

Introduction The past three decades have witnessed a burgeoning political movement among the world’s indigenous peoples. Indigenous representatives from every continent have mobilized in international, regional, and national arenas to protest, lobby, litigate, and in rare cases, forcefully resist state policies aimed at their assimilation, cultural destruction, and expropriation of their traditional territories. Whether such resistances are a continuation of centuries’ long struggles in settler states or mounted in the face of state-building in the Global South, indigenous peoples have never remained passive in confrontations with those who seek their cultural or physical destruction. In 1993, the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations produced a Draft Declaration on Discrimination Against Indigenous Peoples following two decades of work prompted by indigenous activism. Hundreds of indigenous representatives and nongovernmental organizations interested in the protection of indigenous peoples’ rights attend the yearly sessions at the UN aimed at drafting principles for a convention to protect indigenous peoples. Like virtually all areas of international human rights law, indigenous peoples’ rights would impose on states as the undertake obligations to observe certain restraints in the exercise of their power and authority. In 2000 the UN Economic and Social Commission (ECOSOC) established a Permanent Forum for Indigenous Peoples, which met for its first session in New York in May 2002. According to the Forum’s website: ‘‘The UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues is an advisory body to the Economic and Social Council, with a

also intended to assist individuals in establishing a new life for themselves apart from the tribe and within the mainstream society. Termination policies were initiated in the 1950s and by the mid-1960s successfully stopped by indigenous opposition. Terra Nullius A legal term referring to land that is considered undeveloped by human inhabitants and, literally, uninhabited. It was used to refer to aboriginal lands in Australia where the British Privy Council concluded that aboriginal peoples there were not fully human because their societies were judged by the British to be too primitive to constitute government power capable of asserting jurisdiction over land and resources. This allowed the legal justification for British colonization. The doctrine was overturned in 1993 by the Mabo case.

mandate to discuss indigenous issues related to economic and social development, culture, the environment, education, health and human rights.’’ A United Nations fellowship program for indigenous human rights advocates trained 75 activists from 37 countries in procedural and practical matters pertaining to the promotion and protection of human rights. The United Nations Development Program has affirmed a commitment to the inclusion of indigenous peoples in the design and implementation of UNDP-sponsored projects, and acknowledges the ‘‘distinct legal status and rights’’ of indigenous peoples. ILO ‘‘Convention (No. 169) concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries entered into force in 1991and is a legally binding international treaty’’. Representatives of 32 states, 12 UN agencies, and hundreds of indigenous organizations and NGOs attended the August 2003 session of the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations which focused on the theme ‘Indigenous Peoples and Globalization.’ Participants discussed indigenous peoples’ ‘‘permanent sovereignty over natural resources,’’ grounding their claims on not only the 1962 General Assembly resolution (1803) on that subject, but also earlier General Assembly resolutions in 1974 declaring a New International Economic Order and the ‘‘Charter of the Economic Rights and Duties of States.’’ They further referenced cases from the World Court, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the United Nations Human Rights Committee, and six cases from the domestic courts of the US. They concluded that the right was also consistent with fourteen other international legal documents and substantiated the claim of an indigenous right to

Indigenous Peoples’ Responses to Conquest 989

permanent sovereignty over natural resources in terms of a growing body of legal and official pronouncements of international norms. Some states have amended their laws or constitutions to include indigenous rights, though enforcement remains weak. The constitutions of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Paraguay, and Venezuela, for example, all address indigenous rights. The UN process is continuously plagued by contentiousness between states and indigenous representatives and the Decade of the World’s Indigenous Peoples closed without adoption of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Before examining international norms pertaining to the idea of conquest and indigenous peoples’ responses, we should clarify what is meant by ‘indigenous peoples.’

Who are Indigenous Peoples? In 1974 the National Indian Brotherhood in Canada organized and sponsored the first contemporary international meeting of indigenous peoples, and defined indigenous peoples as ‘‘. . . people living in countries which have a population composed of differing ethnic or racial groups who are descendants of the earliest populations living in the area and who do not as a group control the national government of the countries within which they live.’’ Since there are 4000–5000 distinct ethnic groups living in fewer than 200 states today, this definition could easily be applied to thousands of groups. The United Nations tried to develop a narrower definition of indigenous peoples to include those who had previously been referred to as ‘‘tribal,’’ ‘‘native,’’ or ‘‘aboriginal’’ peoples living in European settler states. This includes not only the native peoples of the settler states but also tribal peoples in the recently decolonized Global South who were self-governing prior to colonization but who do not now control their own political destiny. The question of who is indigenous has enormous political significance because state-building involves two assumptions about the state that diminish the selfdetermination of indigenous peoples. The first is that the state exists largely as a mechanism for appropriating resources for industrialization and capitalist development. This assumes a coherent and unified ‘national’ interest in industrialization, and is superior to the claims of subnational groups to use any resources within the territory of the state for their own purposes. Indigenous peoples do not necessarily oppose industrialization but rather claim a right to exercise self-determination over the use of resources they have used traditionally to support their ways of life. Their claims predate the creation of the state.

The second assumption is that the state has a legitimate interest in articulating and promoting a single national identity. In settler states this is often associated with ‘modernization’ schemes as well as in the nationbuilding process that accompanies state-building, and rationalizes the assimilation of indigenous peoples, thereby legitimating policies aimed at the destruction of their identities. Indigenous peoples become the targets of state policies that not only expropriate indigenous resources, but also aim at the destruction of their existence and identity as a people. Indigenous peoples’ resistances produce two historical patterns that characterize their political situation and relations with states today. First, some indigenous peoples live in settler states created by European colonization where a dominant population descended from European settlers now controls the political life of the state. Injuries to indigenous peoples in these states are a direct result of a settler population expanding its claim to territory and displacing indigenous people through a combination of public violence, war (often undeclared), and publicly sanctioned private violence as settlers moved into indigenous territories and violent clashes between settlers and indigenous peoples ensued. The second pattern involves postcolonial states where, after centuries of colonization, power was transferred from colonial governments to local elites who continue the ‘modernization’ and ‘development’ processes. These new local elites reproduce the settler–indigenous relationship and characterize indigenous groups who wish to remain distinct as ‘backward,’ legitimating them as targets for forced assimilation, relocation, and public and private violence. In the first case the subjugation of indigenous peoples and their resistance to it has taken place over several centuries, beginning with a period of initial contact during which there may have been treaties as well as violent confrontation. This is typically followed by a period of forced assimilation and relocation. Indigenous peoples in settler states today continue their resistance mainly through legal and political channels. In the second case, many indigenous peoples have only recently become the targets of official policies aimed at their assimilation and relocation. The situation of indigenous peoples in Central and South America represents a variation on these two patterns, since these states were also created as a result of colonial conquest. For a variety of reasons including geographic barriers, many indigenous peoples, like the Yanomamo, remained unintegrated or peripheral to state-building in Central and South American well into the second half of the twentieth century. Others, in Guatemala and Ecuador, for example, became embroiled in a struggle involving both cultural and class cleavages. The numbers and locations of indigenous peoples – approximately 300 million worldwide – render the topic much too large to cover in one article (see Table 1). This

990 Indigenous Peoples’ Responses to Conquest Table 1 Indigenous peoples: Locations and approximate numbers Region

Indigenous peoples

% of total

Central America Belize Costa Rica El Salvador Guatemala Honduras Mexico Nicaragua Panama Total

15 000 20 000 960 000 5 400 000 250 000 10 500 000 135 000 194 000 (17.7 million)

10 1 21 60 7 12.5 5 8

South America Argentina Bolivia Brazil Chile Colombia Ecuador French Guiana Guyana Paraguay Peru Surinam Venezuela

477 000 4 900 000 325 000 1 000 000 708 000 3 750 000 4 000 30 000 100 000 8 100 000 11 000 290 000

1.5 71.0 .2 9.0 1.0 37.0 4.0 4.0 3.0 39.0 2.9 1.5

Total

(19.7 million)

Asia Afghanistan (6.7 million Pathan, 300 000 Baluchis, 3 million Koochis) Bangladesh Burma India Indonesia Laos Malaysia (East) (Peninsula) Pakistan Phillipines Sri Lanka Taiwan Thailand Vietnam Japan (Ainu) China

600 000-1 500 000 11 000 000 51 000 000 1 500 000 800 000 500 000 71 000 7 700 000 6 500 000 2 000 310 000 500 000 800 000 50 000 67 000 000 (55 minorities)

Total

(159 million)

First World Australia Canada USA New Zealand Pacific Colonies Inuit Saami Total

250 000 1 100 000 1 900 000 300 000 500 000 112 000 58 000 (4.2 million)

10 000 000

CIS

1 000 000 northern peoples 6 000 000 Kazakhs 22 000 000 Turkick

Total

(29 million)

1 30 7 1 23 50 4 8 16 2 1 2

2.0 4.0 0.8 10.0

(Continued )

Indigenous Peoples’ Responses to Conquest 991 Table 1 (Continued) Region

Indigenous peoples

Africa (Partial) Nomadic herders including: Maasai, Tuareg, Bororo Afar Somali herders— in Arabia San (Bushmen) Botswana Namibia Angola Mbut and forest peoples

25 000 29 000 8 000 200 000

Total

(19.3 million)

% of total

14 000 000 5 000 000

Sources: Burger, J. (1987). Report from the frontier: The State of the world’s indigenous peoples. London: Zed Books, and Canada Year Book 1992, and Wilmer, F. (1993). The indigenous voice in politics: Since time immemorial. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications. (The World Bank uses a total of 230 million while the ILO uses a total of 300 million.)

article will therefore focus on the experience of indigenous peoples in settler states in order to illustrate the commonalities in indigenous–state relations over the longer historical period. The case of indigenous peoples in settler states is also instructive because it established norms that modernizing elites elsewhere implicitly and explicitly draw on as justification for their own policies aimed at the subjugation and assimilation of indigenous peoples.

Indigenous Peoples and Conquest While norms of conquest have been asserted as the basis for the domination of indigenous peoples, in practice European colonization was also accomplished in part by negotiating treaties with indigenous peoples. Treatymaking was erratic, arbitrary, and inconsistent. The first treaties in North America were negotiated between the Dutch and the Iroquois, and subsequently by the British and their successor settler states. An elaborate debate among sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spanish theologians on the status of indigenous peoples according to the ‘‘law of civilized nations’’ produced a justification for the conquest and subjugation of indigenous peoples without treaty-making. In the southwest United States, native sovereignty ‘passed’ from the Spanish to the Mexican and finally the US government – all without the consent of the indigenous peoples. In New Zealand the Treaty of Waitangi was viewed by the British as the abdication of native sovereignty, while for the Maori it was the basis for shared sovereignty and co-equal coexistence. In Australia the British Privy Council concluded that the continent was terra nullius or ‘‘unoccupied’’ because the aboriginal peoples did not constitute ‘‘peoples’’ with discernible (to the British) governments capable of asserting proprietary rights to land and resources. (This claim was finally

overturned by the Australian High Court in 1993, opening the door for the first time to indigenous land claims and initiating an indigenous–state dialog on the prospect of negotiating a contemporary treaty on aboriginal rights.) As the British, French, Belgians, Dutch, and Portuguese scrambled for dominance in Africa in the late 1800s, treaties of ‘‘friendship’’ and ‘‘tribute’’ were signed with African chiefs and headmen. Surprisingly, conquest remained a justification for dominance over indigenous peoples until very recently. When representatives of the Hopi and Navajo nations appealed to the United Nations Human Rights Commission to uphold their sovereign rights to land and self-determination, representatives of the US State Department in 1987 defended its claim that the United States was not accountable to recognize indigenous rights by asserting the applicability of the law of conquest. Although modern writers have been ambivalent toward the application of conquest to the contemporary law of nations, even the ancient Roman law of conquest on which any modern claims rest, holds that it can occur legitimately only after a ‘‘just’’ war between equals, such as nation-states. Eighteenth-century international lawyer Emerich deVattel argued that it could not be applied to the relationship between European powers and the North American indigenous peoples, asserting that to claim conquest one must be the victor in a war fought in selfdefense. Two contemporary developments leave no doubt that a law of conquest has no validity in contemporary international law: the coming into force of the UN Charter, and the emergence of the principle of selfdetermination, which liberates peoples who were formerly subjugated to colonial and imperial power. While in practice the UN and World Court have seemed reluctant to apply the principle of self-determination beyond the formerly colonized areas of the Third World, the spirit and intent of self-determination is to liberate

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peoples politically, socially, economically, and culturally subjugated by colonial practices. The 1960 General Assembly Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples holds that ‘‘the subjection of peoples to outside domination and exploitation constitutes a denial of fundamental human rights,’’ and that ‘‘all peoples have the right of self-determination; by virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.’’ The Declaration, however, is also careful to balance the right of self-determination with the a priori rights of the state by prohibiting ‘‘any attempt at the partial or total disruption of the national unity and the territorial integrity of a country,’’ holding that such action ‘‘is incompatible with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations.’’ Hesitancy to secure entitlement to self-determination for indigenous peoples follows not from any normative conflicts, but rather from the lack of political will on the part of states to do so. Indigenous assertions of sovereignty over land and resources, particularly in conjunction with existing treaties, are regarded as a threat to ‘‘national unity.’’ The threat to territorial integrity is less ambiguous. The majority of indigenous peoples do not aspire to secede from the state. The few who do, do not base their claims on a right of self-determination, but rather on the exercise of a continuous right of sovereignty predating the formation of contemporary states and that is supported by historical evidence indicating state recognition of their sovereignty. (Maori claims to sovereignty do not constitute an aspiration to secession, but rather to the exercise of co-equal sovereignty with the New Zealand state.) In fulfilling the right to self-determination, there is an enormous degree of latitude to delineate the terms by which external sovereignty may be limited, while leaving internal sovereignty intact. The central issue raised by indigenous peoples’ political resistance is how to achieve social justice in indigenous–state relations, both in older states, such as the settler states and Scandinavia, given the history of domination and its legacy, as well as in postcolonial states that have only come into existence as states in the aftermath of colonization and whose boundaries often seem particularly artificial. Attempts to secure a legal and normative justification for the international protection of indigenous peoples are only part of the story of indigenous peoples’ responses to conquest. Although most indigenous sociopolitical systems were not organized for the large-scale use of force that characterizes European states, they did at times resist by means of military defense and rebellion. The history of indigenous responses to conquest, however, is primarily a history of political, legal, and rhetorical resistance within states, in regional and in international arenas. The next two sections will trace some of these developments by focusing

primarily on the case of indigenous peoples in settler states, highlighting developments in Central and South America, as well as in regional and international arenas.

Indigenous Peoples’ Responses in Settler States From the Anglo-Powhatan War in 1609, to the Maori– Pakeha Wars of the 1860s, the Plains Indians’ resistance culminating in the defeat of the US army at the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876, the Frog Lake and Louis Reil rebellions in Canada, numerous indigenous African rebellions such as that of the Sotho and Zulu peoples led by Chaka against colonial domination, the Huaorani use of violence to resist multinational and missionary encroachment in Ecuador in the 1990s, and the recent and more publicized conflict in Chiapas – indigenous peoples have never passively accepted their physical, social, and cultural destruction at the hands of Western colonists, settlers, and state expansionists. Their military defeat is explained not only by the more destructive technology of European weapons coupled with the devastating effects of alien disease, but also by the simple fact that the majority of indigenous societies were not and are not organized for large-scale military operations, either aggressive or defensive. Yet in spite of military defeat and near-physical decimation, indigenous peoples have never abandoned what for some has been a five centuries-long struggle for their cultural survival. The term ‘cultural survival’ is used here because to survive as assimilated individuals is not the same as surviving as indigenous peoples. Both indigenous and settler cultures have changed as a result of their contact with one another and no culture is stagnant. Worldwide, indigenous resistance movements confront issues of land rights, forced relocation, and cultural, political, and economic self-determination, as the examples in Table 2 illustrate. By the far the most effective and persistent forms of resistance have been nonviolent: appeals to international organizations, publicity, protests, litigation, and political participation, including grassroots political organization and campaigns to alter the constitutional basis for indigenous–state relations. Indeed, in January 2006, indigenous leader Evo Morales, an Aymara Indian, was sworn in as the first indigenous president elected in Bolivia (or anywhere else in Latin America). The scope of indigenous resistance today is truly global, as the participation of hundreds of indigenous organizations in the UN process of drafting principles for the protection of their rights, and local, national, and regional resistance movements indicates.

Indigenous Peoples’ Responses to Conquest 993 Table 2 Examples of grass-roots indigenous-controlled political movements Country

Movement/Organization

Issue

USA Canada

American Indian Movement North American Indian Brotherhood

Aotearoa (New Zealand)

Maori Unity Movement

End termination sovereignty Oppose external interference in indigenous selfgovernment Recognition of Maori sovereignty

Australia Malaysia West Papua Pradesh, India Chotanogpur, India Philippines Norway Finland Sweden Alaska, USA Chile Ecuador El Salvador

Maori Peoples Liberation Movement of Aotearoa Waitangi Action Committee Federal Council for the Advancement of Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders Residents Action Committee Sarawak Indigenous Peoples’ Association Kanak Independence Movement Chipko Movement Jharkhand Parry

Halt Bakun Dam Construction Resist encroachment by logging companies Self-determination Protest to save forest homelands Call for creation of indigenous state

Cordillera Peoples Alliance Nordic Saami Council Saami Union

Autonomy Cultural rights, legal protection, language rights

Saami Youth Council Hakkaido Utari Federation of Alaskan Natives ADMAPU (Mapuche) CONFEN1AE, ECUARUNARI, COISE, CONAIE Association Nacional Indigena del Salvador

Ainu language, land rights Land Settlement Act Oppose allotment policy Resistance to encroachment by oil companies Land, cultural rights

Land rights, resource rights

Source: Wilmer, F. (1993). The indigenous voice in world politics: Since time immemorial. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.

The United States When the Europeans arrived in North America, hundreds of indigenous societies were living in a variety of sociopolitical organizations, (including a number of confederacies), practicing agricultural food production as well as hunting and gathering. Initially, the Dutch, French, and English engaged in treaty-making with North American indigenous nations, and there can be little doubt that during early colonization these treaties were viewed by both sides as agreements between equals. By the middle of the eighteenth century, however, the European and African slave population east of the Mississippi vastly outnumbered the indigenous population, and as settlement and conquest pushed westward, alien diseases and settler violence were rapidly devastating the indigenous peoples west of the Mississippi as well. The period following the Civil War through the Ghost Dance massacre of over 300 people at Wounded Knee in 1890 is sometimes referred to as the period of the Plains Indian Wars. Contemporary Native American political and legal activism was fueled both by US Federal Indian policies known as ‘termination’ (aimed at ‘terminating’ the collective, tribal existence of Native American Indian people and assimilating them as individuals into mainstream American society), and by the growing civil rights activism initiated by African–Americans in the late 1950s and 1960s. By 1970, as a result of Native American political

opposition, the termination era was officially ended with many of the terminated tribes restored to their federally recognized status. The National Indian Youth Council (NIYC) was formed during a historic American Indian Conference in Chicago in 1961. Today it not only publicizes the sovereign rights of Native Americans, but also conducts voter participation drives, job training, and youth leadership and internship programs. The NIYC participated in protests in support of Indian fishing rights that became known as ‘fish-ins’ in the 1960s. The NIYC is one of 15 organizations with consultative status at the United Nations. The American Indian Movement adopted more radical, though still primarily nonviolent, strategies of resistance, leading to the 19-month occupation of Alcatraz Island in 1969, asserting treaty rights entitling Indians to the return of unused federal property. They were also instrumental in the week-long occupation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs following the ‘‘Trail of Broken Treaties’’ march to Washington, DC in 1972 and a two and a-half month stand-off at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, in 1973. The Wounded Knee protest served both to expose the highly questionable legitimacy of the US-supported tribal government and to heighten solidarity and pride for Indian identity. Some of the early founders of the American Indian Movement went on to form the International Indian Treaty Council, which

994 Indigenous Peoples’ Responses to Conquest

received consultative status at the United Nations and is headed by an international board of indigenous representatives. A number of factors converged – the Civil Rights movement, Red Power activism, more Native American students graduating from university and law school programs, and a federal policy allowing tribes standing to sue in federal court – to raise key indigenous issues in American courts beginning in the 1970s. A conflict over the Western Shoshone land and claims under the Treaty of Ruby Valley arose in the 1970s was heard and appealed through US courts. The Supreme Court upheld the US position that aboriginal land rights for the Shoshone had been ‘‘extinguished’’ through settlement and through the Indian Claims Commission. The case centers on the rights of the Danns to continue working a ranch that has been in their family for over 100 years, and before that was in the territory occupied by the 60 000 Shoshone in the area. In 1993 the Indian Law Resource Center filed a complaint on behalf of the Danns in the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights and the Danns received the Right Livelihood Award in Stockholm, Sweden, for their ‘‘courage and perseverance in asserting the rights of indigenous people to their land.’’ Though many battles are still being fought – over the Black Hills and the Western Shoshone land claims, for example – there have also been some gains. (In a 1980 decision, the Supreme Court upheld a decision that acknowledged the illegality of US confiscation of the Black Hills. The Sioux, however, refused to acknowledge receipt of the monetary compensation, holding that only the return of land will satisfy their grievance.) The Blue Lake Lands taken from the Taos Pueblo by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906 to be incorporated into National Forest lands were returned to them by a bipartisan congressional act strongly supported by President Nixon in 1970. Without a treaty-based claim, the Passamaquoddy instituted a suit in 1971 against the US government for land lost that, through appeals, was eventually upheld in 1980. Fishing rights entitling indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest to one-half of the harvestable fish were upheld in a 1974 case. Native American Indian activism also led to a series of legislative victories for Indian rights in the US: the Indian Self-Determination and Educational Assistance Act in 1975, the American Indian Religious Freedom and Indian Child Welfare Acts in 1978, the Archaeological Resources Protection Act in 1979, and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990, also known as NAGPRA. Canada In the 1870s the Canadian government began negotiating a series of treaties to ‘open’ the western and northern

provinces for Canadian expansion. The last was concluded in 1921. The Indian Act by which the Canadian government asserted ‘‘jurisdiction’’ over Indian affairs until the 1950s was so restrictive that Natives were required to have passes to leave their reserves, potlatch and other ceremonies were banned, and Indian women who married non-Indian men lost their status as Native people, as did their children. The Act also provided for involuntary enfranchisement. Amendments to the Act in 1951 provided only modest improvements in the situation. Native ceremonies were no longer outlawed, but provisions pertaining to the status of Indian women and involuntary enfranchisement remained until national voting rights were extended to Natives by 1960. After consulting with Native leaders in 1968 and 1969 the Canadian government issued a White Paper on Indian Policy that, like termination policy in the United States, proposed ending the special status of Native nations in Canada by repealing the Indian Act and assimilating them as individuals into the dominant society. Canadian First Nations mobilized rapidly to oppose the policy. As a result, in 1969 Indian agents were removed from reserves, and thus began an era of restructuring in Canadian– Indian relations. The Act was amended in 1985 and 1988 to (1) end gender discrimination and restore Native status to indigenous women (and their children) who married non-Natives, (2) to give control over enrollment to the First Nations councils, and (3) to allow First Nations to develop bylaws and on-reserve taxing power. The 1982 Constitutional Act also recognizes the aboriginal and treaty rights of Indians, Inuit, and Metis, although some indigenous nations opposed their inclusion in the Canadian constitution at all, arguing that they remained sovereign nations and that inclusion in the Canadian constitution would compromise their sovereign status. Shushwap leader George Manuel, then President of the National Indian Brotherhood of Canada (now the Assembly of First Nations) traveled to New Zealand to meet with Maori activists, attended the United Nations conference on the environment in Stockholm as a member of the Canadian delegation, connected with Saami there, and went on to the International Labour Organization and World Council of Churches in Geneva, the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs in Copenhagen, and the Anti-Slavery Society and Survival International in London. These contacts led to a landmark international meeting of indigenous peoples in 1974, after which the NIBC was granted consultative NGO status at the United Nations. Although the Canadian government began to recognize the need to address Native claims in the 1970s, it was not until 1991 that it lifted restrictions preventing consideration of pre-Confederation claims. Conflicts between Natives and the Canadian government over the James Bay hydroelectric project arose in 1974 and 1975

Indigenous Peoples’ Responses to Conquest 995

and led to several agreements addressing land claims, aboriginal rights, and compensation settlements. By 1996, over 700 specific claims had been filed resulting in 151 settlements and 354 still being processed. Under agreements with the Gwich’in, Sahtu Dene, and Metis, the DIAND (Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development) in 1994 and 1995 collected $70 million in resource royalties. Agreements with the Yukon First Nations, Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation, First Nation Nacho Ny’a’k Dun, Champagne, and Aishihik First Nations over land and monetary compensation have since been concluded. Twenty-five First Nations in Saskatchewan were awarded $450 million for land purchases to increase reserve territories. In 1992 a Treaty Commission was established in British Columbia, where the absence of treaties had complicated the claims issues. By 1996, 70% of the First Nations in British Columbia had become involved in negotiating the first ever treaty with the Canadian government. Conflicts in Mohawk communities in 1980 and 1990 led to violent confrontation between Native groups within Iroquois communities in disagreement over the legitimacy of tribal governments, and between Natives and the federal (Mounties) and provincial authorities. The 1990 standoff at Kanesatake/Oka, 30 miles northwest of Montreal, precipitated by plans to construct a municipal golf course in an area claimed to be a traditional burial site, lasted 78 days. When the provincial authorities dispatched a paramilitary unit armed with automatic weapons, grenades, and tear gas to disband the initially nonviolent protesters, the conflict turned violent, leaving one police officer dead. In solidarity with the Mohawks at Oka/Kanesatake, Kahnawake Mohawks blockaded the Mercy Bridge between Montreal and the outlying city of Chateauguay. In the 1980s the Sheshatshiu and LaRomaine Innu in Labrador/Nitassinin initiated a nationwide campaign protesting the use of airspace over their territory for NATO training overflights, which they say are detrimental to their way of life and destructive of the wildlife that they continue to hunt for food. The Innu engaged in civil disobedience, initiated land claims and litigation, and aroused publicity to bring pressure on the Canadian government to end the overflights. The Nisga’a and Nuxalk nations in British Columbia have vehemently opposed clear-cutting in disputed territory, arguing that they do not oppose development, but seek Native-controlled development. Protests accelerated in 1994, and in 1995 protest rallies were coordinated by the Forest Action Network in London, Ottawa, Los Angeles, Seattle, Victoria, and Vancouver, although some Nuxalk representatives were annoyed with the Network’s ‘‘appropriation’’ of the issue for their own purposes. Three hereditary chiefs and 19 supporters were arrested in connection with a blockade against

logging companies, with 21 of those arrested being found guilty of criminal contempt in June 1996. Another logging blockade organized by the Nuu-Chah-Nulth First Nations along with Friends of Clayquot and Greenpeace, followed in late June. In August Nuxalk Chief Quatsinas made a formal statement to the UN Subcommission on the Nuxalk Logging Dispute, explaining the nations’ commitment to the use of nonviolent means of opposition, the creation story in which the area in question appears as a sacred site, and his view of the logging operation as an act of ethnocide and continuing genocide aimed at destroying Native peoples as Native peoples. The process of political restructuring of indigenous– state relations continues in Canada. In 1994 the Canadian government and the First Nations in Manitoba agreed to dismantle the Department of Indian Affairs in the province. In 1995 a new round of negotiations were initiated to add further amendments to the Indian Act. A number of self-government agreements have been signed between First Nations and the federal government, and in 1996, 13 First Nations signed a Framework Agreement on land management. The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples was created in 1991 to evaluate the need for rebuilding the relationship between Canada’s aboriginal and nonaboriginal societies. The final report recommends a new Royal Proclamation and companion legislation on treaty implementation, recognition of First Nations, a treaty tribunal, the creation of an Aboriginal Parliament, and reform of the federal agencies involved in Aboriginal Affairs. In a landmark settlement between the Inuit of Nunavut and the Canadian government, not only was 350 000 square miles transferred to the Inuit, but a new territory of Nunavut was created. Beginning in 1999 and concluding in 2009 the government of the Northwest Territories will transfer responsibilities to the new Inuit-controlled Nunavut government. Finally, in the course of its search for a new constitutional foundation, the Canadian government has undertaken extensive studies on the question of electoral reform for aboriginal peoples. The Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing considered in detail the question of aboriginal electoral participation and alternatives for restructuring the basis of aboriginal political participation. Among the alternatives considered, the Commission examined the New Zealand/Aotearoa model for Maori participation in the federal government and the possibility of adapting such a model to Canada. New Zealand As the English colonists in North America prepared for a war with the British after two centuries of settlement, Captain James Cook made the first English landing

996 Indigenous Peoples’ Responses to Conquest

in New Zealand. Between Cook’s landing in 1769 and 1835, European settlement in New Zealand was sparse. Thirty-five raritanga met with James Busby in Waitangi in October, 1835, and signed a ‘‘Declaration of Independence’’ declaring a new ‘‘state’’ under the ‘‘United Tribes of New Zealand.’’ They agreed to meet on a yearly basis, but as English settlers began to arrive in increasing numbers, Maori sovereignty and land rights affirmed by the 1835 Declaration were increasingly ignored. By 1840 there were both intertribal conflicts as well as conflicts between the settlers and the Maori. These conflicts, particularly the latter, would come to be known as the ‘land wars’, and lasted over the next 20 years. In 1840 four Maori rangatira from the North signed the Treaty of Waitangi, which is now considered to be the foundational document of the New Zealand state. During the 1850s, concern over continued Pakeha (European settler) ignorance of their sovereignty and land rights, Maori leaders began to meet and discuss the possibility of unifying through a confederation and naming a single Maori leader in what came to be known as ‘The King Movement.’ In 1958 the first Maori king was named. The movement, however, did not resolve the growing tensions between the Maori and the English who were determined, as in North America and Australia, to conquer the land and people of New Zealand/Aotearoa by settlement and force. When, in 1863, conflicts arising over attempts by the Maori to retain self-government erupted over a controversy involving British purchase of Maori land at Waitara, the British invaded Waikato. From a Maori perspective, as noted by P. S. Jones, the ‘‘invasion of Waikato by England [led] troops [was used] as a pretext to force Maori to defend themselves and then confiscate their land for being ‘in rebellion’ against the English crown.’’ In the aftermath of defeat, a pacifist Maori resistance known as Pai Marire formed and spread through the northern tribes. During this period, a series of Land Acts were passed by the parliament in order to force the destruction of the Maori system of collective land tenure and authority in favor of individual titles, which in turn made the transfer and sale of property from the Maori to the settlers much easier. As in the western United States, this period was marked both by the most severe decline in the indigenous population and the most widespread dispossession of them from their lands. It is estimated that when the Treaty of Waitangi was signed in 1840, the Maori outnumbered settlers 100 to 1. Within twenty years the populations were roughly equal, but for the next four decades Maori population steadily declined. As with the indigenous peoples of the Americas and Australia, diseases against which they had no immunity, were devastating the Maori. As the settler population grew, their relationship with and view of the Maori were increasingly directed by an assimilationist policy. ‘Native’

schools established in 1867 were a prime instrument for the destruction of Maori culture. In 1926, Maori visionary and spiritual leader T W Ratana traveled to England to appeal to the King, and to Geneva to address the League of Nations on behalf of the Maori and their grievances against the settlers. He was granted an audience with neither. He went on to become a political leader in New Zealand, serving in the Parliament along with several of his followers. Apirana Ngata, who has been called ‘‘the most able Maori leader of the century’’ became the Minister of Maori Affairs in 1928 and from there spearheaded a Maori cultural revival and land recovery. The 1945 Maori Social and Economic Advancement Act promised help for tribal committees, assistance for Maori health, education, and welfare, and the creation of Marae (Maori community) administration. In 1967 a Maori Affairs Act made it still easier for Maoris to sell land to Europeans, leading to the loss of millions of acres of land formerly under Maori control, and a massive migration of Maoris seeking work in the cities. The 1967 Act also evoked widespread Maori protest as a new generation of younger Maori leaders emerged. They demanded that their Maori names be properly pronounced in public arenas, began to establish bilingual programs, and celebrated pride in Maori culture. The 1960s and 1970s have been called the period of Maori Renaissance. The Nga Tamata or Young Warriors and the Maori Organization on Human Rights provided organizational structure from which to launch protest through picketing, petitioning, and publicity. In 1975 organizers of the Maori Land March collected over 60 000 signatures on a petition protesting the sale of Maori land. In a 1977 land dispute at Bastion Point, Maori protesters occupied the area for 506 days in protest, although a court ruled in 1978 that the protesters were trespassing and had them removed. In 1975, the Treaty of Waitangi Act established the Waitangi Tribunal and for the first time recognized the conflict over Maori and Pakeha interpretations, but it was not until the Act was amended in 1985 that the Maori text achieved statutory recognition. The original act, which allowed only for claims pertaining to grievances from 1975 on, was amended so that Maori grievances extending all the way back to 1840 could be considered by the Tribunal. The effect was dramatic – during the first 10 years of the Tribunal, only 24 claims were made, but during the first 2 years after the amended act was passed, the number of claims jumped to over 150. As of 1993, six major negotiated agreements were underway; one followed Tribunal hearings and two followed Tribunal mediation. A large claim was settled in 1995 when Queen Elizabeth II signed a parliamentary bill apologizing to the Tainui people for the British military invasion of their lands in 1863. The settlement returned 39 000 acres and awarded (US) $112 million to the Tainui tribe.

Indigenous Peoples’ Responses to Conquest 997

The Queen’s 1995 visit was also marked by protests when 60 Maori activists demonstrated against the Crown’s continued involvement in Maori affairs. Australia Of the 1007 settlers arriving in Australia in 1788, threefourths were convicts, and most of the rest were their wardens and caretakers. It is often alleged that the particularly ruthless treatment of aboriginal peoples by European settlers in Australia is in part attributable to the callous treatment of convicts-turned-settlers by their wardens (who also became settlers). Richard Broome, for example, writes of 8- and 9-year-old aboriginal girls being raped; of Tasmanian aboriginals being ‘‘flogged, branded, castrated and mutilated by convicts’’; the killing of between 100 and 300 people by 23 ‘‘troopers’’ on the Naomi River in 1838; at Mayall Creek six months later ‘‘about 30 [aboriginal people] were roped together, shot, stabbed and their bodies burned by a party of 12 stockmen’’; and 200 aboriginals killed at Gravesend the same year. Aboriginal resistance often became a pretext for white brutality. From an estimated original population of 300 000, by 1930 there were only 60 000 aboriginal people in Australia. The aboriginal population today remains below the preconquest level. As elsewhere in the settler states, many aboriginal Australians also died from contact with deadly alien diseases. In Victoria alone, an estimated 80% of the aboriginal population died from violence and disease between 1820 and 1840 – just 20 years. Early aboriginal resistance consisted mainly of raiding parties and what today would be called guerilla tactics. They were soon, says Broome, vastly outnumbered, and resistance leaders were designated as ‘‘outlaws’’ and thus ‘‘liable to be shot on sight.’’ Two things have profoundly shaped the course of aboriginal–white relations: (1) a growing aboriginal reliance on the expanding pastoral economy, particularly in the north; and (2) the absence of Commonwealth or federal involvement in aboriginal affairs until 1967. The history of aboriginal work on the pastoral stations is a history of labor exploitation, and thus resistance has often been combined with issues of economic marginalization and labor struggles. Before World War II only about half of the aboriginal cattle workers received any pay, and aboriginal wages were still much lower than whites for the same work. These conditions led to nonviolent aboriginal labor strikes beginning in the 1940s, and escalated to economic sabotage until the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders was created in the 1960s. The Federal Council pressured the labor movement and heavily lobbied the Australian Council of Trade Unions Congress meetings in 1950, 1961, and 1963. When a case involving aboriginal laborers was sent by the North Australian Workers Union for arbitration in

1965, the Commission issued a landmark decision in favor of equal wages for aboriginal workers. Although implementation was delayed for 3 years, by the late 1960s aboriginal workers were paid an equal wage, ironically leading to a backlash against hiring aboriginal labor. The 1960s saw a tremendous increase in minority protest movements, freedom rides, student activism, pressures for voting rights, the return of reserve lands, and in Australia, petitions for aboriginal citizenship. The Australian federal government in 1967 took over responsibility for aboriginal affairs, granting citizenship to all aboriginal people and shifting reserve policy from government control to self-determination. Yet even with the granting of citizenship, many aboriginal people in the 1960s still found themselves unable, for instance, to obtain passports, since their births were often recorded in stock books. In 1972 aboriginal protesters established a ‘tent embassy’ in Canberra to publicize their plight. Youth leadership, employing strategies of direct action, emerged within a pan-aboriginal movement demanding publicity, accountability, and change. By the 1970s the Labour Party responded, recognizing the political value of taking on the issue of aboriginal equality, and repealed most of the discriminatory legislation by the 1980s. Federal investigations into land rights were initiated, while aboriginal leaders formed alliances with environmentalists, advancing their own concerns with land rights, mining rights, and restrictions on corporate development. Aboriginal peoples formed Land Councils to represent their interests, and in 1975 the Northern Territory passed an Aboriginal Land Rights Act including rights to royalties from mining and an aboriginal veto over mining in the state. The first controversy between an Aboriginal Land Council and mining interests went to court in 1978. Thirty percent of the Northern Territory was acknowledged to be under aboriginal ownership, as was 20% of South Australia. Aboriginal activists began flying a pan-aboriginal flag to symbolize their unity and right to self-determination. In 1979, the National Aboriginal Commission called for a constitutional amendment allowing the government to negotiate a compact (treaty) for the first time with aboriginal Australians. Parliament passed the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Commission bill in 1979. The Aboriginal Development Corporation (ADC), wholly controlled by aboriginal people, was created in 1980. That same year aboriginal activists in Victoria staged the occupation of a proposed mining site against the Alcoa corporation. Activists pressed for the establishment of Aboriginal Studies programs, the teaching of aboriginal culture at all levels of education, the creation of aboriginal health services programs, and progressive self-management of their own affairs. Protests heated up as the Bicentenary approached, and a Royal Commission launched investigations into ‘‘deaths in custody’’ – the problem of a disproportionate number

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of aboriginal people dying while in policy custody. The issue became the subject of international criticism from both the United Nations and Amnesty International. The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Deaths in Custody also publicized the need to address the ‘‘Lost Generation’’ on a national scale. (Aboriginal children were often forcibly removed from their families and placed either in white homes to learn ‘‘domestic skills’’ or in institutional schools, creating what has recently become known as the ‘‘Lost Generation.’’ In New South Wales, for example, one out of seven children had been removed between 1909 and 1969.) During the 1988 Bicentenary, aboriginal activists also ‘landed’ on the cliffs of Dover and proclaimed England ‘discovered’ by aboriginal Australians. During the 1980s, housing, health, and education grants for aboriginal programs increased by 80%. In 1988, Prime Minister Hawke spoke to a crowd of more than 10 000 at the Barunga Festival, promising the negotiation of an Australian–Aboriginal Treaty. A Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation was created in 1991, made up of 12 aboriginal members, 2 Torres Strait Islanders, and 11 ‘other’ Australians. The most significant event to follow from two decades of sustained pan-aboriginal political activism involved the 1993 court case brought by Eddie Mabo and the Torres Strait Islanders against the government of Queensland. The court’s decision overturned the doctrine of terra nullius used to dispossess aboriginal peoples from their land. According to terra nullius, the continent was ‘‘unoccupied’’ upon the arrival of the British because aboriginal peoples did not possess governments like European governments and therefore did not exercise ownership of the land. This doctrine precluded any claim of native title under the Commonwealth or Australian governments for more than two centuries. Following the landmark Mabo ruling that aboriginal people did exercise ownership of the land and sovereignty prior to settlement and retained a right to land title in the present, the entire foundation of aboriginal–white relations crumbled. Land claims filled the courts. In December the Native Title Act was passed, reflecting a fragile balance between the landholder, aboriginal, and state interests. It outlined procedures for transfer to native title, provided funding for land acquisition, and promised additional steps toward social justice. Aboriginal peoples were awarded 250 000 square kilometers in the Kimberleys, the Wiradjuri claimed most of central New South Wales, claims were made in the Snowy Mountains, the Yorta Yorta claimed areas of the Barman Forest on the Murray River, and the Martu claimed 200 000 square kilometers on the east Pilbara. Recent struggles center on controversies over mining since many new mining projects seek access to aboriginal lands and involve areas now subject to native title applications. A resources boom in the 1970s brought a tremendous increase in both domestic and multinational

mining activities in Australia. The Northern Territories passed legislation recognizing aboriginal interests in mining and gave them the right to share in royalties that were previously paid to the Crown. Being forced to deal with the issue of native title has brought mining companies and governments into negotiations with Aboriginal Land Councils as representatives of aboriginal interests. A 1991 Commonwealth Industry Commission report recommended federal recognition of aboriginal title to minerals in their territories, direct negotiation between commercial interests and aboriginal councils, and federal funding of aboriginal councils.

Indigenous Resistance in Central and South America As the British were successfully establishing colonial dominance in North America, Australia, and New Zealand, the Spanish proceeded unhindered with the colonization of Central and South America. However, unlike the British Commonwealth, Spanish and Portuguese colonization did not produce democratic settler states. Racially mixed births and a greater degree of acculturation produced a large Mestizo, mostly peasant population in many Central and South American countries, although the governments have for the past five centuries been controlled by descendants of European conquerors. Additionally, geographical factors made the southern hemisphere more difficult to penetrate, and many indigenous peoples were able to survive with little or no contact with outsiders into the middle of the twentieth century. Several states – Guatemala and Bolivia, for instance – today contain a majority indigenous population. As elsewhere, diseases also killed many indigenous peoples during the earliest period of contact, and where contact was more recent, continue to do so today. Within the past three decades, for example, as many as 85% of the Yanomami may have been killed by disease and violence at the hands of settlers. Contemporary resistance in Central and South America is partly a response to growing pressure for industrial development since the 1960s. As governments, multinationals, and miners attempt to penetrate dense tropical forests and mountain highlands, they encounter numerous indigenous peoples who managed to survive five centuries of European conquest and colonization. But their resistance is not only a result of recent indigenous activism as much of the region’s history has involved indigenous opposition to domination and brutal government responses. A 1934 ‘uprising’ of ‘peasants’ against the Salvadoran government, for example, met with the ruthless torture and murder of over 30 000 Indians. More recently the mobilization of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation in Mexico was partly in response to the murder of Indian leader Sebastian Nunez Perez by a

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landowner in 1990. The Zapatista movement itself grew out of a resistance alliance formed in 1989 with widespread Indian support. That same year, a less publicized armed uprising occurred along the Pichis River in Peru when some 50 000 Ashaninkas responded to a Tupac Amaru assassination of an Ashaninka leader. The subject of indigenous resistance in Central and South America is too vast to cover here, but some highlights will serve to illustrate its seriousness and effectiveness, as well as the generally nonviolent nature of contemporary indigenous movements. In 1992, on the occasion of the Columbian Quincentenary, the Organization of Indigenous People of Pastaza organized a march to Quito, capital of Ecuador, to draw attention to the situation and demands of indigenous peoples. They, called for government recognition of their legal right to land, for the reform of the Constitution to include indigenous rights, and for indigenous control over the remaining Amazon rainforests in Ecuador. Ten thousand Quichua, Shiwar, Zapara, and Achuar Indians, ‘‘wearing feathered plumes and toucan headdresses, carrying spears, they marched, followed by thousands of highland Indians in their traditional ponchos,’’ reports Veilleux. Ten thousand Indians protested the Columbian Quincentenary celebration in San Cristobal. In 1992, indigenous resistance and struggle for rights was internationally acknowledged when Guatemalan Indian human rights activist Rigoberta Menchu received the Nobel Peace Prize. Resistance movements in Central and South America over the past few decades have been aided by those indigenous peoples to the North whose struggles for cultural and physical survival in those more open and otherwise democratic states began 100 or more years earlier. They have also been aided by a growing global environmental movement, though their interests can be subverted by some environmental groups. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) allied with Yanomami leaders to combat invasions into Yanomami territory and advance indigenous rights have made the Yanomami a symbol of indigenous resistance in recent decades. In Venezuela, environmental activists and Pemon Indian groups have allied to oppose a plan to open the Imataca rain forest reserve to gold, diamond, and emerald mining. In Brazil, the Tapajos Roadway–Waterway ‘megaproject’ in the Munduruku Indigenous Area was suspended as a result of opposition by indigenous groups and environmentalists. In May 1997, in response to assassinations of indigenous leaders, activists staged a nonviolent protest at the Honduran capital as part of a continuing struggle for land rights. They were forcibly removed by Honduran armed forces, with reports of brutal beatings and disappearances accompanying the ‘removal’. One of the most successful and sustained indigenous resistances is the case of the Kayapo of the Xingu River in

Brazil. To open the area to ‘development’ in the 1970s, the Brazilian government attempted to relocate them to an ‘Indian Park.’ The Kayapo quickly learned how to effectively utilize the media for their cause over the next 15 years as they engaged in a struggled against territorial encroachment with violence when necessary, while emphasizing the violations of their rights that drove them to do so. Their confrontations with the government in 1984 and 1988 became major media events, opposing a project in which 60 of 136 proposed dams would flood their lands. International human rights and environmental groups joined the protest. Kayapo leaders traveled to the World Bank to stop its financing. In 1989 they organized a meeting of investment bankers, government officials, environmentalists, and hundreds of representatives from 20 different Indian tribes. Environmental NGOs pressured international lending agencies to withdraw support for the project, and the dam projects were derailed. The experience of the Huaorani and other indigenous peoples in Ecuador is also illustrative. A coalition of indigenous peoples and environmentalists called for a 15-year moratorium on new oil development projects so that the Ecuadoran government could assess the damages such development had caused already and devise plans to implement safeguards against future damage. The government anticipated some $3 billion in foreign oil investments by the year 2000, but environmental activists in the United States, including the New York-based Natural Resources Defense Council, and Europe protested so strenuously that the Ecuadorian government was compelled to cool relations with Conoco. Indigenous alliances representing seven indigenous nations in the region have been spearheading opposition strategies. The ‘Declaration of Villano’ was issued at a meeting among these groups in January 1994, calling on petroleum companies to withdraw from petroleum auctions. In March the Confederation of Indigenous Nations of Ecuador called for a United Nations mediation panel and an investigation into human rights violations as well as environmental damage. In addition to the National Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club has also become involved, filing a petition on behalf of the Huaorani with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. In November 1993, indigenous organizations also filed a $1 billion damage suit in New York against Texaco, prompting Texaco to yield its exploration rights to other companies.

Conclusion One of the most striking features of contemporary indigenous resistance is the effectiveness of transnational and international mobilization as well as the speed with which it emerged. The formation of indigenous NGOs accelerated in tandem with increased United Nations activity during

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the 1970s and 1980s. During the 1990s, on average more than 100 indigenous NGOs have participated in the annual Working Group meetings. The Center for Human Rights in Geneva lists over two hundred indigenous NGOs. Indigenous issues have been raised within the Food and Agricultural Organization, the International Labour Organization, the United Nations Development Program, the United Nations Environmental Program, the United Nations High Commission on Refugees, the World Health Organization, and the World Bank. Thirteen indigenous NGOs now have consultative status at the United Nations, and in 1992 an indigenous representative was invited for the first time ever to address an international UN-sponsored conference, the Rio ‘Earth’ Summit. A workshop on the possible establishment of a permanent forum for indigenous peoples at the UN was scheduled for 1997. Indigenous activism has produced tangible results. In addition to the draft set of principles reported out of the Working Group and the ongoing efforts within the Organization of American States to develop a similar instrument, the World Bank has issued guidelines for the consideration of project impacts on indigenous peoples. In 1989 the International Labour Organization – the only international organization to have concluded a convention addressing the issue of indigenous peoples – was pressured into revising its 1957 convention (No. 107) Concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries to eliminate its paternalistic tone and to reflect the concerns of indigenous peoples. The reconciliation processes in Australia and New Zealand were, at least partly, a response to international indigenous activism, and a number of Central and South American states have undertaken constitutional revisions to protect the rights of indigenous peoples. The most significant aspect of indigenous political activism is its overwhelmingly nonviolent nature. Indigenous peoples possess virtually no international resources associated with the ability to influence international political outcomes, such as weapons and monetary wealth. Thus their success in influencing national and international outcomes and utilizing international mechanisms to influence domestic outcomes challenges conventional thinking about international relations as a political arena of anarchy where might prevails over rights. Indigenous peoples have fought for their survival and advanced toward their objectives using primarily the tools of rhetorical power, moral

suasion, and nonviolent resistance, accompanied by a sophisticated understanding of nonindigenous politics. Indigenous political activism suggests that international politics bears a much greater resemblance to ‘normal’ politics – struggles over interests, ideas, and values carried on through political and legal institutions – than conventional accounts of international relations acknowledge. See also: Colonialism and Imperialism

Further Reading Alfred, G. R. (1991). From bad to worse: Internal politics in the 1990 crisis at Kahnawake. Northeast Indian Quarterly 8, 23–31. Anaya, S. J. (1996). Indigenous peoples in international law. New York: Oxford University Press. Broome, R. (1996). Aboriginal Australians: Black response to white dominance. Concord. MA: Paul and Co. Publishing Consortium. Brown, D. (1970). Bury my heart at wounded knee: An Indian history of the American west. New York: Holt, Rhinehart and Winston. Hornung, R. (1991). One nation under the gun. New York: Pantheon Books. Kawharu, I. H. (ed.) (1989). Waitangi: Maori and Pakeha perspectives of the Treaty of Waitangi. Auckland: Oxford University Press. Lyons, O., Mohawk, J., and Deloria, V., Jr. (eds.) (1992). Exiled in the land of the free. Sante Fe, NM: Clear Light Publishers. Maybury-Lewis, D. (1997). Indigenous peoples, ethnic groups and the state. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn and Bacon. Moody, R. (1988). The indigenous voice: Visions and realities. London: Zed Books. Nagel, J. (1996). American Indian ethnic renewal: Red power and the resurgence of identity and culture. New York: Oxford University Press. Snipp, M. (1986). The changing political and economic status of American Indians: From captive nations to internal colonies. American Journal of Economics and Sociology 45, 145–157. Van Cott, D. L. (1994). Indigenous peoples and democracy in Latin America. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Walker, R. (1987). Nga Tau Tohetohe: Years of anger. Camberwell, VIC: Penguin Books. Wilmer, F. (1993). The indigenous voice in world politics: Since time immemorial. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications. Williams, R. A., Jr. (1990). The American Indian in western legal thought: The discourses of conquest. New York: Oxford University Press.

Relevant Websites http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/ – UN Permanent Forum for Indigenous Issues. http://www.innu.ca/ – Innu Nation. http://www.ainc-inac.gc.ca/ch/rcap/sg/sgmm_e.html/ – Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, 1997.

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Industrial Versus Preindustrial Forms of Violence Michael Hanagan, New School for Social Research, New York, NY, USA ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Preindustrial Violence Preindustrial Violence: Nomads, Bandits, Pirates, and Maroons Preindustrial Violence: Protest The Forms and Intensity of Preindustrial Violence The Transition from Preindustrial to Industrial Violence

Glossary Collective Violence Events in which groups of people take part in seizing or damaging persons or property. Moral Economy The idea that there is a social and moral dimension to economic transactions. The Austrian scholar Karl Polanyi (1886–1964) argued that the distinguishing characteristic of modern capitalism was its repudiation of moral or social aspects of markets. Contemporary economic sociologists argue that modern markets remain embedded in social relations. Nomadism A form of economic activity in which a social group moves through an annual cycle of economic and social activities in response to seasonal climatic changes. Not all pastoralists are nomads, many have a fixed abode and participate in migratory herding for only part of the year. Hunters, fishers, and gatherers can be nomads but pastoralists have formed the great majority of nomads over the last several millennia. Pastoralism An economic activity involving the care of herds of domesticated livestock. Instead of bringing food to their livestock, pastoralists bring livestock to their food. Proletariat Those who work for wages, using means of production over whose disposition they have little or no control.

Industrial collective violence arises out of demonstrations or strikes, forms of protest sponsored by trade unions, and social movements and are carefully regulated by state authorities. Violence occurs when: (1) state authorities refuse to permit legally sanctioned protests; (2) confrontations emerge between protesting groups or between protestors and state authorities; or (3) protestors take advantage of their numbers to attack persons or objects of their anger. At the heart of industrial protest and, thus, of industrial violence are issues of economic justice and the rights of citizens.

Protest Violence in the Age of Transition The Forms and Intensity of Protest Violence in the Age of Transition Industrial Violence Conclusion: Postindustrial Violence? Further Reading

Timar A landholding system prevalent in parts of the Ottoman Empire in which state land was leased in return for military or other services. Often compared to European feudalism, Ottoman elites were never able to consolidate hereditary control over these lands as were Europeans, and the system itself declined in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, replaced by something more akin to private property subject to taxfarming. Tribute Payments made by states or kinship groups to other states or kinship groups in order to avoid the outbreak of warfare. Tribute is sometimes used by conquered groups to preserve a degree of autonomy from their conquerors, sometimes by ruling groups that find tribute less costly than warfare. Vo¨lkerwanderung Originally coined to describe the penetration of Germanic tribes into the Roman Empire in the fifth and sixth centuries CE, the term has come to signify any armed migration of entire peoples. Ironically, research into the German migrations into the Roman world have increasingly deemphasized its violent aspects, stressing instead its gradual and negotiated character.

In contrast, preindustrial violence emerges when: (1) states seek to solve problems of the distribution of wealth by external violence against neighbors; (2) those excluded from legal economic activity turn to violent illegal means of extracting revenues; or (3) groups protest economic policies by violently righting wrongs, only subsequently looking for state confirmation of their actions. As contrasted with witchhunts, pogroms, millenarian movements, feuding and vendettas, nationalist revolts, and ethnic cleansing, ‘preindustrial’ and ‘industrial’ violence are directly and immediately concerned with the distribution of economic

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resources. The crucial distinction is that preindustrial violence emerges when a state or a group seek to effect economic redistribution ‘outside the framework of the individual state’ while industrial violence emerges from conflicts over policies of economic distribution pursued by ‘individual’ states. This article discusses preindustrial violence, the transition from preindustrial to industrial violence, industrial violence, and briefly considers postindustrial violence.

Preindustrial Violence Predatory Warfare and Vo¨lkerwanderung Three forms of preindustrial collective violence can be distinguished: predatory warfare, predatory violence, and violent protest. While industrial violence emerges from disputes among citizens concerning the distribution of wealth within national economies, ‘predatory warfare’ stems from states’ efforts to solve quotidian economic problems by extracting wealth from neighboring populations. Of course, late twentieth-century rulers fight for privileged access to vital resources – witness the Gulf War of 1990–91 – but booty and tribute are no longer routine contributions to state budgets. The ideal climate for predatory warfare is where productivity is low, markets are rare, the climate is uncertain, and accumulation is concentrated in a few, highly visible hands. Difficulties with communication or a scarcity of trained bureaucrats dictated the revenue-extracting strategies of some preindustrial states. Lacking an adequate system of transportation and bureaucratic techniques for provisioning troops at home, the only way of maintaining a powerful army was by annual plundering expeditions. Historians believe that annual military campaigns were necessary to Sargon of Akkad, who ruled in Mesopotamia 2500 BC; Sargon otherwise lacked the capacity to maintain his large army in peace time. Another means of extracting wealth without stationing garrisons and situating administrators in distant provinces was to accept regular tribute and periodic pledges of loyalty from subordinate rulers. The Aztecs, who used their vast tribute to redistribute wealth throughout society and to reward allied leaders, are paradigmatic here. The absence of wheeled vehicles and draft animals made long-distance transportation difficult in Mesoamerica where narrow roads slowed the movement of Aztec armies while seasonal demand for agricultural labor restricted the length of the warmaking period; the gory sacrifices and elaborate rituals so frequent in the Aztec capital were intended to retain the allegiance of subordinate rulers by terror and awe. Genghis Khan (r. CE 1206–1227) built an irresistible army from dispossessed herdsmen who had sworn personal loyalty to him but he was unable to construct anything

more than an embryonic state because he could not reconcile steppe warriors’ skills with administrative expertise; to escape the burdens of organizing empire, he preferred tribute. His successors, Ogodei Khan and Ghazan Khan faced with insubordination among tributary states and tempted by the prestige of empire, embraced the bureaucratic methods and political practices developed by antecedent Chinese and Iranian rulers. Their belief in warfare as a means of production helps explain the Mongols’ extraordinary violence. In China, Mongol leaders proposed to slaughter the remaining peasants of North China to open new horse pastures, until Yeh-lu¨ Ch’u-ts’ai, Ogo¨dei Khan’s prime minister explained to skeptical warriors that if they set up a system of taxation he could produce annual revenues of a half million ounces of silver, 400 000 bags of grain, and 80 000 pieces of silk. They were astounded when he proved to be correct. Hereditary enemies of the peasant – the nomad horseman – did not realize that the intensive methods of cultivation the Chinese employed on the loess soil of the semiarid northern provinces were the secret of the vast wealth they found in its cities. The view of labor and arms as alternative ways of producing wealth was quite general among predatory warriors. In the 1920s, a Bedouin confided ‘Raids are our agriculture’. Predatory warfare was also one element of Europe’s ‘new monarchies’ and absolutist states. According to Machiavelli, ‘‘warfare is the only art expected of a ruler.’’ Perry Anderson reminds us that ‘‘war was possibly the most rational and rapid single mode of expansion of surplus extraction available for any given ruling class under feudalism.’’ Following Anderson, absolutist states of early modern Europe ‘were machines built overwhelmingly for the battlefield’. Absolutist diplomacy was only a continuation of predatory warfare in which diplomats used military threats and pleaded strategic advantage so as to arrange marriages that brought land and revenues to the absolutist state. Related to ‘predatory warfare’ but less ongoing and connected with the routine reproduction of states is the violence associated with the mass migration of people. Vo¨lkerwanderung occurs outside the territorial framework of states when peoples abandon previously occupied territory and seek to acquire a new territorial basis. The most famous armed mass migration, that of the Germanic peoples in the fourth and fifth century CE was a gradual process in which Germanic tribes entered the Roman Empire slowly over several centuries, assimilating much of the Empire’s culture in the process. More sudden and violent cases abound. In a classic example, in 58 BC, the Gallic Helvetii, dissatisfied with the small size of their territory, purchased draft animals and wagons and burned their fortresses, their 400 villages, and all the grain except the three months supply they carried with them. They then preceded to look for land to conquer. Not so

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different is the entry of Bantu speakers into Zambia and southeastern Zaire around CE 500, driving the Khoi Khoi and Nan into desolate southeastern Africa. More ancient was the entry of the Hebrew people into the land of Canaan where, following Moses’s instructions, they killed everyone.

Preindustrial Violence: Nomads, Bandits, Pirates, and Maroons In preindustrial societies, when floods, famine, or tax increases threatened to deprive peasants of land, and wage labor was already oversupplied or unavailable, or when masters were too overbearing, many took desperate actions that broke with the routines of daily life. The options available differed greatly across regions and over time. In Ming China (1368–1644), men castrated themselves so that they could sell themselves as eunuchs; parents pawned children and husbands, wives; men joined imperially subsidized religious orders, people migrated, although this entailed begging and vagabondage. Except insofar as they involved self-mutilation, these terrible choices were relatively nonviolent. Others were not. Ordinary peasants and artisans could also choose nomadic raiding, banditry, and piracy. When a significant section of the population turns to illegal, violence-prone occupations it poses a challenge to state authority. But where most successful, violent predators simultaneously challenge state sovereignty yet seek incorporation within the state on their own terms. One common and ‘potentially’ violent form of abandoning mainstream preindustrial societies was nomadism. Historically, states distrust pastoralists whose flocks of sheep, goats, camels, cattle, and horses cross borders and seasonally escape their control. For good reason! Belying their image of fierce independence, nomads needed sedentary society far more than sedentary society needed nomads. Pastoral societies generally lacked the storage facilities and administrative structures that enabled peasant societies to survive periods of natural disaster, and sedentary societies are the only places where manufactured goods, grain, and luxury products can be obtained; the saying goes that, ‘‘the only pure nomad is a poor nomad.’’ When bad times hit the agricultural lands on the fringes of pastoral regions, the numbers of poor nomads tended to swell, as formerly settled peasant/pastoralists, driven from the land, became full-time nomads, and policing in sedentary society deteriorated. Under such circumstances, nomads, who were often affected by the same adverse climatic conditions as agriculturalists, turned from raiding one another’s flocks to raiding settled communities. To reduce the nomadic threat, the Roman and Ottoman empires enforced mass compulsory sedentarization on

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their nomadic populations. To deal with rival nomadic groups, the Ottomans enrolled one group into their army, and used it to enforce sedentarization on its rivals. While incorporating nomadic bands wholesale into the state apparatus helped to preserve their collective identities, Ottoman strategy toward nomads was generally effective in preventing large-scale nomadic confederations; even in troubled times, nomadic raiding was generally confined to small bands who could do considerable damage to civilians but did not threaten the state. In contrast, Chinese emperors pursued a more ambitious and ultimately less rewarding strategy. Creating a rigid boundary, the Great Wall, between nomads and settled societies made it impossible to incorporate nomad leaders into society and did not prevent Chinese peasants and artisans from joining with the nomads during times of crisis when nomadic bands periodically overthrew Chinese dynasties. Marauding nomadism is sometimes confused with endemic banditry but, while endemic banditry, like nomadism, usually requires a rugged terrain, banditry can occur without any ties to a pastoral economy. In many preindustrial societies, the division between bandits and state officials was extremely fluid. In troubled times, successful bandits stood a good chance of being pardoned and awarded office. In the Ottoman Empire, disbanded troops or military deserters were frequent recruits to banditry. At the end of the sixteenth century, bandit chiefs such as Deli Hasan were able to negotiate lucrative positions for themselves in the Ottoman administration; his men were just as happy plundering Ottoman Muslims in peacetime as Hapsburg Christians in war. Kalenderoglu, another Ottoman bandit who sought to negotiate an administrative position for himself, joked that ‘‘If we win over Kuyucu [the grand vizier], then we will have the Ottomans give up everything east of Scutari [i.e., Anatolia], if we do not we will be content being the heros of folk songs.’’ Like Turkish bandits, sixteenth-century pirates in the Mediterranean defied some states while benefitting from the toleration of others. After 1540, refugees from the Turkish conquest of Hungary and Croatia, the Uskok pirates emerged in the region around Fiume in the Adriatic. The word ‘Uskok’ means ‘fugitive’. Their attacks on Turkish vessels in the Adriatic imperiled the Venetians’ treaty with the Ottoman empire but, as stalwart crusaders against Islam, the Uskoks were supported by the papacy as well as by the Hapsburgs, who resented the Venetian relationship with the Porte. As in the case of the Uskoks, when pirates had their own autonomous communities, which often served as havens for poorly treated sailors, they were only a few steps from ‘marronage’, which involves escape from unfree labor combined with efforts to establish societies composed of escapees. ‘Marronage’ derives from the Spanish (cimarron) meaning wild; a classic example is that of the sixteenth-century Zaporozhian cossacks;

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‘cossack’ is derived from a Tatar word for free warrior or vagrant. The cossacks began as bandit gangs roaming the Ukrainian steppes; the Christian cossacks fought the Muslim Tatars for the right to plunder the native population. At the time, the Ukraine was the only part of eastern Europe where serfdom had not been reimposed. The real making of the cossacks came as the ‘second serfdom’, the reimposition of unfree labor, came to the Ukraine, and many peasants fled with their families to join the cossack brotherhood; there they were joined by hunters, fisherman, nobles fleeing royal punishment, thieves, Christian religious sectarians, and other social outcasts. As they grew, the cossack communities inevitably increased their contact with encroaching Russian, Polish, and Ottoman states. Proclaiming their own right to selfgovernment, the cossacks attempted to create leeway for themselves by playing off Polish king against Russian czar. (Sometimes marronage is decomposed into ‘petitmarronnage’, meaning illegal absences of slaves for short periods, and ‘grand-marronage’, referring to efforts to establish an autonomous society. The use of the term ‘marronage’ in this essay is equivalent to grand-marronage.) Ultimately of course, the cossacks were forced to acknowledge the Russian czar and became the most feared of his repressive tools.

Preindustrial Violence: Protest Protest occurs in most societies but not always in the same ways. Performances that contemporaries readily identified as rebellious may easily seem either innocuous or criminal from the point of view of a modern-day observer. Charles Tilly observes that much preindustrial protest involves attempts to take action on the spot to put right a perceived violation of popular morality; violence was often an implicit or explicit element in such actions. In this analysis, preindustrial protest is typically bifurcated with vigorous popular action at the local level combined with humble appeals to powerful intermediaries to intercede at higher administrative levels. The following are characteristic examples of protest in different societies. In 1628, a terrible famine swept the northern Shaanxi province of China, where a group of rebellious soldiers were soon joined by hungry peasants and, then, by the inevitable contingents of bandits and Mongol tribesmen. The local administrator largely ignored the revolt, and subsequent efforts to pacify the rebels proved fruitless. In the meantime, the rebel ranks grew as the imperial funds allocated to famine relief proved inadequate. Imperial decisions to save money by reducing the number of administrative centers led redundant officials to join the rebels, and raids by Manchu nomads from outside the Great Wall greatly complicated efforts at repression. The terrible death throes of the Ming dynasty had begun!

In 1702 in small Naganuma fief lands in the Fukushima region of Japan, peasants petitioned against the imposition of taxes on cotton spinning and cash crops used to supplement their farm income; their petitions were not only refused by their powerful lord, the daimyo, but the peasants were ordered to transport the tax rice to his warehouse in Edo. Two peasants, alleged to be on the verge of losing their land, called for a mass meeting and, a few days later, a large crowd assembled, marched to the fief administrative officer, and demanded that he accept their petition for the repeal of tax. Afterwards the lord did grant tax reductions but also executed the two peasants who had initiated the protest on the spot where the mass meeting had occurred. In 1703 in Cairo the prices of basic commodities are rising, a crowd hurries to the Great Mosque and occupies the minarets, from which it launches calls to resistance. The Egyptian crowd forces stores to close and assembles in the great court, voicing its complaints to the religious authorities and pressuring them to convey their grievances to the rulers. A procession then marched from the Mosque to the Citadel, headed by religious leaders (ulama), who negotiated with the authorities. Concessions were announced and guaranteed by the religious authorities who calmed the crowd and dispersed it peacefully. In 1765 in Quito, Viceroyalty of New Granada, an administrative official was sent by the Viceroy to reorganize the lax administration of the liquor monopoly and excise taxes. Hearing of these proposals, the Quito clergy petitioned the administration to hold a cabildo abierto (open municipal meeting), a traditional Spanish institution in which representatives of the urban community could express their views. In spite of petitions opposing the reform from the clergy, the creole elite, and the community (vecindad), the administration decided to implement the reforms. In response, on the night of 22 May, parish bells rang an alarm and crowds of artisans, small shopkeepers, and small tradesmen, particularly the butchers, attacked the excise office and official distillery. Troops sent to disperse the crowd refused to fire, and patrols were attacked. In the end, Jesuits were sent to mediate and local judges ratified the concessions. Such were the opening acts in a series of confrontations that a month later on St John’s night, 24 June, would climax in a massive urban rebellion.

The Forms and Intensity of Preindustrial Violence Why did discontented peasants choose nomadic marauding or banditry in some regions and social protest in others? Why did protest repertoires involve violence against persons in some regions and not in others? To put these questions in comparative perspective while providing temporal boundaries to our discussion, preindustrial violence under three very different regimes

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will be considered; ancient regime Bourbon France (1589–1792), the post-Suleyman Ottoman Empire (1566–1923), and Tokugawa Japan (1600–1868). Protest was frequent in Europe and Japan but, in contrast to Europe, Japanese violence was concentrated on property and seldom turned on persons. In the Ottoman Empire, where urban protests were many, peasant protests were few – although not unknown; the great Kisra-wan rebellion broke out in Lebanon in 1858–61. Rural unrest was much more likely to take the form of military uprisings, marauding nomadism, and endemic banditry. The form and intensity of preindustrial violence depend on several factors: (1) what sets of common interests are united by everyday ties of work, kinship, or religion; (2) whether geography favors banditry, nomadism, or marronage; (3) whether actions by visible outsiders threatens groups’ survival; (4) whether political entrepreneurs have organized a significant section of the rural population; (5) whether coalitions can be formed with groups that reduce the risks of collective actions; (6) the extent and continuity of military activity. First, let us consider the questions of what group interests were informed by social ties that could alone give abstract interests meaning. In both France and Japan, a peasant identity emerged based on ties of work and administration; peasant communities were taxed collectively and had to apportion taxation within the community; they usually possessed some forms of common land, and, in some areas, made collective decisions about planting, crop selection, and pasturage. While both French and Japanese rulers sought to disarm the peasantry, they also took action against the most repressive forms of labor and, in both countries, the spread of commercialization and protoindustrialization promoted the growth of freeholding and leaseholding peasants living together in autonomous villages. Just as they were connected in work, so peasant villages united together in protest and, as in the Pitaut rebellion of 1548 in France, ‘marched parish by parish, under the banner of each village’. In contrast, village ties were weak among the Ottoman rural population. Individual household heads made the important decisions about production, and many taxes were assessed on individual timars; when villages did collectively pay taxes, the distribution was carefully policed by outside officials. Community ties also weakened as timar holders left their plots and offered their services elsewhere; considerable evidence of peasant mobility shows that this was a popular option. Religious identity was more central in Ottoman communities, which lacked the close rural communities of the European and Japanese countryside as well as the secular corporate structures characteristic of European cities. The contrast between the presence of corporatism in Europe and its absence in the Ottoman Empire is important, particularly because Europeans took their urban

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corporate structures with them wherever they settled; in the eighteenth century, there were e´chevins and pre´vots in Paris, selectmen and town meetings in Boston, and cabildo abierto in Quito. Within this urban framework, the secular idea of a moral economy emerged. Yet Ottoman urban dwellers did hold urban authorities morally responsible for controlling grain markets and preventing unjust taxes. Among Muslims, the equivalent of the moral economy was the idea of justice in society centered on the application of Muslim law (Shari ’ah) by a vigilant Muslim ruler, including the regulation of the grain supply by the muhtasib, the official in charge of overseeing the marketplace and safeguarding public morals. While dispossessed Muslim peasants gravitated to the cities where they might join religious orders capable of pressuring rulers, non-Muslims lived in separate parts of the city, outside the moral consensus. And religious identity often divided the Islamic community internally as much as it united them externally. In desert and steppe areas, part-time pastoralists might be attracted by the Suffi brotherhoods so popular among nomads while fulltime cultivators inclined to a more traditionalist Islam. Second, most people had no chance to become bandits, nomads, or maroons, for these depended on the availability of a nearby terrain that could support such activities. On the face of it, the Ottoman Empire surrounded on one side by the world’s largest desert, on another side by the world’s largest steppe, and on a third by extensive mountains possessed a more favorable environment for predatory violence than either France or the main Japanese islands, although each country had regions where rugged terrain straddled territorial borders or areas of contested sovereignty, making it hard for police authorities to coordinate efforts and illegal groups. But indigenous groups might limit recourse to banditry. In the poor isolated French Haute Auvergne in the first half of the sixteenth century, the great obstacle to endemic banditry was the presence of territorially based nobles who themselves often engaged in patently illegal property seizures and personal violence. There, nobles resembled brigands lucky enough to run their own law courts. They were generally left alone by monarchical authority, so long as they did not turn their violence against the state, other nobles, or powerful churchmen. Third, while moving slowly to enforce law, even against local nobles, the French central state made its power more effective at the local level and thereby focused protestors’ attention on the state. In the eighteenth century the monarchy tightened tax collection, increased regulation of industry, took sterner measures against smugglers, and encouraged the shipping of grain outside local regions. Those who protested these policies were clearly attempting to change or moderate royal policy. In contrast, the relative decentralization of administration in Japan encouraged protestors to focus their

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attention on individual lords or government officials without challenging the Tokugawa regime. The Tokugawa ruled through an integrated but decentralized state structure within a pyramidal organization of power. Faced with tax increases they regarded as unjust, peasants might bypass the legal procedures for making complaints and demonstrate in the lord’s castle town. While protest leaders were often severely punished, lords who became the objects of popular protest might be forced by the central government to concede to the peasants’ demands. Again, compare the Ottoman Empire’s evolution a century after Suleyman, when rapacious taxfarmers sent armed retainers, some of them former bandits, to collect taxes. The ease with which the state incorporated successful bandits into the administration weakened the state’s legitimacy in the eyes of the mass of people and discouraged efforts to petition or appeal to the rulers’ local representatives. Fourth, the availability of groups that might help organize and coordinate protests was much greater in France than in the Ottoman Empire or Japan. By the late eighteenth century, French lawyers, merchants, artisans, and shopkeepers had constructed networks of political clubs that enabled them to circulate oppositional ideas throughout much of France; the backbone of these communications was the urban network tying major urban centers to smaller towns and villages. In the Ottoman Empire, too, mercantile networks bound together port cities of the empire, but these networks were controlled by Jews and Christian Armenians and Greeks; until 1839, non-Islamic groups could have little role in shaping or participating in reform debates. In Japan mercantile networks were far less developed than in France: Japan had three giant cities, centers of administration, but many fewer small and middle-sized commercial centers. Relations between villages and administrative cities were largely unmediated by mercantile networks. Also, Japanese merchants were cut off from politics and had little opportunity through marriage, education, or purchase of estates to mix with the political classes. Dress codes and their enforced humility in the presence of samurai created a profound gap between the two groups. Fifth, there were variations in the availability of powerful protectors who might shield protesting peasants from the full force of possible state repression. In sixteenth-century France, peasants protesting increased royal taxation often found at least tacit support among local nobles and churchmen whose own landed income was threatened by the diversion of local resources to the monarch. Between 1500 and 1700, in England, France, and Spain, Brustein and Levy provide evidence that resident landlords, subsistence production, a common church, and regional parliaments all encouraged peasant rebellions by increasing the opportunities for alliances between peasants and nobles and churchmen.

In regard to the potential for landlord alliances, the contrast between the Ottoman Empire and France is especially dramatic. All the more so because both systems were originally based on a somewhat similar arrangement in which rulers gave villages to cavalrymen who used his revenues to ensure their livelihood and to raise a retinue for war. Ottoman rulers were sufficiently strong to enforce the connection between service and land, while European rulers were not. European knights took advantage by consolidating their position on the land by making it hereditary, adding adjacent lands, and increasing their local legal jurisdiction. In contrast, the villages that Ottoman cavalrymen controlled were often widely separated, and they were moved from timar to timar and frequently demoted or displaced; while a son might inherit his father’s position and be granted timar lands, he would be unlikely to inherit the same lands as his father. Where the European nobility became local landlords with considerable stake in the region that they dominated, the Ottoman warriors and the local religious judges who administered justice circulated throughout the Empire. Where disgruntled landlords were always an element in French peasant rebellions before 1650, malcontented timar holders were far more likely to join military uprisings. One of the reasons for the nonviolence of Japanese protest was the inability to form alliances that might have given protestors greater protection against repression. By disarming the common people, dissolving independent guilds and cities, and beginning to transform the samurai from landed warriors to stipendiary urbanites, Japanese rulers made cross-class coalitions difficult. The Tokugawa’s insistence that samurai live in cities and seek approval before visiting their lands further isolated the samurai from their peasants. One of the few instances of samurai/commoner alliances was the Shimabara Rebellion of 1637–38; its religious, Christian, character may have been one reason for its unusually harsh repression, but religious conversion was also accompanied by a potentially dangerous politics. Finally, for all these contrasts, there remained a most important similarity between France and the Ottoman Empire that differentiated both from Japan. Both French and Ottoman rulers were forced to turn repeatedly to their population to raise money to wage war. Famine and flood were episodic, but in France and the Ottoman Empire warfare was nearly continual. The competitive European state system in which France played a leading role was inherently unstable, and Europeans menaced the Ottoman Empire by west and northwest, while Persians and steppe nomads threatened it east and northeast. The need to muster troops for war put a nearly continuous pressure on both France and the Ottoman Empire that was lacking in Japan. War forced France and the Empire to extract resources from peasants and from trade.

Industrial Versus Preindustrial Forms of Violence

In France, mercantile pressure forced kings to make concessions to its subjects. In the Ottoman Empire, the disbanding of armies after major military campaigns frequently produced rebellion or endemic banditry among soldiers who had no home to which they could return. To prevent bandit depredations the authorities encouraged the countryside to arm, and the militarization of the countryside, in turn, facilitated the recourse to banditry and military revolts. In contrast, after the turbulent period of the Warring States, the first two centuries of Tokugawa rule in Japan was marked by considerable internal peace. Freed from the fear of war, the Tokugawa were not so reliant on mercantile loans as were French and Ottoman rulers. In fact, in 1649 the Tokugawa regime forbade almost all foreign contacts, dispensing with foreign trade that was a potential source of revenue, but also merchants powerful and difficult to control.

The Transition from Preindustrial to Industrial Violence Beginning more than two centuries ago and still not fully completed, the transition from preindustrial to industrial violence was the result of two interrelated revolutions. The first revolution was military. Between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries the transformation of military technology required the bureaucratization and then the industrialization of warfare. War became a more capital-intensive enterprise, requiring substantial administrative organization and the application of up-to-date industrial technologies. The second revolution was economic; commercial and industrial revolutions dramatically increased productivity and created an industrial proletariat. Commerce yielded money with which military men could obtain the artillery, munitions, and, later, the steel battleships that were the latest products of industrial revolutions. Together, industrial revolution and the industrialization of war depended on the creation of a new kind of state. Warmaking required money and, to obtain it, European war lords and political leaders had to come to terms with industrialists and bankers as well as with a nascent proletariat. The paradox of the nineteenth-century European state was that, while it could wage war on a unparalleled scale, actual involvement in war diminished. Partly it diminished because industrial growth was a less risky and more secure source of state revenues than predatory warfare and partly because the French Revolution served an unmistakable warning that continual warfare could produce internal revolution. While wars have become incredibly more murderous and destructive, a recent study confirms that ‘‘as societies become more industrialized their proneness to warfare decreases.’’

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To wage war in industrial fashion, particularly in the wake of the French Revolution, European states were forced to conscript an ever larger proportion of the civilian population. The new way of organizing war could make urban civilians into effective soldiers and marked the end of the long ages when nomadic bands of highly skilled light cavalrymen could topple urban-based societies, a prospect that had worried Edward Gibbon, historian of the fall of Rome, in the late eighteenth century. Although banditry persisted on Europe’s peripheries and in its mountainous center, the increasing state penetration of the local economy by tax collectors and military recruiters left less and less room for endemic banditry or piracy and none at all for marronage. In eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe, the penetration of state authorities and of markets into local areas met with popular resistance. Preindustrial protest crested just at the moment when conditions in industry were undercutting its roots, and new forms of protest were beginning to develop. The dominant themes of protest in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Europe were not protests of newly created industrial proletarians but protests of peasants and artisans against the prospect of becoming proletarianized; these were not efforts to change state policy but resistance to states’ claims to make policy in areas of regional or local concern. Yet at the very moment when preindustrial protest reached its peak, serious movement toward industrial protest occurred. British protestors began to accept the triumph of the state and factory, and they demanded that states take action to rectify the inequities of economic distribution. Within the world of industrial states, forms of protest emerged that were, as Tilly argues, more ‘cosmopolitan’, in that they regularly exceeded a single locality, sometimes extending to a national scale, ‘modular’ because standard forms served for a wide variety of claims, and ‘autonomous’ because claimants took major initiatives in determining time and place of their action. Cosmopolitanism, modularity, and autonomy all characterized industrial protest. Between 1780 and 1832, as the Industrial Revolution progressed, protesting British workers increasingly directed their attention to the British state and addressed their demands to national government. Insofar as they did so, the means that they used included public meetings, petition drives, and mass demonstrations. Workers also began to express their dissatisfaction with wages or working conditions by organizing firm-by-firm strikes. But while social movements and trade unions were emerging, on every side, they kept company with donkeying renegade workers, Rough Music is a form of English folklore, and refers to an eighteenth- and nineteenth-century in which a humiliating punishment is inflicted upon one or more people who have violated the standards of the rest of the community. In Britain, liberal politicians were appalled by popular

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violence but identified the more stable and nonviolent sections of the population and allowed them to become citizens with voting rights. Over the course of the nineteenth century the growth of the industrial working class in Britain and France, then in Germany and the United States, and finally in Austria, Hungary, Italy, and Scandinavia attracted worldwide attention. Its rapid growth, its concentration in large cities or industrial regions, and its speedy organization into trade unions and socialist or labor parties gave credibility to Marxist claims that it represented the future. This new industrial working class was first to embrace the new forms of industrial protest. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, industrial working classes began to acquire voting rights and to become full citizens. Organized into their own Second International (1889), socialist parties attempted to spread their ideas worldwide. Immigrants brought socialist ideas and trade unionism with them when they migrated to the Americas. Asian and African workers brought to Europe during World War I came into contact with socialists and trade unionists in factories and battlefields. Forms of organization and strike tactics that developed in Europe over a century were spread around the world in a few short decades. At the time when new forms of state organization and warfare were developing in Europe, contact with Western commercialization and military revolution produced a Walpurgis night of violence in a non-Western world lacking such centralized states and new technologies. The discovery of gold booty and silver mines in Spanish America underpinned the greatest of the tributary empires at the cost of untold blood and toil. The growth of sugar and tobacco production in the Caribbean and southern United States was no less terrible. Beginning in the seventeenth century, in west Africa, slave raiding was a driving force promoting predatory state formation. Founded in 1712, the state of Segu was described as ‘‘an enormous machine to produce slaves.’’ By providing muskets in exchange for slaves, merchants gave African chiefs a new source of power that enabled them to dominate both native elites and their neighbors; until their neighbors were forced to turn to slave trading to respond to the armed threat. In seventeenth-century North America, the drive to maintain an armed superiority over one’s neighbors led in 1648–50 to such violent slaughters as that of the Hurons by Iroquois seeking fur-hunting grounds. In sevnteenth- and eighteenth-century North America, the mass migration of European farmers produced a new wave of violent Volkerwanderung; both the Dutch and Puritan colonists showed a taste for mass extermination of Indian tribes that sometimes shocked their Indian allies. By 1815, save with a few minor exceptions such as the Balkan Wars, and one huge exception, World War II, predatory warfare was largely ended in Europe, but

Europeans pursued it with great gusto elsewhere. Successive attacks by the Austrians (1683–99 and 1714– 18) and the Russians (1768–74 and 1828–29) had demonstrated the military weakness of the Ottoman Empire. By 1833, a series of Western interventions in the Middle East brought the Ottoman empire to the brink of destruction; only the difficulty of dividing the plunder saved it. During the same period, Britain and Russia imposed humiliating treaties on the Kajar dynasty in Persia, which also lost territory to Russia. The Opium War of 1841–42 kept a reluctant Chinese Empire open to British commerce, but seriously wasted the Empire’s strength and opened it to challenges by internal opponents. The second half of the nineteenth century witnessed a final round of colonial expansionism but these colonies were more likely to add to government budgets than to reduce them. The intensification of predatory warfare outside Europe also led to a dramatic resurgence of predatory violence. Wrecked by the loss of money and men, victims such as the Ottoman and Persian Empires weakened their hold on their desert peripheries, where nomadic groups began to reassert their strength and proclaim their commitment to Islamic fundamentalism. As the Ottoman hand weakened, Wahhabi, Sanusi, and Mahdist movements spread among resurgent nomads. In China, grain riots and anonymous violence were relatively rarely used in protests since the state gradually abandoned to local elites the maintenance of the government granaries for providing against famine. Some Chinese peasants turned to organized brigandage, forcing others, often richer peasants, to respond by organizing antibrigandage societies; if initially successful, both the brigands and the antibrigandage societies acquired large-scale means of violence and came into violent conflict with states. As commercial activity advanced, groups pursuing occupations previously deemed legitimate or at least tolerated were labeled ‘bandits’ and ‘pirates’. In early nineteenth-century Venezuela, expanding commercialization made bandits out of the amalgam of African slaves escaping coastal sugar plantations, Arawak Indians fleeing settlers, and free landless men who inhabited the Llanos, a plains region of Venezuela, a bit like the Eurasian steppe. At the end of the eighteenth century, the market for meat was growing, and the Caracas elite sought to cater to this demand by taking legal control of free-ranging cattle. This attempt conflicted with the time-honored view, rooted in colonial tradition and legislation, that everyone had rights to hunt plains wildlife. Although their claims to legal access to the plains were denied by the state, the Llaneros survived because of their collusion in cattle smuggling with local authorities, ranchers, and merchants. Western military rivalries introduced piracy into the Caribbean and Indian Oceans on a heretofore unequaled scale as England and France commissioned private ships as ‘privateers’ to attack Spanish and Dutch commerce during

Industrial Versus Preindustrial Forms of Violence

wartime. Tolerated by English and French authorities, pirates established their own independent communities in areas of disputed sovereignty such as Tortuga in Hispaniola and St. Marie in Madagascar; there they engaged in piracy, awaiting the return of war that would enable them to turn to legal, and more profitable, careers in privateering. The difference between Captain Kidd (c. 1645–1702) and his distinguished sixteenth-century precursors such as Giovanni da Verrazano or Sir Francis Drake was one of context and luck. Kidd’s fatal mistake was to attack a vessel owned by a close advisor of the Mogul Emperor at a time when the struggling East India Company sought to regularize commercial relationships between Britain and India. To the degree that pirate colonies served as havens for mistreated sailors, there is a parallel with marronage, whose expansion in the Caribbean coincided with that of the pirate era. Escaped slaves established communities wherever desolate land adjoined slave plantations, for example, in Columbia, Cuba, Ecuador, Haiti, Surinam, and West Florida. However isolated and remote, such communities always required contact with larger societies to obtain basic tools and foodstuffs, and, since Maroon escapees tended to be predominantly male, to recruit or kidnap women. Colonial armies repeatedly mounted expeditions to destroy maroon societies. Colonial administrators often adapted the same strategy as the Czars employed toward the cossacks, recognizing established maroon communities in exchange for help in tracking down escaped slaves and preventing the further expansion of maroon communities. As warfare and predatory violence accelerated outside Europe under the whip of commercialization and military aggression, so did resistance. On Europe’s eastern periphery in Russia, peasant insurrections, led by cossacks, opposed the reimposition of serfdom on peasants that occurred as nobles responded to the growing international grain trade. Both great Russian peasant insurrections, those of Stenka Razin in 1667 and Emelyan Pugachev in 1773, involved coalitions of ‘‘cossacks, peasants, Old Believers, bandits and footloose wanderers.’’ Powerful rebellions, including mutinous soldiers, displaced elites, and peasants, occurred in the Tupac Amaru rebellion in southern Peru, 1780–81, the Hidalgo uprising of 1810, the Java War of 1825–30, and the Indian ‘Mutiny’ of 1857–59. Portrayals of these rebellions as embryonic nationalist movements are anachronistic; peasant participation was based on their discontent with the introduction of market-oriented landholding systems imposed by an elite that shared neither native tongue nor religion.

Protest Violence in the Age of Transition The single most important feature of this transition is the manner in which industrial and preindustrial violence could interact to magnify the levels of violence. New

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methods of protest, such as strikes, demonstrations, and organized political parties, disseminated quickly to wherever an industrial proletariat developed. Under the right circumstances, organized social movements, particularly national industrial workers’ movements, could provide important urban allies for protesting agriculturalists. By harnessing the village revolts and urban riots of preindustrial protestors to the cause of national social change, industrial protestors intensified levels of violence. Let us look at some characteristic forms of protest in the age of transition. Beginning on 23 September 1880, in Ballinrobe, County Mayo, Ireland, an unpopular minor landlord and land agent found himself shunned by the surrounding community for attempted eviction of Lord Erne’s tenants after they had demanded rent abatements due to bad harvests. In response, a crowd of villagers had assembled and drove off his farm laborers, herdsmen, coachman, stableman, and serving girls, telling them never to work for him again. Local merchants refused his trade and, most important, day laborers refused to harvest his potato crop. Behind this display of community solidarity was the Irish National Land League whose supporters collected money for legal defense and attracted worldwide publicity to their cause. The new tactic took the name of the landlord against whom it had first been used, Captain Charles Cunningham Boycott. In Moscow on 22 January 1905, hundreds of thousands of factory workers accompanied by their parents, wives, and children converged on the Winter Palace, carrying religious standards and portraits of the czar. Organized by an Orthodox priest, the purpose of the demonstration was to present the czar with a petition that requested everything from minor reforms to the convening of a Constituent Assembly. Suddenly, the crowd was fired upon without warning by the czar’s cossack troops. Hundreds were killed. In response to ‘Bloody Sunday’, a great general strike was called, beginning the Revolution of 1905. In Beijing on 4 May 1919, thousands of students poured into the streets to protest the concession of China’s northern province of Shandong to Japan by the Versailles Peace Treaty. On 5 June, when news of government violence against Beijing students reached Shanghai, merchants closed their shops, a general strike was called, and demonstrations spread nationwide; two students were killed and more than a thousand people arrested before the 4 May Movement was ended. The major organizers of the strike in Shanghai were the nascent Chinese Communist Party, Goumindang leftists, and the Green and Red gangs. The characteristic features of the transition are its anomalies, the harnessing of peasant community solidarities to national political organizations, the transformation of the brutal suppression of humble imperial petitioners

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into a general strike, and the organization of strikes by a newly formed Communist party and traditional secret gangster organizations.

The Forms and Intensity of Protest Violence in the Age of Transition Under what circumstances do preindustrial and industrial protest come together and produce intense violence? To get the elements of an answer, let us briefly examine China, Mexico, and Russia in the turbulent years between 1910 and 1925, using the same set of explanatory factors as before, quickly summarized as: common interests, geography, visible outsiders’ threats, political entrepreneurs, coalitions, and war. In all three countries, preindustrial and industrial protest came together to produce situations of concentrated violence. Unlike in Mexico, in China and Russia labor movements played key roles in national protest. In the Russian Empire, labor mobilized rural populations against an unstable national government, while in China labor radicals were instrumental in negotiating broad-ranging coalitions between protesting peasants, bandits, and industrial workers. In China, Mexico, and Russia work-based ties played an important role in identity formation. In all three countries, peasant communities were both an abstract social category and a lived identity. As we saw earlier, a peasant community was not an inevitable outcome in peasant societies; when the Ottoman state collapsed in the crisis years of 1918–22, nomads seized control of Arabia, and military revolt installed a secular nationalist, Kemal Ataturk, as ruler of Turkey; lacking informal collective organization, peasants still remained on the sidelines. By this time, a peasant community was also absent from much of European agriculture; German agriculturalists were hard hit in the worldwide agrarian depression that followed World War I, but while Mecklenburg farmers may have been attracted by the romantic concept of community embodied in Naziism, class stratification had divided agriculturalists between rich and poor and sundered the bonds of community. The peasant communities that engaged in violent action between 1910 and 1925 shared some general characteristics, but each was the product of different historical trajectories and had distinctive features. After emancipation, the Russian government had legally imposed collective fiscal responsibility on Russia’s peasant communities as a way of preserving traditional loyalties. In some respects the evolution of Chinese peasants toward village community followed a logic independent of the West; since the early eighteenth century, Chinese commerce had tended to break up kin-based property structures and promote an individual conception of property. As kin ties weakened and the political order came

under attack, villages became the nucleus for protection and self-defense. In Mexico, village communities were the central institutions in the more populous southern and central regions of Mexico, but the power of estates increased in the north; since Mexican independence, peasants had fought with some success to retain village common lands against the determined efforts of liberals to privatize them. Attempts of late nineteenth-century estate developers in the north to divide Ranchero common lands to promote cattle export resemble the struggles of the Venezuelan Llaneros in the early 1900s. At turn of the nineteenth century China and Russia industrial workers played a more important role than in Mexico. In all three countries the working classes were quite small compared with the rest of the population, but in Russia and China they were heavily concentrated in strategically located cities such as St Petersburg, Moscow, and Shanghai, and had shown themselves capable of extraordinary militancy in the Russian Revolution of 1905 and in the mass strikes in Shanghai in 1919 and 1925. In Mexico, as in Russia and China, industrial workers were concentrated in the capital, Mexico City, but Mexican labor was deeply divided internally and courted by politicians within the dominant Constitutionalist camp. All three countries possessed lands suitable for bandits, and in all three, banditry resurged during economic and political crises. Many Chinese peasants also chose banditry, but peasant bandits often retained contact with their villages and conflicts between bandits and richer villages where antibrigand societies flourished often overlaid village competitiveness. The Russian Civil War witnessed a major upsurge of banditry; bandit armies, such as that of Vakhulin, composed of deserters from the Red and White armies, raided Bolshevik-held towns and won peasant support by preventing Bolshevik efforts at requisitioning food. In times of tumult, in Mexico such as the decade between 1857 and 1867, banditry flourished and prominent bandit leaders were associated with either liberals or conservatives. Pancho Villa began as a cattle rustler in Durango, although by the time of the civil war he was a railroad construction foreman in Chihuahua. Banditry returned in full force during the civil war. In all three countries, outsiders pulled peasant communities into the political arena and were instrumental in focusing their attention on national government. In Mexico, quarreling elites appealed to already angry peasants to support their candidate, Francisco Madero, who promised political democracy and a vague agrarian justice. Once mobilized, peasants remained involved in the struggle for agrarian justice long after Madero’s assassination. In Russia, frightened by peasant support for the 1905 revolution, the Czarist government abandoned the peasant communities it had so long promoted, and a series of laws known as the Stolypin reforms sought to abolish

Industrial Versus Preindustrial Forms of Violence

common lands and commercialize peasant agriculture. At the very moment that the Imperial government was attacking peasant communities head on, the state conscripted peasants’ sons for a murderous world war. In a China divided by warlords, forced to pay a huge indemnity to foreign powers, and subjected to the rule of Westerners in foreign enclaves in major seaports, the concession of portions of China to Japan by the Versailles conference brought home to everyone the consequences of their country’s enfeebled state. In each country, issues of profound consequence for peasants could only be addressed at the national political level. In Russia and particularly in China, there were political groups that sought to draw rural peoples into national politics and to coordinate their activities once they had entered the national scene. But national political parties could only extend their rural contacts when a network of contacts existed that tied large cities to market towns and then to the countryside. This was a great deal easier in centralizing empires such as Russia and China, that had built a transportation system and administrative networks to facilitate the penetration of the periphery by the center; in this context Mexico was less well integrated and the new railway network built in successive waves in the early 1880s and again at the turn of the century was less oriented toward tying the nation together than toward commercial uses. In Mexico commercialization and industrial change occurred most rapidly on the peripheries, in the north and around Veracruz, and this made it difficult for rebels to cooperate during the civil war that began in 1910. The agrarian core of the revolution was clearly in the south with Zapata’s Morelos and to a lesser extent Guerrero and Peubla, while Pancho Villa’s northern movement was more diverse, including mine workers, railroad workers, and rancheros. Also, left-wing parties centered in cities such as St Petersburg, Moscow, and Shanghai were able to serve as an important ally for rural protestors. In the wake of Russian defeat in World War I, many radicalized soldiers deserted and returned to the countryside, where they encouraged their countrymen to seize the land and refuse to pay taxes. Following preindustrial patterns of protest, mass land seizures swept the kingdom without the prompting of Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, or Socialist Revolutionaries. The major contribution of the Bolshevik party was to demand legal sanction for these land seizures. The hesitations and refusals on the part of political parties, provoked by the bringing of the land question to the very front of the national political stage, was a fundamental engine driving the revolution in a radical direction – a movement that ended in the profound betrayal of its peasant supporters. Political parties were also able to make alliances with bandits and to incorporate them into their organizations, just as rulers incorporated them into their states. Bandits

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were no less willing to ally with strong left-wing movements than with governments, and they sometimes had much to offer these movements. As mentioned before, in organizing the 4 May Movement (1919) in Shanghai, gangs were extremely important. Their role as the chief suppliers of unskilled Shanghai labor, from factory laborers to nightsoil collectors, beggars, and prostitutes, contributed support from groups that the Communists and Goumindang with their influence in artisanal and industrial worker trade unions were unable to reach; the gangs also often controlled access to factory employment, and the first successful Communist entry into the trade union movement was made through the influence of the Green gang. The gangs were deeply involved in local politics and their alliances with established officials as well as with Communists increased their ability to maneuver politically. From its inception the Chinese Communist Party attempted to coopt bandit and antibrigandage societies, which sometimes had hundreds of thousands of members in the countryside. Chinese bandits did not confine themselves to small-scale raiding parties; in 1940 the Communist New Fourth Army joined with both bandit and antibrigandage groups such as the Big Swords and Red Spears to attack the Japanese; many Big Swords and Red Spear members were reorganized into the New Fourth Army. In Mexico no left-wing political group possessed the national standing of the Chinese Communist Party, which enabled it to negotiate alliances with bandit leaders; the anarcho-syndicalists who composed the left wing of the workers’ movement in Mexico City had no orientation whatsoever toward national politics. No Mexican party was able to forge an agrarian program capable of uniting the disparate forces of the rebellion – this helps to explain the limits of its achievements – and no party was able to seize control of the revolution and shape it to its own purposes either. Finally, war was crucial to the success of radical revolution in Russia. In the period under consideration, 1910–25, it was less of a factor in China or Mexico. Certainly, in China the threat of Japanese imperialism and the conflicts of rival warlords were powerful forces that promoted social protest as were, in Mexico, the American occupation of Veracruz and the cross-border incursions by American troops. Villa’s efforts to provoke American invasions were efforts to win popular support in Mexico, but had the United States been more deeply involved, the triumph of centrist liberalism would have been impossible. Ultimately, war would bring social revolution to China.

Industrial Violence Today, in the industrialized societies of the West, the routine use of violence in protest has declined. Outside of Western Europe and North America, industrial

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violence remains an important feature of protest, although in the second half of the twentieth century, protest-based violence has been overshadowed by the unparalleled violence of war and ‘democide’, that is, mass murder and genocide perpetrated by states against those subject to their authority. In Western Europe and the United States the greater organization of industrial protest helps to explain the decline of industrial violence; both states and protesters developed more control over their members. The emergence of civilian police forces gave states a more sensitive tool for crowd control than did the regular army. The appearance of the organized social movement with formal membership and hierarchical structure enabled protesters to better discipline their own ranks. In the contemporary world, industrial violence is most likely to occur in nations where citizenship has not been fully extended to the working classes. One reason for the decline of violent protest is the growth of worker/citizenship, which raises the cost of repression for state authorities and renders the use of violence politically undesirable for labor movements. Another reason is the declining percentage of the labor force in blue-collar jobs in Western Europe and North America and the falling percentage of tradeunion membership in many European countries and in North America. The sense that labor represents the future is almost gone, and in many Western European countries labor is well on its way to becoming just another interest group – a position it has long held in the United States. In Western Europe, where industrial violence began, it is now at fairly low levels although there remain important differences among European nations. In some European countries, referred to as ‘countries of consensus’, strikes are actually rare events and accordingly strike-related violence almost never occurs. Such countries include Austria, Denmark, Germany, Holland, Norway, and Sweden. In other countries, workers strike much more frequently and violence sometimes occurs. Countries of confrontation include Belgium, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, and the United Kingdom. Barricades briefly returned to the streets of Paris in May 1968 and students were attacked by the police. A large general strike began and ended with little violence in France in the summer of 1983; immigrant workers played an important role. In recent decades industrial violence along with political general strikes have returned to Eastern Europe, where they originated in 1905. In Poland general strikes for higher wages turned into violent encounters in 1956, 1970–71, 1976, and 1980–82. While none of these strikes was successful in winning its demands, the strikes of the 1970s and early 1980s were decisive in weakening the Communist regime and preparing the way for its demise. Mass strikes were particularly damaging in Poland because Communist ideology stressed the leading role of workers in socialist society; if even the leading social

group was dissatisfied with Communism, something was undoubtedly wrong. The sense of labor as the ‘leading social group’ was, to some extent, also accepted by the leaders of the Polish Solidarity movement, who used their labor organization as a forum to articulate a larger vision of Polish society, to champion democracy, and to form coalitions with a variety of groups, including the Polish Catholic Church. Something of the same sense of labor as the champion of a democratic society has flourished in some South American countries and in South Africa, where it has also been associated with higher levels of labor violence. A recent case is that of Brazil between 1977 and 1989, where labor movements, working with movements of students, left-wing Catholics, and moderate reformers, played an important role in returning the country to democracy after 17 years of military rule. In the early years of the struggle, the militancy of workers fighting to raise their wages contributed powerfully to the sense that the military regime was not all powerful, but as negotiations for the return to democracy got underway workers joined students, reformist politicians, and leftwing Catholics to campaign in favor of a constitutional amendment to restore the direct election of the president. A key element in the coalition’s success was the labor movement’s willingness to acknowledge the ‘relative autonomy’ of its partners. After Brazil returned to democracy the independent struggles of social movements and workers, including a general strike of two million workers, was crucial in winning structural reforms that ensured that Brazilian democracy would bring higher standards of living and guarantees for political and civil rights. Crucial to labor’s rise in both Poland and Brazil was its commitment to democracy and a willingness to form coalitions and work with other social groups and mass movements. In these countries, labor has acted less as an interest group and more as a movement working with others for social change. Many voices have urged European and North American labor movements to establish closer links with contemporary social movements and to adopt a social movement orientation.

Conclusion: Postindustrial Violence? Today, we live on the edge of a new postindustrial world whose major trends are still far from clear. One of the foremost characteristics of claims for economic redistribution in the industrial era was their focus on individual states. In today’s postindustrial global world, states have less and less control of access to their own markets, and the age may not be far off when transnational trade unions organize internationally against multinational corporations. More immediately, John Walton and David Seddon have claimed that the neo-liberal economic

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policies of the mid-1970s and the imposition by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank of austerity regimes produced a first wave of ‘global food riots’. In the past, relatively small labor movements in predominantly peasant countries have been able to play a major role in protest, including violent protest, by coordinating the demands of preindustrial protestors, negotiating alliances between disparate groups, providing support for their struggles, and articulating their demands on a national stage. One of the oldest traditions of the labor movement is internationalism, and one of the most important issues in the coming period is whether international labor movements may serve to project the concerns of the disenfranchised and oppressed portions of national populations on an international stage. See also: Economic Causes of War and Peace; Institutionalization of Violence; Warfare, Trends in

Further Reading Anderson, P. (1979). Lineages of the absolute state. London: Verso. Barfield, T. J. (1994). The devil’s horsemen: Steppe nomadic warfare in historical perspective. In Reyna, S. P. and Downs, R. E. (eds.) Studying war: Anthropological perspectives, pp. 157–184. Langthorne, PA: Gordon and Breach Science Publishers. Barkey, K. (1994). Bandits and bureaucrats: The Ottoman route to state centralization. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

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Brustein, W. and Levy, M. (1987). The geography of rebellions: Rulers, rebellions, and regions, 1500 to 1700. Theory and Society 16(4), 467–496. Cohen, R. (1986). War and peace proneness in pre- and postindustrial states. In Foster, M. L. and Rubenstein, R. A. (eds.) Peace and war: Cross-cultural perspectives, pp. 253–267. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books. Ikegami, E. and Tilly, C. (1997). State formation and contention in Japan and France. In McClain, J. L., Merriman, J. M., and Kaoru, U. (eds.) Edo and Paris: Urban life and the state in the early modern era, pp. 429–454. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Klein, M. A. (1992). The impact of the Atlantic slave trade on the societies of the western Sudan. In Inikori, J. E. and Engerman, S. L. (eds.) The Atlantic slave trade: Effects on economies, societies, and peoples in Africa, the Americas, and Europe, pp. 25–42. Durham: Duke University Press. Magagna, V. V. (1991). Communities of grain: Rural rebellion in comparative perspective. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Perry, E. J. (1993). Shanghai on strike: The politics of Chinese labor. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Rummel, R. J. (1994). Power, genocide, and mass murder. Journal of Peace Research 1(31), 1–10. Tilly, C. (1995). Popular contention in Great Britain, 1758–1834. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Tong, J. W. (1991). Disorder under heaven: Collective violence in the Ming Dynasty. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Tutino, J. (1986). From insurrection to revolution in Mexico: Social bases of agrarian violence 1750–1940. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Walton, J. and Seddon, D. (1994). Free markets and food riots: The politics of global adjustment. Oxford: Blackwell. White, J. W. (1995). lkki: Social conflict and political protest in early modern Japan. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Wolf, E. R. (1982). Europe and the people without history. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Womack, J., Jr. (1968). Zapata and the Mexican revolution. New York, NY: Vintage.

Institutionalization of Non-Violence Toh Swee-Hin, Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD, Australia Virginia Floresca-Cawagas, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada Published by Elsevier Inc.

Introduction Nonviolence: Meanings, Values, and Principles

Glossary Cultural Solidarity The relationships and structures within, between, and among cultural groups and communities that promote values and principles of respect, understanding, justice, tolerance, dialog, harmony, and solidarity. Culture of Peace and Nonviolence The paradigm of values, attitudes, norms, and practices (personal, institutional, structural) that sustain nonviolent and peaceful living, enhance societal and global justice,

Signposts for Institutionalization Further Reading

uphold human rights, promote intercultural harmony, and nurture ecological sustainability. Culture of War and Violence The paradigm of values, attitudes, norms, and practices (personal, institutional, structural) that sustain wars and other physical forms of violence and various nonphysical expressions of violence (economic, social, psychological, cultural) that destroy or diminish the quality of life of human beings and planet Earth.

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Ecological Nonviolence The relationships between human beings (as individuals, communities, organizations, nations, and global regimes) and the natural environment that are underpinned by principles of sustainability, social and economic justice, simplicity of lifestyles, and biodiversity. Inner Peace Values, beliefs, and practices that promote spiritual growth, wisdom, and the development of the inner being to think and live nonviolently and peacefully with oneself and all other beings. Institutionalization Processes of building the capacities of persons, institutions, communities, organizations, and even nations to reflect a set of preferred visions, values, policies, principles, and practices.

Introduction A wide range of meanings of nonviolence has emerged in the theory and practice of peace research, education, and action worldwide. As a philosophy, nonviolence advocates the nonuse of ideas and strategies of violent force in the relationships of individuals, groups, organizations, and nation-states. While one application of this philosophy is in the nonparticipation in wars and violent revolutions, a more holistic approach opposes all other forms of violence, including social, economic, political, and cultural manifestations. It also recognizes the interconnectedness of types and sources of violence from micro- to macro-levels. The institutionalization of nonviolence focuses simultaneously on the elimination and/or reduction of physical, as well as other multiple forms of violence and violent conflicts in multiple sites including domestic nation-states and international systems, local, national, and global economic structures and relationships, social institutions at formal and informal levels, and interactions between human beings and their ecologies. As humanity approaches the next millennium, there are increasing signs of a paradigm shift in how nations, groups, communities, and individuals relate to each other. From the battlegrounds of large-scale wars and armed conflicts to more localized intergroup and interpersonal sites of violence (e.g., homes, schools, and communities), a greater understanding of and commitment to the theory and practice of nonviolence is clearly emerging. This is not to deny the ongoing ravages, destruction, and suffering of wars in various corners of the Earth, as well as a general climate of violent relationships in everyday life in virtually all societies. However, increasingly hope and inspiration have been generated by movements, groups,

Peace Education Education for transforming consciousness and worldviews toward a culture of peace and nonviolence; rests on developing a critical understanding of root causes of conflicts and violence, and empowering learners to take personal and societal action to dismantle a culture of violence and to build a peaceful self and world; takes place across all modes (formal, nonformal, informal) and levels, relying on participatory, creative, and critical pedagogies. Structural Violence Violence caused by social and economic injustices resulting in diminished access of marginalized groups to basic needs and humane quality of life; operates at local, national, international, and global levels, and requires varying degrees of political repression.

individuals, and some state agencies that seek nonviolent alternatives to the complex challenges of nurturing and maintaining life, and of living together in peace and harmony. Certainly, the story of nonviolence is not a new one. Over the thousands of years of recorded human history, communities and leaders of wisdom and faiths have been urging fellow human beings, rulers, and governments to abandon violence in their ideas and actions. But often, such voices have been marginalized and overshadowed by the forces for and of violent disposition and dispensation. From current trends, the next century may well provide the critical spaces for the culture of nonviolence and peace to grow and replace the culture of violence and war. The 1990s can be appropriately characterized as the decade of the ‘peace dividend’. With the ending of the Cold War, the palpable tensions caused by nuclear-backed superpower rivalry have receded. Several significant contexts of long-standing militarized internal conflict have been amenable to nonviolent conflict mediation and resolution, resulting in peace accords such as those in the Middle East, El Salvador, Mozambique, South Africa, Guatemala, the Philippines, and most recently, Northern Ireland. Yet, the signing of peace accords and treaties is clearly only one step in the peace-building process – a crucial step in laying some key conditions for the ending of bitter armed struggle and conflict, but not necessarily sufficient for lasting and sustainable peace. As these cases indicate, the institutionalization of nonviolence is or will be a very complex and difficult journey. Indeed, as witnessed during the first decade of the twenty-first century, major incidents of armed conflict and violence pose significant challenges to the building of a nonviolent world order.

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In particular, the violent attack on New York on 11 September 2001 (or 9/11 as popularly known), which led to the response by the US and its allies in the war against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, catalyzed a cycle of violence and counterviolence within some countries, regions, and the international context. The military intervention in Iraq to depose Saddam Hussein and the violent aftermath involving the US-led coalition and various insurgent groups, all taking a horrendous toll on civilians; the ongoing war in Afghanistan; the continuing armed conflict in the Middle East amidst a stalled peace process; and the global ‘war on terrorism’ all urgently need nonviolent resolution. The complexities embodied in efforts to institutionalize nonviolence are in turn rooted in the multifaceted and multidimensional realities of violence. No longer can ‘violence’ have a restricted meaning and expression in physical forms (e.g., wars, bodily fighting, and abuse). In order to build a more peaceful world, all forms of violence must be addressed, including physical and nonphysical interactions from the psychological to the social and economic. The interconnectedness of types and sources of violence from micro/interpersonal to macro/ global levels calls for a complementary and holistic integration of nonviolent principles, structures, and relationships in all institutions and systems of society. As the often-cited concept stresses, peace is not just the absence of war.

Nonviolence: Meanings, Values, and Principles In essence, nonviolence as a philosophy seeks to cultivate relationships and structures among all peoples, groups, organizations, and nation-states that do not use ideas and strategies of violent force. Many traditions and faiths worldwide over thousands of years have promoted this concept of nonviolence, from Christian teachings of pacifism to Hindu and Buddhist principles of ahimsa or ‘noninjury’ and ‘nonkilling’. Among many indigenous peoples, a spirituality of nonviolence can also be found. In modern times, nonviolence has been considerably catalyzed by such inspirational role models as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. While some pacifists have focused their resistance to violence on nonparticipation in wars or violent revolutions, a holistic approach to nonviolence also opposes all other forms of violence including social, economic, political, and cultural manifestations encapsulated by the notion of structural violence popularized by the pioneer in peace research, Johan Galtung. Advocates of the theory and practice of nonviolence are guided by several key principles. A central one affirms nonviolence as a moral, ethical, or spiritual truth, indeed a

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way of life. Furthermore, nonviolent efforts at reconciliation and persuasion are deemed more effective and in the long term more sustainable for resolving conflicts than the use of physical force. Another key principle in the philosophy of nonviolence links ends with means, so that it is vital to promote peace and nonviolence by the consistent means of nonviolence. Using violence only lays the basis for further violence, fueling a continuing cycle of violence and counterviolence. Nonviolence proponents also see the vital need for the ‘powerless’ to recognize that the ‘power’ of those in dominant positions is derived from their own ‘obedience’ or ‘consent’ to be so ‘dominated’. Hence, if the ruled refuses to ‘obey’ the powerful, the basis for their rule will be weakened and can be challenged from below. However, in nonviolent action, those who oppress are viewed as human beings that are in part also victims of the system of oppression. Nonviolence chooses love over hate. Nonviolence calls on advocates to willingly sacrifice or suffer as a result of taking nonviolent action. Such suffering can help to educate and transform. Finally, violence is often caused by the failure of ruling institutions and groups to adequately respond to human needs. Nonviolent transformation hence seeks to overcome behavioral and structural violence by facilitating the participation of the marginalized in fulfilling their needs. As another popular theme emphasizes, there can be no peace without justice. A major root cause of violence due to militarization and armed conflicts is the presence of structural injustices that underpin oppression and repression with subsequent resistance from the oppressed. For societies emerging from protracted armed conflicts to a state of nonviolence, there must be transformations in the economic, social, and political dimensions of life that overcome inequities and marginalization of certain groups. Furthermore, nonviolent peace building is increasingly cognizant to the links between violent conflicts and a whole range of interpersonal, societal, international, and global problems, including ecological destruction, discriminations based on culture, gender, and sexuality, and the continuing violation of human rights in many regions of the world. Hence, nonviolence as a vision and as strategy is also increasingly being integrated in movements to promote ecological sustainability, antiracism, preventing genocide, and upholding human rights. Given the complexity and multidimensionality of nonviolence, the institutionalization of nonviolence is necessarily rooted in a great variety of sources of inspiration, role models, and practices increasingly evident across the world. While these exemplars have their own dynamics and sites of praxis, the challenge now is to see how they are interdependent struggles for the building of a culture of peace.

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Uprooting War and Physical Violence The efforts to bring about a cessation of war and armed conflicts in many parts of the world through mediation and conflict resolution strategies have clearly yielded positive outcomes. Governments and combatant parties at national and international levels have shown some willingness to negotiate peace settlements. However, the increasing role of citizen peacemakers in the peaceful resolution and transformation of conflicts needs to be acknowledged as inspiring role models. For example, in 1993, the Buddhist-inspired Walk for Peace and Reconciliation in Cambodia empowered citizens to work toward a peaceful post-civil-war future. In the Philippines, the Coalition for Peace and other peacebuilding networks, notably in the southern region of Mindanao, have worked with grassroots peoples initiatives in creating demilitarized peace zones as a micro-site of institutionalized nonviolence. In South Africa and Nicaragua, people’s organizations (POs) and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have participated in shaping the national peace accords. Hence, critical education and empowerment of ordinary citizens to be active in the peace-building process has been vital in the successful steps toward building nonviolent societies. Furthermore, in postwar or post-armed-conflict contexts, processes of national healing and reconciliation are strongly needed to overcome the legacies of enmity, distrust, and bitterness of victimization. The National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation in the new South Africa provides, for instance, a unique social experiment in building a multicultural society not fractured by deep ‘racial’/‘ethnic’ divides. In the Southern Philippines, groups such as the Bishops-Ulama Forum have sought to play a role in increasing understanding and trust among Christians and Muslims, thereby helping to institutionalize the September 1996 peace accord between the government and the Moro National Liberation Front. Furthermore, healing in a post-armed conflict requires not just the physical rehabilitation of traumatized and scarred victims, especially children, but also their psychological and emotional healing. Worldwide, children rehabilitation centers are seeking to help the victims of war regain trust and faith in a culture of peace. At the global level, apart from strengthening mechanisms and organizations for peacekeeping and peace building (e.g., diplomatic peace initiatives, intervention of NGOs such as International Alert, Fellowship of Reconciliation, Peace Brigades, Nonviolent Peace Force), the work to delegitimize weapons of war and armed conflicts is very crucial. Project Ploughshares and other NGO-led campaigns to abolish the arms trade, including the significant treaty banning land mines and the ongoing initiative of International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA), have educated and mobilized citizens in some arms-producing societies to

demand policies from their governments and industries for reducing and eliminating the sale of weapons across borders. In the post-Cold War era, despite a reduced threat of the nuclear holocaust, the work of networks such as Abolition 2000 for the elimination of nuclear weapons continues to be vital. In this regard, the actions of peace activists in breaking into military bases (e.g., in the US and Australia) to symbolically ‘dismantle’ weapons or to protest their role in global militarization, are contemporary exemplars of active nonviolence. Another interesting case of nonviolent resistance comes from within the ranks of soldiers themselves in Israel, where a group of soldiers have refused to serve in the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In sum, rather than reinforce a culture of death and violence, countries should be investing in life and nonviolence (e.g., conversion of arms industries to civilian production; other arms reduction treaties; control of horizontal nuclear proliferation in the post-Cold-War era; nonrecruitment of children as soldiers). In many formal schooling systems, especially in the North but also increasingly in South contexts, the integration of nonviolence principles in policies, programs, curricula, and teaching–learning environments has expanded in recent decades. Responding to heightened concerns over attitudes, conduct, and relationships among members of school communities (students, teachers, administrators) that sanction a culture of direct and other forms of violence (e.g., bullying, assaults, corporal punishment, ‘gang’ fighting, teacher victimization, verbal put-downs, initiation rituals, intolerance, discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, appearance, or skin color, sexual harassment, and drug addiction), these programs essentially promote values and practices of conflict resolution and violence prevention (e.g., students skilled in peer mediation and conflict resolution interventions; school discipline, code of behavior, pedagogical and other institutional policies that uphold nonviolent relationships among students, teachers, and administrators; collaboration between schools, parents, and external agencies such as police, justice, legal, and social services; teacher intervention in domestic violence against children). Likewise, there is increasing attention in many societies over the entrenchment of physical violence within the family institution. For example, the Family Violence Prevention Fund (FVPF) is a national nonprofit organization in the United States that focuses on domestic violence education, prevention, and public policy reform. Throughout its history, the FVPF has developed pioneering prevention strategies in the justice, public education, and health fields. In South countries such as India, women’s groups are speaking out against some traditional and even modern family and socialbased practices that sponsor violence against women (e.g., female infanticide and dowry deaths).

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These programs for violence prevention, reduction, and resolution show that building a nonviolent culture within schools needs to take into account the multiple parts, levels, relationships, and structures constituting a school community. Besides integrating appropriate knowledge, skills, and values into content and pedagogy in both formal and extra or co-curriculum (e.g., sports, play, and clubs), a surfacing or reforming where necessary of the hidden informal curriculum is crucial. Organizational and administrative principles, processes, and structures have to be implemented to sustain nonviolent relationships between administrators and teachers, administrators and students, teachers and students, students and students, and teachers and teachers. Likewise, a nonviolent school culture extends into school–community relationships between and among teachers, administrators, parents, students, community members, NGOs, business and social–cultural institutions or agencies (e.g., religious bodies, media, police, and social services). Last but not least, violence prevention calls on the integration and coordination of wider societal agencies, including educational system authorities, political bodies, and legal–judicial systems. Apart from the short-term outcome of schools becoming more peaceful and safe environments, the success of such school-based programs of education for nonviolence and conflict resolution in turn hold positive implications in the years ahead. Hopefully, children and youth will join the next generation of adults with internalized values and practices rooted in principles and norms of nonviolence. The intersection of wider societal and institutional endeavors for dismantling a culture of war and violence is also seen in campaigns worldwide to transform the production and distribution of cultural, leisure, and recreation products/services (e.g., media, toys, and entertainment). Through public and school-based critical literacy, adults and children are empowered not to consume media violence or war toys, while pressuring governmental and private sectors to enforce relevant policies and regulation. Another important extension of violence prevention programs in schools is to raise students’ awareness and action on major problems of global militarization. These include reconsidering the value of war toys and campaigns to end the deadly arms trade. In the 1990s, many school children in the Pacific region (e.g., Australia, New Zealand, Philippines, South Pacific Islands) participated in the protest against French nuclear testing as a serious undermining of the post-Cold-War peace dividend and potential ecological destruction whose effects would weigh on future generations in the region. Dismantling Structural Violence One recognized root cause of militarized conflicts within societies is the presence of structural violence. The inequitable distribution of resources internally and

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globally, which inflicts much suffering on marginalized sectors, is usually underpinned by repressive state structures. Such structural violence in turn spawns the seeds of societal unrest, which can sprout into armed revolutionary struggles. Confronted with the realities of a structurally violent paradigm of ‘development’, increasingly referred to as ‘development aggression’, ordinary peoples, NGOs, POs, social institutions (e.g., religious, education), global networks of advocates, and some critical political and governmental representatives have been mobilizing and implementing alternative development thinking and strategies. One acronym, PEACE, refers to this alternative as development that is participatory, equitable, appropriate (in values and technology), critically empowering (conscientizing), and ecologically sustainable. Such peaceful development has as its central priority the basic needs of all citizens and rethinks the goals of high consumerist technologically advanced ‘progress’. For example, through critical education and organizing projects, poor Filipino rice farmers and fisherfolk have empowered themselves via hundreds of NGOs and POs under the Caucus of Development NGOs (CODENGOs) to substitute ecologically destructive farming or fishing methods and inequitable economic relationships with sustainable techniques and just sharing of benefits (e.g., organic inputs, mangrove reforestation, low-cost credit, cooperative production and marketing, advocacy to access deserved public social services). Since 1972, the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) has grown to become the largest NGO in the country, involving some 350 000 poor, landless rural peoples in 3200 villages. Through conscientization processes, BRAC has empowered its members to develop self-reliant incomegenerating projects, primary healthcare services and practices, functional adult literacy and nonformal primary education programs, paralegal skills, and credit cooperatives. Initially in Burkina Faso and later in Senegal and Togo, the Six S’s (Se Servir de la Saison Seche en Savanne et au Sahel) NGO has educated and motivated poor farmers to draw on local and appropriate modern knowledge and resources to cooperate in developing small-scale irrigation, erosion control, fruit orchards, and village grain facilities. In India, the Working Women’s Forum (WWF) has facilitated more than 150 000 poor women workers to form a grassroots union to overcome moneylender and employer exploitation, as well as gender and caste discrimination. Using strategies of empowerment education, people-controlled credit and health services, mass demonstrations, and political lobbying, the WWF presents a counter to top-down ‘development’ strategies that often end up benefiting local and national elites, or males as a social group. In Bangladesh, the strategy of the Grameen Bank to empower poor farmers, notably women, through a micro-credit scheme that has spread

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worldwide, was recognized by the award of the 2006 Nobel Prize for Peace to Grameen Bank and its founder, Muhammad Yunus. With an estimated 1.5 million landless members organized in 23 out of 27 states, Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement, Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST), has become the largest and often identified as the most effective nonviolent movement in the world. The MST has, through education and organizing, facilitated landless families to challenge the longstanding inequalities in land distribution by peaceful occupation of unused land to establish cooperative farms, build houses, schools, and clinics, and promoted indigenous cultures, environmental sustainability, and gender equality. Also in the Latin-American region, the case of Bolivian citizens mobilizing and successfully reversing their city government’s deal with a transnational corporation (TNC) to privatize water stands as an example of how nonviolent people power can overcome state-TNC marginalization. This ‘Cochabamba water rebellion’ of 2000 took the form of strikes and rallies, even in the face of violent state repression. The institutionalization of nonviolence through the window of development also necessarily involves education and action directed toward the global level. Thus, in the Philippines, the Freedom from Debt NGO has helped to raise consciousness of Filipino peoples to their nation’s entrapment in the global debt machinery, including International Monetary Fund (IMF) structural adjustment programs, and to lobby for policies of debt cancellation or at least debt capping to free up the national budget for meeting the basic needs of Filipinos. Other networks of Filipino NGOs and POs (e.g., National Peace Conference, CODE-NGO) similarly educate and empower citizens to challenge the government and politicians to design and implement not just growth-first and globalization policies but also a ‘social reform agenda’ that delivers social and economic justice to all marginalized sectors. In many North societies, a whole spectrum of aid and development NGOs have grown over the decades to promote links of solidarity with South peoples, NGOs, and POs engaged in grassroots peace-oriented development; to advocate for alternative aid, trade, and other foreign policies of their governments that would reverse North–South inequities; and to challenge global organizations and ‘globalization from above’ regimes (IMF, TNCs, World Trade Organization (WTO), trade blocs) that further marginalize poor and vulnerable majorities. The development/global education being undertaken by such North-based NGOs raise critical consciousness of North peoples about their responsibilities and accountabilities in world poverty and underdevelopment, including rethinking unsustainable consumerist lifestyles. In some cases, official aid agencies have also supported NGOs in development education work, as well as grassroots empowerment projects.

From 2001, initially in Porto Alegre, Brazil, the global gathering known as the World Social Forum (WSF) has given a dynamic space for voices speaking out against ‘globalization from above’ dominated by powerful corporations, states, and related regimes with its consequences of increasing marginalization for the poor majorities worldwide. At the WSF, many thousands of grassroots peoples’ organizations, NGOs, and networks from diverse sectors, including peasants, fisherfolk, urban poor, indigenous peoples, women, educators, human rights, justice, and environmental groups, are sharing ideas and experiences that provide concrete nonviolent alternatives to corporate-led globalization. In formal educational systems worldwide, especially in North contexts, programs and projects have infused curricula and pedagogies with structural violence issues and problems to critically empower teachers and learners to participate in North–South solidarity activities and actions for building a just and sustainable world system. Recently, a Canadian high-school youth mobilized a campaign among peers against the increasing problem of child labor and urged North governments, businessmen, and consumers to stop encouragement of oppressive child labor practices through importation, investment, and consumption policies. Craig Kielburger’s campaign is providing meaningful opportunities for Canadian youth to feel empowered to take social action on issues of structural violence and consequently deepening the level of peace building in their schools. In the Philippines, some schools, notably in the private sector, integrate programs of immersion or outreach whereby their students personally experience the realities of marginalization and are catalyzed to reflect on injustices in Filipino society. A more peaceful world cannot be built on foundations of gross inequities and other manifestations of structural violence. Indeed, a major root cause of wars and physical violence can be traced to social and economic injustices, and therefore schools have a responsibility to enhance their students’ capacity to build a culture of peace which directly faces up to problems of structural violence at all levels of human life.

Upholding Human Rights Another long-standing expression of institutionalizing nonviolence is anchored in the concept of human rights. Although it faces continual elaboration, a significant theory–practice gap and frequent challenge as to its validity, human rights received a strong affirmation of its universality at the 1993 Vienna world conference. While the Declaration noted the need to take into account specific social and cultural conditions, it is understood that cultural or social practices cannot justify human rights violations. Peace and nonviolence surely also

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mean that the rights, dignities, and freedoms inherent in all human beings are respected and promoted. Promoting and respecting human rights continue to pose enormous challenges despite the Universal Declaration and numerous covenants, conventions, and charters that have come into being since 1948. The power entrenched in structures of state, private interests, sociocultural systems, and global agencies still weigh heavily on the fulfillment of human rights and dignities. The risktaking and dedicated work of human rights campaigners to educate and mobilize citizens and institutions to resist violations and to assert rights in all spheres and levels of life is surely a vital dimension of peace education. As ordinary peoples experience critical literacy and empower themselves to participate actively in building a strong civil society to which agencies of state and private power must be accountable in the spirit of authentic democracy, so will their human rights be better protected and promoted. A proper recognition and affirmation of the role of human rights in peace building needs, however, to acknowledge the evolving complexity and maturity in its theory and practice. Key themes in this emergent global consensus include the need to uphold the indivisibility and interrelatedness of all rights, thereby avoiding earlier emphases on individual civil and political rights to the neglect of social, economic, cultural, group, peoples’, and solidarity rights; to move beyond legal or juridical dimensions of human rights teaching; to legitimize the role of NGOs and POs in promoting human rights; to accord equitable space to South interpretations and voices albeit within a universalist consensus; and to address root causes rather than symptoms of human rights violations. For example, in Bicol, one of the poorest regions of the Philippines, a women-centered NGO-initiated project infused issues of women’s human rights into incomegenerating activities, reproductive health education and services, and their domestic empowerment vis-a`-vis traditional male-dominant gender roles and relationships. As the women’s economic independence and health/reproductive literacy improved, they also developed confidence and assertiveness in building more equitable, less sexist domestic relationships in nonviolent ways. Similar experiences have been found among women’s education and empowerment projects or programs in other South countries where the promotion of women’s human rights have created more just, sustainable, and gender-fair development environments so fundamental to personal and societal peace. Often, women’s NGOs (e.g., Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN); Association for African Women for Research & Development (AAWORD); Asian Women’s Human Rights Council (AWHRC)) are assuming leadership in educating and acting for women’s human rights.

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In Asia, Latin America, and Africa, and increasingly in North contexts, the expanding numbers of child laborers and the street children phenomenon has given impetus to the implementation of the historic Convention on the Rights of the Child. NGOs have engaged in critical education and empowerment of the child workers themselves, as well as of adult citizens, including parents and policy makers, to defend children against exploitation, marginalization, and violence (economic, sexual, cultural, social, domestic). As structural violence intensifies with globalization, these efforts will need to magnify as children increasingly fall below the social safety nets or are in greater economic and social exploitative demand. It is indeed inspiring and hopeful to see street children acquiring alternative economic and social resources, or bonded child laborers organizing to assert their rights and freedoms. Refugees and asylum seekers constitute another sector of marginalized peoples experiencing human rights violations and who are the focus of active nonviolent advocacy by human rights and solidarity. Whether it is the case of the internally displaced peoples of the war-torn region of Darfur, or refugees trying to land in Australia or Europe, institutionalizing nonviolence requires sustained efforts to close the gap between international human rights laws and instruments and practice by governments and powerful organizations. Increasingly, at national and global levels, there are also efforts by human rights advocates and civil society organizations to challenge the human rights violations that have accompanied policies or actions of all forms of terrorism and the ‘war on terrorism’. The continuing operation of the US detention center in Guantanamo for so-called ‘illegal combatants’ and the practice of ‘rendition’ of ‘terrorist suspects’ to third countries where interrogation methods often use torture, clearly demonstrate the challenges of institutionalizing a culture of peace based on respect for human rights. Nevertheless, the progress of such initiatives as the International Criminal Court needs to be positively acknowledged as an important global instrument to promote human rights. In formal educational institutions, the advocacy for integrating human rights education into teaching and learning have borne fruit, not only in North states where political systems are more disposed to notions of rights and freedoms. No doubt, in some contexts, the ongoing debate over ‘universalism’ versus ‘cultural relativism’ poses a barrier for such formal programs given the need for official endorsement. Nevertheless, where possible, both formal and nonformal NGO-based educators have been able to justify spaces in various curricula for promoting student awareness of local, national, and global realities of human rights, and catalyzing empowered action to protect and respect human rights in their societies or abroad. From the role modeling of human rights in

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their own school institution to advocating for release of political prisoners (e.g., Amnesty International campaigns), abolition of the death penalty, and improved rights of marginalized sectors (e.g., homeless poor suffering constant evictions; landless peasants; export processing workers; child laborers; indigenous peoples facing development aggression and the injustices of colonialism), students will hopefully embrace a culture of human rights that in turn positively contribute to a culture of peace and nonviolence. Indeed, significant dimensions of violence prevention are facilitated by a respect among all school members of each others’ rights. The development of fair and appropriate policies and codes of conduct and interrelationships in school institutions necessarily integrate basic principles of human rights thinking and practices. Promoting human rights at international and global levels also contributes to the institutionalization of nonviolence. There is emerging a critical mass of human rights workers and organizations that are collaborating in public education across regions and continents for a fuller implementation of human rights provisions that many governments have formally ratified. Whether calling into question the human rights accountability of agencies/regimes such as TNCs, IMF, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), and North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in their aggressive ‘development’ paradigm, or lobbying governments to protect human rights as in specific cases (e.g., Myanmar, Chiapas, Tibet), such interregional or international education-cum-advocacy efforts also simultaneously contribute to local empowerment of their civil societies. One exemplar of work that tries to institutionalize nonviolence through promotion of human rights is shown in Peace Brigades International (PBI). This is a unique grassroots organization that on invitation sends teams of volunteers into areas of political conflict to provide protective international accompaniment for individuals and organizations at risk from repression. Thus, PBI helps to enhance nonviolent zones of action for local promoters of social justice and human rights. In the post-apartheid South African context, the National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation provides a unique societal experiment for recognizing the injustices of gross human rights violations while opening spaces for reconciliation between oppressors and oppressed and for healing on all sides. Cultures in Solidarity Conflicts between peoples of different cultures or ethnic/ ‘racial’ identities, while not new in human history, have posed or are posing major problems of peacelessness and tragic violence in the context of a militarized and structurally violent world. Bosnia, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and the southern Philippine island of

Mindanao are but some examples of conflicts involving different ethnic, ‘racial’, or tribal groups within a society. In multicultural nations in the North (e.g., Canada, United States, Australia, United Kingdom, and other West European states), relationships between various ethnic or cultural groups have also seen their share of prejudices, discrimination, and racism, which on occasion have sparked direct confrontations and physical violence. Often, contestation for resources and territories and redressing historical injustices are the underlying causes of such conflicts rather than cultural differences per se. As earlier noted, the dominant modernization paradigm is further marginalizing indigenous or aboriginal peoples who are portrayed as standing in the way of ‘progress’ as forests are logged, energy infrastructures are constructed, mining proliferates to meet industrialization and consumerism, and agribusinesses expand into the hinterlands. The institutionalization of nonviolence therefore needs to grapple with the challenge of promoting cultural solidarity or what a Filipino-based interfaith educator and activist has called ‘active harmony’. Through critical dialog and collaborative activities, conflicting or divided cultural/ethnic/racial groups, communities, and nations are able to understand the root causes of their divisions, to cultivate respect for each other’s beliefs and traditions, and to seek reconciliation or healing of differences that may often harbor deep and violent feelings of bitterness, enmity, and revenge. In facilitating such intercultural respect and ties of solidarity, the challenge is not only to build societal and global harmony, but also to simultaneously promote culture-related provisions in the human rights conventions. This also contributes to a culture of nonviolence as it prevents cultural conflicts from escalating into violent ‘resolution’. For example, in many North multicultural societies, formal school curricula and institutional environments have been integrating principles, values, and strategies of intercultural education. Through a more inclusive perspective of their nation’s and the world’s history, consciousness raising on cultural differences, the need for all groups to receive equitable respect and nondiscrimination, and skills training to reconcile existing intercultural conflicts nonviolently, such programs demonstrate that a peaceful world is not feasible without the ability and willingness of all groups to live nonviolently in unity amid diversity. The development of antiracist and a prejudice-reduction curriculum and school climate, including collaboration with community sectors, is a vital component of institutionalizing a culture of nonviolence in schools. The empowerment of minorities, excluded from mainstream processes and alienated or victimized by discrimination inside and outside school, needs to be facilitated. All students, regardless of heritage or ideology, need to develop values and skills for living with each

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other in a spirit of trust, respect, and sharing. It is important, however, to be critical of versions of multicultural education that merely ‘celebrate’ cultural differences in superficial ways without promoting critical understanding of and solidarity in resolving root causes of intercultural disharmony (e.g., racism, discrimination, structural injustices, historical oppression). In this regard, First Nations or aboriginal educational movements also would not deem intercultural education valid if it does not actively promote their identity and wisdom traditions so crucial to their cultural survival in a world pushed by forces of global ‘cultural homogenization’. Among First Nations schools themselves, there are serious challenges in integrating education for nonviolence that can effectively respond to the pervasive symptoms of internalized community violence amid cultural fragmentation and other social problems such as substance abuse/addiction and domestic violence, and the trauma and dysfunctions inherited from colonial oppression (e.g., residential schools, cultural denigration by colonizers). In this regard, the role of elders with strong memories of indigenous cultural frameworks is vital in institutionalizing a culture of nonviolence, in the same way that ongoing United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)-initiated national culture of peace programs emphasize drawing on traditional/indigenous forms of conflict resolution. Increasingly, representatives of diverse faiths, religions, and spiritual traditions are also meeting to promote interfaith, interreligious, or ecumenical dialog deemed crucial to developing greater active harmony of peoples within and across societies. Thus in the Philippines, the Silsilah NGO and the Catholic Bishops Conference have promoted dialog between Muslims and Christians, including the religious as a way to complement the ongoing peace-building processes and the recently signed Government-Moro National Liberation Front peace accord. While the ‘Muslim–Christian’ conflicts stem more from economic, political, and social causes of territorial conquest and structural violence, there is also today a need to build harmony from a faith perspective, so that religious beliefs do not become a motivating force for further violent divisions. Similar principles of institutionalizing intercultural nonviolence are also evident in the Palestinian–Jewish conflict in the Middle East and the long-standing conflict in Northern Ireland, which recently witnessed a negotiated settlement. Likewise, on a global level the World Conference on Religions and Peace provides an educational and empowering forum for diverse faith leaders and followers to work for nonviolent and just interfaith and intercultural relationships. In its most recent assembly in Kyoto (July, 2006), the Religions for Peace emphasized the importance of a concept of ‘‘shared security’’ in which ‘‘the world’s religious communities must play a central role partnering

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with one another and all sectors of society, to prevent and stop war, expose injustice, combat poverty, and protect the earth.’’ Similarly, the Parliament of the World’s Religions has urged members of diverse faith communities to speak out against religiously motivated violence while collaborating in implementing a ‘global ethic’ to overcome the political, economic, and other structural causes of violence. In response to the deepening and expanding ‘war on terrorism’ being waged by powerful states, many in the interfaith dialog movement clearly refute the so-called ‘clash of civilizations’ and ‘axis of evil’ concepts and concomitant reliance on the strategy of militarized violence. In their view, sustainable resolution of all forms of terrorism rests in nonviolent strategies of prevention and principled negotiation that recognize and address the root causes of ‘terrorist’ acts. Rejecting the stereotyping of Islam as a faith ‘justifying’ terrorism or violence, interfaith advocates emphasize instead a dialog of civilizations and the need for all faiths to self-critically transform their own institutions and worldviews of beliefs and practices in the context of contemporary understandings of peace, justice, human rights, and sustainability. The institutionalization of nonviolence through intercultural harmony also means acknowledging the vital role of indigenous or traditional social–cultural ways of resolving conflicts. Kalinaw Mindanao, for example, promotes as part of its nonformal peace education activities in the Philippines a deep appreciation for indigenous or traditional strategies of nonviolent conflict resolution. In promoting respect among cultures, mutual learning and adaptation of indigenous values and strategies can be most constructive to building a culture of peace. In a parallel spirit, spokespersons of major faiths (e.g., Dalai Lama, Fr. Thomas Keating, Bro. Wayne Teasdale) have drafted a universal Declaration on Nonviolence to underpin a vision of civilization in which organized violence is no longer tolerated. Living Nonviolently with the Earth Through recognition that much of the modern era has endorsed human-led violence against our environment, the vigorous environmental movement since the 1970s has challenged all of humanity to live more peacefully with planet Earth. Personal and social practices that inflict ecological destruction can only undermine human survival in the present and among future generations. Indeed, conflicts arising out of the competitive control, use, and distribution of environmental resources portent a new wave of peacelessness in the world today ruled by the logic of growth and globalized competition. In the literature on violence prevention programs, it is still rare to see reference to the violence inflicted on the natural environment by human action. Yet, a critical and holistic understanding of such ecological violence will

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remind us that unless we learn to institutionalize nonviolence in our relations with planet Earth, there are and will be dire consequences for human survival. Indeed, the evidence mounts that conflicts over environmental resources and the outcomes of ecological destruction lead to other manifestations of peacelessness, including structural violence and human rights violations (e.g., displacement of peoples from ancestral lands; pollution hazards on health; depletion of subsistence resources) and even physical violence such as logging interests in the South resorting to armed repression of environmentalists and people’s movements or nations contesting territories or resources for environmental wealth. Hence, programs to foster an environmentally friendly school are based on values, principles, and skills that are very complementary to institutionalizing a culture of nonviolence (e.g., respecting rights of everyone to a clean and safe environment; humane treatment of all species). Environmental education or nowadays more holistically framed as education for sustainability or education for ‘sustainable development’ (ESD) also contributes to national and global cultures of peace, including the campaign to save the rainforests, antitoxic waste dumping, recycling, moderating heavy-consumption lifestyles, and a sense of ‘green justice’ between the North and South hemispheres. The social action that environmental education facilitates gives students empowerment skills and confidence that are applicable to all aspects of institutionalizing environmental nonviolence. On the other hand, if the often state-sanctioned version of ‘sustainable development’ is conditioned to serve the unchanged goals of growth-centered globalization, the roots of the ecological crisis will remain unshaken. For example, in Costa Rica, San Miguel Association for Conservation and Development (ASACODE) was formed in 1988 to educate and mobilize poor peasants to keep forests under local control. By rejecting ecologically destructive timber firm logging, ASACODE provides knowledge and incentives for peasants to harvest and process their wood sustainably, using ecologically sound techniques and reaping higher prices. ASACODE has expanded into cooperative-managed native tree nurseries and educating neighboring villages on successful strategies for community-controlled and environmentally just development. In many African countries, women, who have borne the brunt of environmental degradation, have been empowered through critical education and organizing by NGOs and POs to save their local environments in order to better and more sustainably meet the basic needs of their families and communities. Examples such as the green belt movement in Kenya or Organization of Rural Associations for Progress (ORAP) in Zimbabwe have enabled women to reverse ecological destruction and to generate community-controlled

resources for equitable sharing. Similar stories of how grassroots-centered education and empowerment have drawn on women’s indigenous resources and wisdom to link environment with just development, as well as women’s human rights abound in all South regions. In the Philippines, massive ecological destruction occurs through the greed and structural violence wielded by some economic and political elites, as seen in the rapid depletion of forests, illegal- and overfishing, polluting industries, mining, transportation, and agribusiness operations, and coral reef and mangrove destruction. In recent years, NGOs and POs such as the Lianga Ecological Concerns Organization (LECO) in the southern island of Mindanao have emerged to challenge this unsustainable and unjust environmental exploitation. Having been conscientized through a basic ecclesial community seminar in ecology, the Lianga villagers organized LECO to educate and mobilize their communities in tree planting and public information campaigns (despite intimidation by paramilitary personnel), the monitoring of logging and illegal fishing activities (including gathering evidence for prosecuting offenders), lobbying for official closure of furniture firms that use a protected hardwood species, preventing the illegal conversion of mangroves into commercial fishponds, and introducing alternative sustainable agricultural methods. Underpinning LECO’s energies and dedication was not just the people’s assertion of their rights for just development, but a firm belief that they are stewards and caretakers of the ‘wholeness of creation’. Parallel tales of peace-oriented environmental education and action can be told by the followers of ecological martyr Chico Mendes and the indigenous peoples of the Amazon forests, the Chipko-inspired movements in India, engaged Buddhist-led campaigns in Sri Lanka and Thailand, the severely repressed Ogoni peoples’ struggles for protection and compensation from the oil TNCs in Nigeria, the determined struggles of Indian farmers and tribal peoples against the Narmada dams, the ‘Jaiv Panchayat: Living Democracy Movement’ in India to protect local biodiversity, saving seeds, resisting biopiracy, and agribusiness exploitation, the Grupo de Formacio´n e Intervencio´n para el Desarrollo Sostenible (GRUFIDES, Intervention and Formation Group for Sustainable Development) working in Cajamarca, Peru to increase the capacity of local people to defend their environmental right, and the struggles of the First Nations and aboriginal peoples in the North context to save their ancestral domains. In recent years, the growing recognition of the grave threat of climate change to the survival of the planet and humanity has also catalyzed active nonviolent campaigns at national and international levels to reduce global warming. Both at the level of individual consumption and lifestyles and national macroeconomic growth

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policies, urgent transformations are necessary to prevent the predicted catastrophic ecological consequences. In most Northern and increasingly in Southern formal educational systems, ESD has become a regular theme in school curricula and pedagogy. While initial emphasis has been placed on educating children to be personally and socially green and for schools to be environmentally friendly (e.g., recycle, reuse, reduce, save animal and plant species), there is a recognition that a holistic perspective to education for sustainability or ESD must dig deep into the roots of the crisis. Hence, personal Earthcaring must integrate principles of structural justice and rights between groups and nations, challenge modernization ideals of growth and consumerism, advocate voluntary simplicity in lifestyle, and promote the concept of Earth rights. The institutionalizing of nonviolence in our relations with the Earth centrally demands the selfinternalization of green principles and values as expressed in our lifestyles. Cultivation of Inner Peace Increasingly, as inspired by spiritual and religious elders and traditions, the institutionalization of nonviolence in societies also calls for the development of inner peace. There is much inner violence that human beings in interaction with societal forces inflict on themselves. While the multiple dimensions of institutionalization explored thus far focus on visible relationships and structures of human life, there is a growing consensus that the inner dimensions and sources of peaceful values and practices should not be ignored. In cultivating inner peace, peoples from diverse traditions, faiths, and cultures are better prepared ethically, emotionally, and spiritually to work for outer or societal peace. There is also a basic assumption here that core values and root principles of diverse cultures and/or faiths provide guidance and inspiration for developing a culture of inner peace. As reflected in the holy texts, doctrines, oral wisdom, and body of practices across many faiths, including indigenous spiritualities and ‘new age’ conceptions, it is through a constant cultivation and renewal of such roots of inner peace that individuals can grow spiritually. It is important, however, to raise concerns over some popular models of education for inner or personal peace that can limit individuals or groups to be primarily content with their progress in attaining personal peace. Whether through praying, meditating, or other faith or spirituality activities, the yardstick of this paradigm of peace education is an individual’s or group’s feeling of having attained greater personal peace, and of closer communion with one’s Creator or God. However, from a holistic peace education framework, is it meaningful or authentic to feel inner peace divorced from the multifold problems of outer peacelessness and violence? Would this not then reduce inner peace to a self-centered

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over-individualistic satisfaction, instead of an inner peace that interacts dialogically with an aspiration to work simultaneously for societal and global peace? For instance, a sense of ‘inner peace’ may motivate individuals in advantaged socioeconomic positions to feel ‘pity’ for the marginalized and to engage in acts of ‘pity’ (e.g., charity). But will this help to dismantle structures of violence and injustice? Education that renews the roots of inner peace, while indeed essential, needs to integrally link with empowerment for structural transformation. For example, in the grassroots Basic Christian or Ecclesial Communities that have emerged largely in Southern contexts under the inspiration of ‘liberation theology’, members are motivated to develop deeper interiorization of Christian values and principles so as to experience authentic inner transformation. At the same time, such interiorization goes hand in hand with critical social analysis that challenges members to work for more peaceful, just communities and the larger society. In Buddhist societies, there is a growing reinterpretation of the role of the clergy, as well as Buddhist practices of inner peace or the search for personal ‘enlightenment’. Thus while the central principles and purposes of prayer and meditation practices toward self-enlightenment remain vital, social or engaged Buddhism does not remain alienated from societal events, especially those promoting peacelessness. Thus in Cambodia the 1993 walk for peace and reconciliation was simultaneously an expression of inner peace development through prayer and meditation for compassion, nonviolence, nonhatred, forgiveness, and selflessness. In Thailand and Sri Lanka, Buddhist inner cultivation also leads monks and followers to reflect on the deviations of excessive materialism, consumerism, social injustices, and ecological destruction spawned by the modernization paradigm from Buddhist principles of nonattachment to things and power, moderation in lifestyle, and compassion for all beings. In some programs of holistic peace education, the theme of inner peace is explored through exercises that challenge learners to examine meanings and implications of inner peace development across various levels of life: the very personal and interpersonal; one’s work and institutional environment; and a citizen’s place in society and the world. This approach reminds learners that the ‘inner’ and the ‘personal’ is infused with the social and structural, and vice versa, so that social action for peace draws deeply on inner peace values and spiritualities. As the Buddhist teacher Thich Nat Hanh aptly reminds us, we are not just ‘being’; we are ‘inter-being’. This theme also has significant implications for an effective institutionalization of nonviolence. The responsibility of each individual to cultivate a sense of equilibrium and inner peace is vital in sustaining everyone’s contribution to a culture of peace at all levels of life. In Edmonton, for example, a world-renowned physician

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in alternative healing and medicine conducts chiqong relaxation exercises with high-school students so that they are better equipped to maintain calm through their daily school and out-of-school life. In California, more schools are integrating mindfulness or meditation techniques into classrooms, resulting in positive indicators including increased attention, improving mood disorders, depression, and other self-harming behaviors (e.g., anorexia). Worldwide, other exercises to enhance meditative reflection (e.g., tai chi, yoga, centering) have also found their way into the daily routines of many individuals and even into the workplace.

Signposts for Institutionalization The processes and strategies for institutionalizing nonviolence, as reflected in the diverse exemplars in this article, are clearly complex and multidimensional. Without any claim that our synthesis rests on a comprehensive and systematic research effort, it seems possible to at least raise some signposts on the slow but hopeful journey toward the institutionalization of nonviolence in local, national, international, and global contexts. To begin with, it is first advocated here that a holistic paradigm of nonviolence is meaningfully built on the insights, analysis, practices, and role models that can be drawn from the diverse and increasingly convergent or at least consensus-building fields or movements of local, national, and global transformation. The institutionalization of nonviolence necessarily and urgently calls for simultaneous and complementary visioning, thinking, and action at multiple levels and contexts of life. These multiple sites of rethinking and practice must all be activated given that we are formed as human beings through a complex, interactive blend of socializing influences. From the family to formal or nonformal schooling, to the media, and increasingly the information superhighway, the institutionalization of nonviolence is slowly but steadily gaining momentum. At the same time, nonviolence is being institutionalized in countless and inspiring struggles of grassroots movements and empowered civil society. These include community and adult education projects and programs; nongovernment and peoples’ organizations for demilitarization, human rights, and grassroots development; alternative media from newspapers to audiovisuals; children’s play and toys; international solidarity groups; music and art; peace museums; basic Christian or ecclesial communities; religious or spiritual retreats; youth groups and movements; parenting for peace; Internet for solidarity; challenging hate and racist literature on the Internet; the critical education of prisoners subject to violent or dehumanizing punishment; and people’s summits and networks to challenge powerful global and private regimes such as the IMF, WTO, Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), APEC, TNCs, and the

like – all of these reflect the enormous energies, sweat, courage, risks, tears, pain, and even sacrifices of countless human beings committed to a culture of peace. A second signpost toward institutionalizing nonviolence rests on the bedrock of education in its deepest sense. Unless action for transformation of a culture of violence toward a culture of peace is consistently underpinned by educational processes that increase the conscience of and empower individuals, groups, organizations, nations, and transnational actors, the possibilities for cooptation, resorting to nonpeaceful methods, and unsustainability of action are very real. Institutionalization of nonviolence, of course, requires the implementation of appropriate institutional frameworks (e.g., laws, regulations, structures, and incentives). However, all human beings need spaces for critical and democratic education, which builds a selfreliant, participatory, and open-minded commitment to transformation. Institutionalization imposed from above can only lay very shallow roots for the long-term process of building a culture of nonviolence. In the third instance, the evidence of numerous exemplars in both Northern and Southern contexts suggests that institutionalization of nonviolence cannot and should not be seen as the primary responsibility of the marginalized sectors, the victims of violence and peacelessness. The willingness of nonmarginalized ‘privileged’ individuals, groups, and not the least nations, and increasingly global actors, to critically challenge their own accountabilities and responsibilities, whether direct or indirect, is another crucial signpost for a paradigm shift. From such self-critical analysis, the journey moves for such relatively powerful actors toward a vision and praxis of solidarity. This reflection does not imply, however, a naive hope that those entrenched in the ways of repressive power and injustices easily convert to a culture of nonviolence. As the exemplars illustrate, personal and institutional conversion is always a difficult struggle. However, the signpost tells us that some spaces for conversion and for building solidarity do exist within the more powerful and privileged sectors of local and global societies, and that these spaces need conscientious and critical engagement. Finally, a profoundly challenging signpost that is becoming more visible in the processes of institutionalizing nonviolence points toward the wisdoms of the ancient sages, religious founders, and spiritual elders across diverse civilizations. While alternative institutions in the economic, political, social, and cultural spheres of life are certainly necessary to dismantle a culture of violence, the ‘inner’ institution that we may generally refer to as spirituality plays a pivotal and catalytic role. A profoundly decentering displacement of ‘values’, attitudes, and dispositions within ourselves as authentic human beings cannot be avoided as we strive to cultivate personal cultures of nonviolence that spiral and dialectically interact with family, community, and national and global cultures of nonviolence.

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In conclusion, a sustainable institutionalization of nonviolence explores all potential spaces for education and transformation, searching for links between formal, nonformal, and informal strategies, and mindful that building a peaceful world cannot start and end in only one segment of life. Likewise, it must constantly link the personal with the societal, and the inner with the outer expressions of nonviolence. As we stand before the doors of the next century, there are innumerable human beings as individuals and in communities following these signposts for institutionalizing nonviolence and/or planting these very signposts themselves through their praxis. Our challenge is to join this journey into a culture of nonviolence and peace.

See also: Conflict Management and Resolution; Conflict Transformation; Conscientious Objection, Ethics of; Dictatorships and Authoritarian Regimes, Insurrections against; Gandhi and His Legacies; Human Rights; Nonviolence Theory and Practice; Nonviolent Action; Peace Culture; Peaceful Societies; Peacemaking and Peacebuilding; Structural Violence

Further Reading Adam, D. (ed.) (1995). UNESCO and a culture of peace. Paris: UNESCO. Alger, C. and Stohl, M. (eds.) (1988). A just peace through transformation. Boulder: Westview. Archer, D. and Costello, P. (1990). Literacy and power. London: Earthscan. Bhatia, G. S., O’Neil, J. S., Gall, G. L., and Bendin, P. D. (eds.) (1998). Peace, justice and freedom: Human rights challenges for the new millennium. Edmonton: The University of Alberta. Bjerstedt, A. (ed.) (1993). Peace education: Global perspectives. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International. Bonta, B. D. (1993). Peaceful peoples: An annotated bibliography. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow. Boulding, E. (1988). Building a global civic culture. NewYork: Teachers College Press. Boulding, E. (2000). Cultures of peace: The hidden side of history. New York: Syracuse University Press. Brecher, J., Costello, T., and Smith, B. (2000). Globalization from below, pp. 19–32, 81–90. Cambridge: South End Press. Burns, R. J. and Aspeslagh, R. (eds.) (1996). Three decades of peace education around the world. New York: Garland. Chappell, D. W. (ed.) (2003). Socially engaged spirituality. Bangkok: Sathirakoses-Nagapradipa Foundation. Clark, J. (1991). Democratizing development. London: Earthscan. Commission on Global Governance (1995). Our global neighborhood. New York: Oxford University.

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Dankelman, I. and Davidson, J. (1988). Women and environment in the third world. London: Earthscan. Elkins, P. (1992). A new world order: Grassroots movements for global change. London: Routledge. European Centre for Conflict Prevention (ed.) (1999). People building peace: 35 inspiring stories from around the world. Utrecht: European Centre for Conflict Prevention. Fisher, W. F. and Ponniah, T. (eds.) (2003). Another world is possible. London: Zed. Foundations and Skills for Constructive Conflict Transformation (2000). Meditation and facilitation training manual. Akron, PA: Mennonite Conciliation Service. Garcia, E. (ed.) (1994). Pilgrim voices: Citizens as peacemakers. Quezon City: Gaston Z. Ortigas Peace Institute & Ateneo Center for Social Policy & Public Affairs and London: International Alert. Haavelsrud, M. (ed.) (1994). Disarmament education. Tromso: Arena. Housmans peace diary (Annual). London: Housemans. International Forum on Globalization (2002). Alternatives to economic globalization. San Francisco: IFG. Karliner, J. (1997). The corporate planet. Ecology and politics in the age of globalization. San Franciso: Sierra Club Books. Korten, D. C. (2001). When corporations rule the world. Bloomfield & San Francisco: Kumarian Press & Berrett Koehler Publishers. Lakey, G. (1987). Powerful peacemaking. Philadelphia, PA: New Society. Lederach, J. P. (1997). Building peace: Sustainable reconciliation in divided societies. Washington: United States Institute of Peace. Little, D. (ed.) (2007). Peacemakers in action. New York: Cambridge University. Mertes, T. (ed.) (2004). A movement of movements. Is another world really possible? London: Verso. Miller, M. S. (ed.) (1993). State of the peoples. Boston, MA: Beacon. Myers, N. and Kent, J. (eds.) (2005). Gaia atlas of planet management. London: Gaia Books. Paige, G. D. (2002). Nonkilling global political science. Honolulu: Xlibris. Reardon, B. and Cabezudo, A. (2002). Book 1. Rationale for and approaches to peace education. New York: Hague Appeal for Peace. Reardon, B. and Nordland, E. (eds.) (1994). Learning peace. Albany: SUNY. Schock, K. (2005). Unarmed insurrections: People power movements in nondemocracies. Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis. Shor, I. and Freire, P. (1987). A pedagogy for liberation. South Hedland: Bergin & Garvey. Slattery, L., Butigan, K., Pelicaric, V., and Preston-Pile, K. (2005). Engage: Exploring nonviolent living. Oakland, California: Pace e Bene Press. Thich, N. H. (1998). Interbeing. Berkeley: Parallax Press. Toh, S. H. and Cawagas, V. (eds.) (2006). Cultivating wisdom, harvesting peace. Education for a culture of peace through values, virtues, and spirituality of diverse cultures, faiths, and civilizations. Brisbane: Multi-Faith Centre, Griffith University. UNESCO (2002). Teaching and learning for a sustainable future. Paris: UNESCO (CDROM). United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (2006). Alliance of civilizations. Report of the high-level group. 13 November 2006. New York: United Nations. Vandana, S. (2005). Earth democracy, justice, sustainability and peace. Cambridge: South End Press. Welton, N. and Wolf, L. (eds.) (2001). Global uprising: Confronting the tyrannies of the 21st century. Gabriola Island, BC: New Society.

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Institutionalization of Violence Rajni Kothari, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi, India ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction Specter of Security and the Cult of Violence Global Context Emerging Scenarios The State as a Source of Violence

Glossary Anomie A widespread attitude of discontent, unrest, and uncertainty stemming from a general breakdown in the structure and values of a society; moral instability. Dacoities Physical attacks by a group of armed robbers. (From the Dacoit robber society that historically committed such crimes in India and Burma.) Dalits A social group in India, including those who were formerly designated in the Hindu caste system as the untouchables; that is, those completely beneath the main caste system and thus of lowest social status. Global Commons The sum of the Earth and its plant and animal life, thought of as a commons, or common

Institutionalization of violence generally refers to the process by which acts of violence or force are undertaken by an official group on behalf of, or at least with the tacit approval of, the society as a whole. Examples of such actions might include violence carried out by the society’s police against criminals, warfare by the armed forces against external enemies, and repressive measures by security forces against the society’s internal opponents, real or perceived. In this way institutionalized violence is typically contrasted with noninstitutionalized violence; that is, violent actions by individuals without any authorization or acceptance by the larger society, such as serial killings, gang violence, or spousal and child abuse. However, it can also be argued that these seemingly unsanctioned acts of violence are actually not the random behavior of deviant individuals, but an inevitable consequence of the inequities and pathologies of the society. In that sense the institutionalization of violence

This article is reproduced from the previous edition, volume 1, pp 223–230, Ó 1999, Elsevier Inc.

‘Development’ and Violence Politics of Identity and the Growth of Violence Countervailing Tendencies Further Reading

area, to be protected and conserved by all humans and shared with all other species. Institutionalization A situation in which a certain behavior, condition, or phenomenon has become so established within a society that it can be considered an inherent aspect of the society rather than an incidental or subsidiary feature; for example, violence, though not ordained by a society and perhaps even officially described as an aberration, may actually be so widespread as to have become institutionalized. Polity The form or structure according to which the political system of a society is organized; the body politic.

includes all types of violent acts that are prevalent within the society, not just those carried out collectively by official groups.

Introduction With the world moving from an era of well laid out assumptions about the path of human ‘progress’ and the institutional framework in which this was to take place to an age of growing uncertainty, ambivalence and groping towards a wholly unclear future, creating a growing sense of insecurity and anomie, violence seems to have become endemic to the state of human society. Increasingly, we are witnesses to a deepening of the social roots of violence and, at the other end of the spectrum, a growth of isolation and alienation of the individual. This tends to leave, in their wake, violent backlashes all the way from terrorist to neo-fascist responses to what many perceive as a decline in prospects for alternative futures. We can identify many symptoms of the institutionalization of violence. There is an increasing sense of vulnerability at both the elite level and the level at which

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the common folk find themselves. There is a gradual erosion of the ‘state’ that had at one time given a sense of security to both levels. That at any rate was the basic presumption underlying Hobbes’s conception in his Leviathan. It is this sense of security that is, in the times we are living in, under siege. For today ‘security’ appears to be taking on an increasingly defensive stance, for both the ruling classes and the large masses of the people. Ruling elites the world over are creating walls of security around them and signing joint declarations against violence, terrorism, and the like, at a time when the mass of the people are being exposed to both state repression and the violence unleashed by militants of various types. It is with this loss of a sense of security at both ends of the social spectrum that we are witness to an increasing resort to violence. Other major symptoms widely observed include a growing role of corruption in human affairs which in turn is producing a culture of ‘mafia’ rule at the very grassroots of societies, a considerable growth in violation of human rights in many parts of the world, including atrocities against the weaker sections of society, especially women and children, the minorities and the dispossessed, and the poor at large, much of which is increasingly taking on an organized and institutionalized form. Many of us have been brought up on a belief in the sanctity of life in all forms and have for long considered violation of all sentient life as an aberration. The reality that faces us today, however, is that most nation-states and cultures tolerate oppression and rejection of basic rights and even endorse the institutionalization of such oppression and hence of violence. Violence is often hidden, especially violence against women but also violence against all beings that are victims of discrimination and exploitation. This is increasingly being brought out in investigations carried out by human-rights groups. (Women face violence all the way from family and neighborhood settings to arenas where modern technology is rendering them unwanted and forcing them into the highly vulnerable ‘unorganized sector’ in which single women, child labor, involuntary immigrants, and slum dwellers are huddled together.) Paradoxical and ironic though it may sound, the more such reports get publicized, the more the mass media are showing an obsession with violence even while they profess to abhor violence in their own surroundings. Indeed, this seems to be the case with so many of us. While we abhor violence, we find it attractive and enticing in the world of the mass media, of fiction, and of stories and gossip that we are getting accustomed to. Studies of violence in the media are demonstrating a strong affect on levels of violence in civil society. Films depicting violence in its most grueling forms seem to have a special attraction for us – for the younger generation, the bored and frustrated housewives, those seeking escapism from the realities of life, those dealt with harshly by society and

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seeking refuge in criminalized acts which they themselves often try to emulate. Nor is this limited to the more criminalized aspects of modern life. We are being constantly threatened by the abuse of religion for economic and political power, giving rise to a phenomenal growth in ethno-religious conflicts and in religious fundamentalism, causing potential damage to our psyches. Minds may be enslaved by the stereotyping that we see on television as indeed by the myths about ‘others’ that are perpetrated in the textbooks on which our children are brought up. In the meantime we find ourselves surrounded by pornography on the Internet.

Specter of Security and the Cult of Violence All in all we find ourselves surrounded by not just a growing scale of violence but in fact an emerging cult of violence that is spreading fast and may lie behind the growing sense of insecurity, especially in elite circles. Expenditures on the military, police, prisons, private security systems, and the upper strata are growing more and more fearful of the social reality that confronts them which they may have themselves to some extent given rise to but are unable to predict and deal with. It is this fear that lies behind what may be a pathological preoccupation with creating walls of ‘security’ from one and all, the cult of violence giving rise to a cult of security. What has come to be known as a national security state is not merely a reflection of nation-states constantly preparing themselves against both real and imagined ‘enemies’ (more the latter than the former) but also of the ruling class anticipating outbreaks of unanticipated violence resulting from growing turbulence and states of discontent and anomie in society at large. That bombs and explosives are blowing up here and there, that assassinations and political murders (including of people at the very top) have taken place, that more and more incidents of ‘indigenous terrorism’ are taking place, cannot any longer be blamed on outsiders. Yet no matter how much security is provided to a whole phalanx of ‘leaders’ and their large retinues and kins, and no matter how much diplomatic effort is expended to hold the forces of terrorism at bay (e.g., by designating some countries as ‘rogue states’ and pressuring allies to cut trade and other relations with them), fear of violence, both from within and from without, appears to be a dominant strain in the mental makeup of those in command of diverse states and perhaps the state system as a whole. As for the nonelite strata constituting more than 50–60% of the world’s population, the tendency is the opposite: rather than provide minimum security to them it is found more efficient to shove them out of the system, excluding millions from the institutional framework of

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the polity and the economy and treating them as dispensable. Poverty is increasingly ceasing to be seen as a problem to be resolved and perceived instead as an embarassment, especially as there seems to be a slow dawning on our consciousness that we may not for a very long time be able to eradicate it. This in itself and indeed above all is a most cruel manifestation of basic violence. Poverty is also a source of violence in reverse, as survival on the margins of society is becoming a breeding ground of a variety of violent acts – turning inward (hence the growing number of suicides among the poor as well as a growing resort to murders of one’s own kin). Violence is thus premeating primary units like family and immediate neighborhoods, along secondary channels of social castes and classes, as well as in sudden outbursts of anger and aggression against those belonging to the upper reaches of the social order. Criminality and the violence associated with it are not merely a function of ‘criminalization’ of the polity about which there is a lot of talk these days in a number of countries in which ‘antisocial elements’ and people with a criminal record are gaining access to the portals of power. It is something much more corrosive and comprehensive and consists of a whole social order – nationally and internationally – becoming vulnerable to the growing virus of crime and corruption of all kinds, from the flimsiest to the most grotesque, all the way from financial scams to the destruction of religious sites and the destruction of the global commons, in which a large array of otherwise prestigious institutions are found to be involved. Closely aligned with all this is the violence that is taking hold of the state itself, with armed police, paramilitary units, and even the official armed forces allegedly indulging in it wantonly, as some suggest for the sheer pleasure of shooting down people, raping women, indeed simply letting themselves go. The paradox is striking: the very custodians of law and of people’s safety, as well as the very segments that are expected to observe exemplary discipline in their behavior, are found to indulge in what appears to be a whole lifestyle of violence and disorder. All this leads to another insight: perhaps the simplest forms of institutionalization of violence lie in its routinization – violence as a ‘daily affair’, murders galore, incidents of rape of women, old and young and the very young among them on the increase, and a growing spate of shootouts in public places in metropolitan centers. We can also observe a growing incidence of inner violence in the form of suicides and suicide pacts, bands of ruffians from the upper classes carrying out massacres of segregated communities in rural areas and burning down their dwellings, hit and run killings of members of rival races and ethnic groups, sporadic as well as organized ‘riots’ between rival religious sects, a growing spate of assassinations of political cadres belonging to rival political parties, robberies and dacoities followed by killing of the victims

of the same, and police firings on ‘mobs’ and processions of protesting demonstrators. Governments themselves issue ‘shoot on sight’ orders, and sanction ‘encounter’ killings mounted by police and paramilitary personnel on extremist groups belonging to separatist and/or revolutionary causes. So much of this is taking place regularly and on an almost daily basis.

Global Context All this is happening at time when it appears to many that the whole world is adrift. The twentieth century has been a century of violence – of wars, revolutions, a fascist cult of destruction and all-out devastation, ‘liberation wars’ gone awry in so many parts of the ex-colonial world, turning antipeople, repressive and particularly coercive toward the laboring classes, increasingly brutalized and dehumanized. Everywhere the state is found hand-in-glove with special interests at home and in concert with neocolonial interests globally, in turn forcing the victims to turn anarchistic and violent. It is this phenomenon of the rise of national-security states opposed by the victimized turning unruly and turbulent, suffering continuously but at the same time displaying bursts of anger and contempt against those wielding power and authority, often becoming available to movements of insurgency and terrorism, in all of which violence is becoming the new language of discourse between the wielders of coercive power and those run over by them.

Emerging Scenarios To put it all in perspective, the reactions of surprise, despair, and intrigue at the various forms in which violence has surfaced and resurfaced in recent years need to be seen in a general historical context. The point is that unless consciously checked and countered, violence often takes on an endemic state in a society so full of inequity and potential for basic protest and growing despair, extremes of both socioeconomic and cultural kinds, and political misuse of the power of the state in rich and diverse societies. As governments themselves increasingly feel threatened, they frequently resort to a ‘law-andorder’ approach to deal with what are basically deep social and psychological issues. This pushes them to retain large retinues of armed forces which are no longer aimed at an ‘enemy’ but rather at citizens who are found to engage in movements of protest, struggles for civil liberties, and generally in dissent against a system that is judged by them to be undemocratic and lacking in accountability. The result is often internal militarization in which since there is no longer any need to go to war

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with an outside enemy, an inner enemy has to be found and ‘crises’ created within the society. Small social groups, activists and intellectuals, and those struggling for survival in situations of growing want and destitution often become the targets. Once this happens, violence grows by leaps and bounds (violence as well as counter-violence). As we have learned during the last decade and more, once violence takes root in a society full of divisions and schisms, it rarely vanishes. It grows, seeks new outlets, looks for new enemies. As the basic principle of militaristic thinking is typically the suspension of all thought other than its own, those who dare to think become the ultimate enemy. The point is that one tyranny can face another tyranny. It can handle brute force. What it cannot handle is creativity that resists control and refuses to fall in line. The result is that the violence which was justified at one time by pointing to an outside enemy may gradually turn against its own people, against minorities, against women activists, against generalists who dare to write independently, against artist, and thinkers. This is what happened under Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. For all of them a nuclear bomb in the possession of an enemy appeared less dangerous than a sketch drawn by an artist in one’s own society, a sketch that exposes the ills of the regime. For this artist is the more immediate enemy. Violence, then becomes endemic to a society when it reaches deeply into the social and cultural terrain. It is this that ultimately makes it truly institutionalized. In the foregoing the author has deliberately laid out a broad synoptic statement on the larger issues that underlie the institutionalization of violence. She now proceeds to take up the matter in different fields of human endeavor as structured by different agencies and institutions.

The State as a Source of Violence Having dealt with the evidence for a gradual increase in the repressive nature of the modern state in the face of growing assertions based on class, on the one hand, and indigenous structures of civil society on the other, we may now examine how state violence has been institutionalized over time. There is a historical background to this. The modern state since the Treaty of Westphalia was signed, has had an expansive streak to it (almost following the homocentric thrust of modern man). Culturally too, the modern divorce between the secular and the religious domains set the stage for the tendency of secular authority to expand outwards both vis-a-vis voluntaristic structures at home and vis-a-vis other peoples and cultures. This led to the spread of a geopolitical, militaristic, and technologically outward looking and colonizing character of the modern state, beginning with Europe and, by stages, engulfing practically the whole

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world. The growth of population movements, for example (both from rural agricultural hinterlands to urban industrial enclaves following the enclosure movements in the industrializing countries and from high-density regions with overflowing populations to low-density regions), has led to ever new forms of conquests and wars (including civil wars). Also, the rise of linguistic nationalism and the proliferation of modern nation-states in Europe, in the wake of the decline of multicultural empires and the spread outward of these states toward distant lands, has led to the development of professionalized armies and advances in military technology. More recently, this process has been taken further with the growth of ethnicity and diverse forms of subnationalism, again following the weakening of empirelike formations (including that of the Soviet Union). In short, both the ‘integrative’ thrust based on superimposition of the expansionist drive of the European conception of the state and the ‘disintegrate’ thrust following the rise of cultural nationalism have precipitated a simultaneous surge toward ethnic conflicts, interstate rivalries, geopolitical conquests, and local and regional wars, all of these involving a great deal of violence. The current and latest phase of these developments occurs especially in postcolonial states created by the presence of artificial boundaries left behind by colonial regimes but lately also in the European region following the collapse of Cold War bipolarity. There has taken place a growth of armed militias fighting for capture of state power, the worst manifestations of which are to be found in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Rwanda, Burundi, Zaire, and Chechnya. Some of these struggles also involve religious fundamentalism. An extreme form is found in the Taliban in Afganistan. Almost all of them have taken highly explosive and bloody forms, often verging on genocide. The scenario that is unfolding before us is hardly conducive to reducing the role of violence in human affairs. Indeed, as we move toward the end of the century we are witness to both a clash of cultures and ethnicities within nation-state boundaries and a clash of civilizations between and beyond nation-states and constellations thereof. Both forms of conflicts are also reinforced by counter-systemic movements, for example, for selfdetermination, for human rights, and even for social justice and economic and regional equity. Indeed, violence is often institutionalized even in the struggles for peace (conceived as resistance to violation of people’s right and their struggles for justice, often termed as ‘just wars’), found especially in Africa. As has been expressed by one of the most seasoned statesmen of Africa, Julius Nyerere, ‘‘Peace can only be a product of justice; it is not simply the absence of violence.’’ Even the processes associated with decolonization have produced a legacy of territorial disputes and brutal civil wars sometimes fought out of personal hatreds, or on account of tribal and ethnic aggrandisement. As regards the behavior of

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major powers, the post-Cold War promise of peace, disarmament, and a radical change in the psychology of competing power blocs has been totally belied by the continued use of military force in the conduct of international conflict. A few intractable conflicts of the Cold War era, like those in Indochina, have been dealt with as a result of a worldwide movement of protest. The worst manifestations of inhuman governance, such as apartheid in South Africa, have been successfully put to an end, but we can hardly say we are out of the woods. Over 50 conflicts continue to rage even today, some of them putting on display humanity’s basest instincts that many thought the march of human civilization would have brought under control.

‘Development’ and Violence Meanwhile, ‘development’, which was once thought of as an antidote to war and violence, and even the struggle for justice, are riddled with both social conflicts and a culture of violence. The idea that economic well-being, achieved through planned development, would reduce exploitation of various types does not seem to be that clear any more. The same is apparently true of the idea that the growth of economic independence of different social strata, as for example of women or of tribal groups (and what we in India call the Dalit’, i.e., the ex-untouchables) will make them less vulnerable, for example, to the male atrocities and vandalism against the deprived groups in society which are now on the rise. Violence against women, as against depressed ethnic racial groups, is on the increase in much of the world. And as gaps widen and inequality in access to power and decision making grows, vulnerability to atrocities and exploitation grows as well, and with that grows both violence of the system and counterviolence against it. For there is still a considerable lack of security for ordinary people who can be shot at and killed, or be tortured by the police to force a confession, or be arrested and jailed, or be at the mercy of gangsters and kidnappers, even quite often at the mercy of ‘militants’ who are supposed to be waging a struggle on their behalf. In the meantime, the large hordes of migrants and refugees who come to the cities to escape persecution or social ostracism in the areas – even countries – they belonged to as well as tribal groups and other rural folk who resist being displaced and forciby evicted, as a result of the construction of large dams and nuclear and thermal plants, are branded as extremists and are pushed around, often arrested under some anti-terrorist act or subjected to the opposite end of state repression, namely handed over to the terrorist arms of the state, the police, the paramilitary, and even the armed forces.

Politics of Identity and the Growth of Violence Then there is the phenomenon of sectarian violence, usually waged by ethnic and religious majorities against minorities but sometimes also by minorities. In both cases people claim to seek justice but adopt organizational modes involving violence. Indeed, violence is often used for both forging and sustaining sectarian identities; what has baffled social scientists for some time now is the unabated continuation of violence in creating a sense of belonging among those who are driven to the wall. According to one estimate, nearly 120 million people have been killed in the present century on the sites of collective identities. It appears as though ‘genocide’ has become an integral part of many mass movements for selfdefinition. There is now taking place a phenomenal growth in the politics of identities which involve a growing recourse to violence. While much of the focus of social-science studies and investigative reports is on the state and its repressive arms, these being seen as the main agents of genocidal acts, there is relative neglect of the selves of people – individuals – who also participate in such acts, of course for more complex reasons. People are found to kill themselves and are ready to kill others, engage in collective self-immolation, often backed by religious cults. Even the aspiration at leveling the differences between the rich and the poor, between the privileged and those left out of the system, is often conceived in forms that are violent. There is no space here to go into the manner in which sacrificial altars are created on which human beings commit both suicides and murders, the variety of occult activities that are on the rise, the inner recesses of a psychological kind in which some residual evil allegedly resides and various other rituals that are performed in which violence is seen not as an aberration but as a mode of self-expression. Suffice it to say that we are moving into an era in which violence is represented at so many levels and across so many institutional structures that it would be foolish to wish it away or simply engage in some naive and innocent or romantic Utopian ‘vision’. Violence is getting increasingly institutionalized, of course more against the weak (especially women and children and the poor at large) but also against the rich and the powerful, in opposition to whom banners of revolt and revulsion are being raised.

Countervailing Tendencies And yet the opposite tendency is also on the rise. There is evidence of growing exasperation with violence of both state-sponsored and militant varieties which is leading to a search for solutions that, if they succeed or even make

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slow headway, could lead to nonviolent ways of resolving conflicts and reconciling seeming opposites. There is of course still a long way to go on this path, but the process seems to have begun. We find this in the long beleaguered Middle East – the melting pot of two major Semitic cultures – of course in the apartheid-ridden South Africa, in the slow and painful but nonetheless continuing efforts in the former Yugoslavia (despite more recent aggressions as found in Kosovo), in the emerging way out of the long drawn out war of attrition based on an interface between bellicose religiosity and militarist confrontation in Northern Ireland, and even in the difficult and irrational dispute in the muddy terrains of hatred and suspicion in the Indian sub-continent. In each of these conflicts there are many hurdles to be crossed. In each of them new problems keep emerging. And in each of them not only the politics of military engagements but also the politics of ethnicities and identity formations, so often drawing upon deeply religious sentiments, are being tackled. But there seems to be no escape from continuing with the efforts that have already begun. As the specter of violence keeps haunting us and as the human urge toward a more peaceful and civilized existence persists despite it, and in both cases through ever new institutionalized forms, we are also witness to the growth of institutional structures that go beyond violence and nonviolence. This is occurring through the growing interface between state and civil society, the former being forced to become increasingly decentralized and the latter increasingly providing alternatives to mainstream politics, economics, and society, thereby returning to deeper roots of both human nature and human personality, and indeed also to a caring approach toward nature and toward diverse other species with whom the human species is bound in an organic way, both for sheer survival and for new flowering of potentialities and possibilities. This will not of course be realized merely on the basis of

Insurgencies See Dictatorships, Insurgencies Against

Insurgencies, Violent See Guerrilla Warfare

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some naive hopes and some ‘grand vision’ (which is of course vital, for without it we cannot move out of the present crisis). Advocates of this alternative call for immense efforts to ensure that the rise of the poor and oppressed against the ‘system’, after an early phase of violent backlash, both against it and from within its own dynamics, can provide a basis for a more integrated and negotiated framework to reconcile conflicts and bridge the wide gaps that exist in livelihood patterns, in access to political power, and in the structuring of civil society. And by doing this we will also defuse, through new institutionalized expressions, the violence that has of late accompanied the politics of protest and the culture of identity formations and the deeper roots in both nature and human nature – and the human psyche – that violence has acquired and that needs to be contained. It may be no less necessary to collectively deal with the various disasters visited by floods and famines, ecological breakdowns, and the erosion of life-sustaining gases and the ozone layers in the atmosphere. The ecological challenge faced by humankind, including the challenge for restraining ‘development’ from taking violent forms, calls for new institutional mechanisms that cut across nationstate boundaries, social identities, and political divisions of various kinds. Perhaps the struggle against violence might be waged by focusing first on these more basic challenges. Once that is done and a more balanced approach to cosmic issues is evolved, and human imagination moved along to deal with the same, and the Earth is seen as not only an ecosystem but also a sociopolitical arena, then the scourge of violence might automatically start receding. See also: Ethnic Conflicts and Cooperation; Institutionalization of Non-Violence; Sociological Studies, Overview; Structural Violence; Terrorism; Torture (State)

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Intelligence Agencies and Issues Cary Adkinson, Fayetteville State University, Fayetteville, NC, USA ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction Defining Intelligence War and Human Nature Intelligence Gathering and the Interpretation of Democratic Values

Glossary Basic Intelligence The fundamental and factual reference material on a country or issue that provides the basis for current and estimative intelligence. Counterintelligence Identifying and responding to foreign intelligence threats. Crime Control Model Model of criminal justice that argues some sacrifice of civil liberties and due process is necessary to investigate, apprehend, and interrogate those suspected of violating criminal law. Current Intelligence Reports any and all new developments in an ongoing intelligence investigation. Due Process Model Model of criminal justice that argues civil liberties must be protected by procedural constraints on the government’s ability to investigate and prosecute criminal behavior. Estimative Intelligence Prognostications based on basic and current intelligence that judge possible outcomes for a given situation.

Introduction According to the National Intelligence Estimate on terrorism, as of late 2006, America’s War on Terror had failed to control the growth of fundamental Islamic terrorist cells. More disturbing might be the possibility that America’s knee-jerk response to 9/11 has actually exacerbated the terrorist problem. Self-described jihadist groups, the Estimate concluded, ‘‘are increasing in both number and geographic dispersion.’’ The insidiousness of guerilla warfare on a global scale combined with the development of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) has led humanity to critical crossroads, where the decisions we make today may very well determine the likelihood of a tomorrow. Therefore, it is with desperate caution that we must

Lessons from Nondemocratic Counterintelligence Conclusions Further Reading

Finished Intelligence The final product of the Intelligence Cycle ready to be delivered to the policymaker. Industrial Espionage Intelligence gathering for the sake of acquiring corporate and/or industrial information that can be used for political and military advantage. Information Raw data from any source that may be fragmentary, contradictory, unreliable, ambiguous, deceptive, or wrong. Intelligence Information that has been collected, integrated, evaluated, analyzed, and interpreted, often secretly, in a systematic attempt to gain advantage in military and ideological conflict. Intelligence Wars Wars fought primarily using information and political alliances rather than conventional battlefront conflict. Probable Cause The Fourth Amendment safeguard against unreasonable searches and seizures that establishes a standard for determining the constitutionality of initiating a criminal investigation.

look deeply into the forces that have led humanity to the brink of disaster. When studying warfare, it becomes immediately apparent that its timber and pitch are decided by how well combatants acquire and process information. World wars turn with the wheels of espionage. For example, it was the failure of the United States intelligence community to share information that led to the Pacific fleet being utterly unprepared at Pearl Harbor. Immediately, the United States government scrambled to reorganize and decentralize the intelligence responsibilities once largely the imminent domain of the Office of Strategic Services. Ironically, Japan’s exposure of American incompetence at the art of espionage planted the seed of its own destruction; the Manhattan Project, one of the greatest

Intelligence Agencies and Issues

intelligence successes of World War II, delivered the first nuclear payloads to the civilian targets of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, forcing the Japanese surrender onboard the battleship USS Missouri on 2 September 1945. Because of its paramount importance to national survival, this intelligence gathering process has become entrenched within the practice and ideology of American democracy. What this means, practically speaking, is that America’s status as the only democratic superpower confers upon its government the awesome responsibility of using its vast intelligence resources wisely. Powers warns of the ‘‘two kinds of danger that intelligence organizations pose to the nations that use them’’: (1) ‘‘getting things wrong’’ and (2) ‘‘their exploitation by the executive branch as tools of domestic coercion and control.’’ It is by considering these dangers unflinchingly that studying the process of intelligence reveals crucial insights about how human beings conceive of democracy and how the practical and philosophical lessons of the American democratic experiment might help us refine the international practice of peace and justice.

Defining Intelligence Because intelligence gathering is a complex phenomenon with such potentially serious public safety implications, it would be helpful to begin with a basic description of what is meant by intelligence. The World Factbook, maintained by the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), provides a helpful description of The Intelligence Cycle to differentiate between raw information and refined intelligence: The Intelligence Cycle is the process by which information is acquired, converted into intelligence, and made available to policymakers. Information is raw data from any source, data that may be fragmentary, contradictory, unreliable, ambiguous, deceptive, or wrong. Intelligence is information that has been collected, integrated, evaluated, analyzed, and interpreted. Finished intelligence is the final product of the Intelligence Cycle ready to be delivered to the policymaker.

It is noteworthy that the CIA stresses that finished intelligence is used to guide policy. This highlights the effect of intelligence gathering on actual high-level decision making, including legislation and military strategy, not to mention its influence on questions of civil liberty. The World Factbook further clarifies the three types of finished intelligence: Basic intelligence provides the fundamental and factual reference material on a country or issue. Current intelligence reports on new developments. Estimative intelligence judges probable outcomes. The three are

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mutually supportive: basic intelligence is the foundation on which the other two are constructed; current intelligence continually updates the inventory of knowledge; and estimative intelligence revises overall interpretations of country and issue prospects for guidance of basic and current intelligence. The World Factbook, The President’s Daily Brief, and the National Intelligence Estimates are examples of the three types of finished intelligence.

While the CIA offers a good working description of intelligence, it provides little scholarly insight into the murky undercurrents of how espionage actually works. The CIA’s definition of information, for example, pales in comparison to Berkowitz’s cutting assertion that information, and the ability to manage it, is ‘‘what makes American forces so lethal.’’ With advances in military technology and strategy, raw data, once refined into finished intelligence, ‘‘can be used to find and attack military targets with awesome precision in near-real time.’’ In a perfect world, with American forces championing human rights around the globe, the power of information might be more comforting than disturbing. The imperfection of our diplomatic approaches, however, is implied in Powers’ definition of intelligence ‘‘as the systematic attempt to gain advantage through secret means.’’ It is the defining of intelligence as purposeful political deception that creates such concern among political reformers, civilians, and academic researchers. Considering the vast power and authority of the United States military, caution must be taken when implementing policies that govern intelligence gathering. Extending his exposition of intelligence, Powers also argues that conventional warfare is a relic of the Industrial Revolution that has now been surpassed by Intelligence War, or wars ‘‘fought mainly with information and the political cooperation of people and their governments. Conventional and intelligence wars have roughly the same goal—rendering an opponent harmless—but their conduct, cost, and duration are very different.’’ Understanding the causes and implications of this institutionalized deception lies at the heart of understanding what intelligence agencies are, what they do, and how they continue to elude the moral constraints that bind the average citizenry. While words such as necessary and justified may be bandied about in defense of espionage as official policy, this does little to address the moral complexities of such behavior. If further disaster is to be averted, we must be willing to ask difficult questions about what it means to be human and why we are capable of such destructive behavior, why we fail to see the inherent contradiction of using violence, or the threat thereof, to establish and maintain peace. War encompasses a vast body of historical example, philosophical argument, and academic research, so it is necessary to find a proper fulcrum on which to leverage the implications of warfare on human survival. Perhaps no other

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candidate would serve as well as the American intelligence system. As the immune system of the only world superpower, the American intelligence community is a critical player in staving off worldwide catastrophe and helping civil liberties flourish around the globe. Of special interest is how this relates to the seeming paradox that arose with the birth of democracy and humanitarianism. Is it an inherent contradiction to use violence and deception, staples of intelligence agency procedure, to establish peace and trust? How can nations reconcile democratic ideals such as innocent until proven guilty and due process with the exigent need to protect their citizens from domestic crime and foreign war? Contrarily, how is intelligence gathering used to establish and maintain nondemocratic regimes? Exploring the democratic paradox reveals the intense debate over how to balance the democratic priorities of civil liberty and national security. This debate rages in the halls of the American criminal justice system, so it is through that particular filter that we will be exploring the legal and moral tug-of-wars that have solidified intelligence as one of the most pressing concerns humanity has ever faced.

War and Human Nature Before the twentieth century, conventional warfare, while certainly deadly, could not claim to threaten the very existence of the human species. However, two monumental discoveries forever erased the naivety with which we might consider war: Albert Einstein’s realization that matter and energy are but different forms of the same process, formalized in the famous equation E ¼ mc2; and the Allies’ full realization of the horrors of the Holocaust in World War II. In seeking to fulfill his innocent curiosity about the nature of the universe, Einstein realized that matter is concentrated energy, thus unveiling a fundamental truth about the nature of reality. Soon thereafter with the advent of nuclear weapons, the military applications of liberating energy from matter became dramatically apparent. Although unintentionally, Einstein set in motion a chain of events that would culminate with the nuclear annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the beginning of the Cold War. Equally sobering was the uncovering of the Third Reich’s officially sanctioned practice of ethnic liquidation. As official documents, Allied liberators, survivors, and forensic evidence attest, by the time of the German surrender, the Final Solution was already well on its way. Estimates place the total number of deaths resulting from the Holocaust at 12–13 million. Combining deaths caused by the initial blast and the subsequent conflagration and radiation poisoning, conservative estimates place the number of Hiroshima and Nagasaki casualties at around 250 000. While the practice of genocide has a long and

notorious history, the reality of nuclear weapons and the Holocaust raised the stakes considerably. Since World War II we have been faced with the very real possibility of global extinction resulting from military combat. Despite the urgent need for enlightened conflict management, however, the complexity of warfare is such that even the most distinguished and respected experts grasp at explanation. Historian John Keegan, one of the most noted military scholars in the world, contends that warfare, in all its guises and with all its capacity to unleash great suffering in the world, defies understanding. To Keegan, speaking abstractly of a nature of war to explain historical examples fails to capture the rich nuances of behavior that cause individual beings to band together and kill other bands. His ruminations do, however, acknowledge the oxymoron in the term, civilized warfare. War is an exercise in contradiction, for those who must actually do the dirty work of deceiving and killing are wholly divorced from the vicissitudes of politics and diplomacy that decide when and how wars will be fought. This disparity, concludes Keegan, can never be rectified, ‘‘for the culture of the warrior can never be that of civilization itself. All civilizations owe their origins to the warrior; their cultures nurture the warriors who defend them.’’ History supports Keegan’s assertion that war’s complexity rests in the fundamental and ages-old paradox of using violence and deception to establish peace and trust. Anthropological evidence suggests that the rise of civilization, from tribal chiefdoms to the nation-state, has been characterized by conflict and warfare. The Agricultural Revolution made wide-scale warfare possible as populations exploded, notions of property value became crucial to survival, and vast improvements were made in killing technology. In a study examining the relationship between level of political organization and frequency of warfare, Keeley found that four of ten (40%) organized states examined engaged in full-scale combat ‘‘continuously,’’ while the remaining six participated in war ‘‘frequently.’’ Although, as Keegan suggests, war may indeed be difficult to define, it is not from a lack of examples. What is certain, however, is that warfare continues to be a defining characteristic of human civilization, and a defining characteristic of warfare has been its reliance on secrecy and deception for tactical advantage. The social impact of deception in the defense of national security was recognized by the legendary military strategist Sun Tzu, who advocated espionage and intelligence gathering as necessary and justifiable consequences of warfare. To Sun Tzu, war, by definition, is based on deception. The best way to defeat one’s enemies is to hide plans from them while simultaneously gaining a comprehensive knowledge of their strategies and strengths and weaknesses. Information is the high ground

Intelligence Agencies and Issues

of military intelligence. Deception remains a strategic necessity; those nations that can best compromise their enemies by gaining access to classified information while simultaneously protecting their own political and military strategies gain a decidedly upper hand in the negotiating process. War theorists, however, point out that this creates a complex moral ambiguity; righteousness, like beauty, often lies in the eye of the beholder. Once we perceive others as enemies, our ability to psychologically empathize with them diminishes significantly because enemy is synonymous with threat. Logically, an us versus them mentality arises as we prepare to protect ourselves. When we feel the enemy threatens our way of life or very survival, it is understandable that we would protect ourselves by any means necessary, thus justifying deception in warfare on the grounds of self-preservation. As we shall see, democracy itself is an attempt to resolve this dilemma, and it does so through interpreting the constitutionality of intelligence gathering.

Intelligence Gathering and the Interpretation of Democratic Values The context for understanding how intelligence gathering shapes warfare and civil liberties can be traced to the very origins of democracy itself. In 1215 in England, under increasing pressure from Pope Innocent III and powerful landowners, King John agreed to the provisions of the Magna Carta, effectively establishing the rule of law: no citizen, not even the King, is completely exempt from the authority of legal procedure. By declaring that no one is above the law, the Magna Carta recognized the dangers inherent in unbridled authority. The Age of Enlightenment further extended the Magna Carta’s humanitarian bias to questions concerning the relationship between political leadership and the populace. Influential political philosophers such as John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau advocated limits on state power, pointing out that failure to check a monarch’s reign often led to tyranny and oppression. These developments set important precedents that would one day be adopted by the framers of the American Constitution who, fresh from unshackling themselves from the yoke of English rule, acknowledged the seductive nature of political power. By establishing a three-tiered system made up of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, the American Constitution placed internal checks and balances on the government’s prerogative to make and enforce decisions without accountability. Realizing the necessity of enforceable oversight, in 1791 the United States ratified the first ten Amendments to the Constitution. The Bill of Rights, especially the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments, was designed to balance the sometimes opposing interests of civil liberties and national

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security. This balancing act is most prominently demonstrated within the hallowed halls of the American criminal justice system, where the acceptable legal and moral merits of intelligence gathering are debated. Packer’s Two Models of Criminal Justice To frame this discussion it will be helpful to borrow a few ideas from Packer’s models for understanding criminal justice ideology and practice. Packer argues that there are ‘‘two separate value systems that compete for priority in the operation of the criminal process . . . the Due Process Model and the Crime Control Model.’’ At its core, crime control reflects the democratic priority of maintaining the authority and legitimacy of the government. Because crime directly undermines national security, it breeds within the populace a general cynicism and distrust. This leads to a breakdown of the fundamental processes that maintain social solidarity and national security. Therefore, crime must be controlled through the efficient creation, enforcement, and interpretation of official codified law. On the other hand, due process emphasizes the obligation of the government to respect the individual’s right to personal autonomy. As established originally in the Magna Carta and by the subsequent ratification of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, the government, just like its people, is bound by the rule of law. Consistent with the humanitarian ethos of democracy, procedural safeguards abound in defense of personal liberty. Where crime control argues that efficiency in identifying and apprehending social threats is essential for national security, due process contends that reliability and accuracy in this process are as equally important. The fundamental tenet, innocent until proven guilty, derives from the argument that wrongful punishment is as devastating to social solidarity as letting the guilty go free. By unjustly condemning the innocent, a government condemns itself. So the system should never sacrifice reliability for the sake of efficiency, and in fact, should be ever vigilant of giving equal weight to both of these invaluable political priorities. Inevitably, skirmishes within the American legal system help determine how best to maintain civil liberties without sacrificing the overall safety and sovereignty of the nation itself. Because intelligence gathering is so controversial and seemingly paradoxical to the spirit of democracy, much can be learned from tracing the major constitutional debates surrounding the acceptable moral and legal limits of deception as national policy. Returning to Powers’ discussion of the dangers of intelligence provides the bedrock upon which legal precedent has been founded. The legal debate revolves around one primary concern: How can we ensure intelligence agencies best balance the opposing democratic ideals of due process

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and national security? If, as Powers argues, the first major danger with using intelligence agencies is that they ‘‘get things wrong’’ from time to time, then one of the major priorities of the legal system would be determining how far to extend the investigative and enforcement powers of the American intelligence community. Although this would definitely infringe on civil liberties by giving intelligence agencies greater authority with lesser accountability, the argument could be made that such individual sacrifices, though regrettable, are justified in defense of the greater good of national security. However, any encroachment on civil liberty is viewed with great suspicion by the Constitution, as specifically addressed in Powers’ assessment of the second potentially disastrous danger of using intelligence agencies: their susceptibility to becoming ‘‘tools of domestic coercion and control’’ when wielded by the executive branch of a democratic government. This danger has been acknowledged both internationally through the Geneva Conventions and domestically through the history of legal precedent concerning the activities of intelligence gathering. The American government has even openly acknowledged its own complicity in allowing its intelligence community unfettered discretion to infringe upon democratically cherished civil liberties. In 1976, immediately in the wake of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)’s counterintelligence program (COINTELPRO) and the CIA’s various attempts to assassinate Cuban leader, Fidel Castro, the United States released findings of the Church Committee Report, the first time a nation had ever conducted an internal investigation into its own intelligence activities. Charges of illegal wiretapping, blackmail, intimidation, and even secret murder plots were substantiated by the Committee’s investigation, casting much doubt on the government’s ability to act in good conscience when gathering intelligence for law enforcement purposes. The crux of the dilemma of intelligence is that it requires due process compromise for the sake of investigation, apprehension, and interrogation, mainstays of the executive function of crime control. How this compromise is reached depends on how the laws governing intelligence activities are interpreted in relation to constitutional standards of privacy and due process. Constitutional scholars Cole and Dempsey highlight the major constitutional issues that arise from regulating and justifying the activities of intelligence gathering. They identify two disturbing legal trends that historically follow domestic and foreign threats to national sovereignty: (1) the chilling of First Amendment freedoms; and (2) the blurring of intelligence with law enforcement through the extension of executive discretion and erosion of Fourth Amendment protections. Three specific cases will be used to illustrate how these trends continue in recent intelligence legislation: (1) how the support for terrorism

provision of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 has a chilling effect on the expression of First Amendment liberties; (2) how the USA PATRIOT Act expands governmental authority to conduct domestic criminal investigations; and (3) how the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, in conjunction with the PATRIOT Act and the Military Commissions Act of 2006, subverts habeas corpus and endorses torture in direct violation of the Geneva Conventions. Finally, a short discussion of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Act of 2004 will illustrate the difficulty of improving the efficiency and constitutionality of intelligence practice. The 1996 Antiterrorism Act and the Chilling of First Amendment Freedoms The First Amendment is an indispensable pillar of democracy. By allowing citizens the freedom to assemble peaceably and speak their minds, the First Amendment guarantees voices of dissent the opportunity to be heard. Citizens also enjoy the right to publicly criticize and question the policies and actions of their elected officials. These rights, so invaluable for open political expression, are for the most part held in great esteem throughout the history of legal precedent. However, in times of national crisis, such as World War II, the McCarthy Hearings during the Cold War, and 9/11, fear and irrationality overcome discretion, and potentially disastrous limits are placed on our most precious liberties. For example, Cole and Dempsey argue that the critical need to reestablish a sense of national security directly following a major terrorist attack encourages the adoption of an unofficial policy of guilt by association that effectively restricts expression of First Amendment rights. Among its many provisions, the 1996 Terrorism Act repealed the Edwards amendment, which prohibited the FBI from initiating criminal investigations on the basis of First Amendment activities. According to Cole and Dempsey, the support for terrorism provision of the 1996 Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act acts as a loophole that allows intelligence agencies wide discretion in investigating potential terrorist violence. Cole and Dempsey summarize how this provision effectively produces a chilling effect on people’s willingness to openly express rights that are guaranteed by the Constitution. Under this act, it is a crime to provide material support to any foreign organization defined as terrorist by the secretary of state, even if the support was for undoubtedly lawful political humanitarian causes. In doing so, ‘‘the Act reintroduced to federal law the principle of ‘guilt by association’ that had defined the McCarthy era. People can be punished, the Act says, not for crimes that they commit or abet, but for supporting wholly lawful acts of disfavored groups.’’ When intelligence agencies identify, investigate, and interrogate people for no other reason than their

Intelligence Agencies and Issues

political affiliation, ethnicity, or religion, this has an ‘‘inevitable chilling effect’’ that ‘‘undermines the political and social integration necessary to the maintenance of security in a democratic society.’’ Despite whatever good intentions that may be behind this approach, by sabotaging freedom of expression, such policies might have the counterproductive effect of encouraging the very dissent they are attempting to eradicate. The USA PATRIOT Act and the Fourth Amendment 11 September 2001 boldly exposed weaknesses in American intelligence. A scant six weeks later, the USA PATRIOT Act passed through Congress, and a great blow was dealt to the authority of the legislature and judiciary to check executive order. In their defense, however, executive officials claimed that the exigent threat of terrorism justified the dilution of procedural standards of lawful criminal investigation. According to the Fourth Amendment, the government must show probable cause that a crime has been, or is about to be, committed before law enforcement officials can search a suspect’s person or property and seize evidence that may be used to convict the defendant in a criminal trial. The rationale behind this concept comes from the primacy of personal liberty under a constitutional democracy. Unless a citizen has given the government a good reason to believe he or she is involved in criminal activity, the criminal justice system must be very careful about intruding into realms of personal privacy. Law enforcement officials must be able to articulate clearly the evidence that would lead a reasonable person to believe a crime had probably been committed. By requiring a judge or magistrate to sign a warrant authorizing a particular place or person to be searched and specific items to be seized, the Fourth Amendment errs on the side of due process and effectively checks executive fiat with judiciary oversight. According to the PATRIOT Act, this is an unacceptable constraint that ties the hands of intelligence agencies which must have freer investigative reign to pinpoint potential terrorist violence. By granting wide discretion to the attorney general in defining terrorist activity, any foreign national identified as a suspected terrorist can technically be detained indefinitely. While this might seem like a prudent course given the appreciable danger of terrorist attack, it comes with a heavy price. In order to legally extend this power to intelligence agencies such as the FBI and the CIA, sacrifices must be made to the constitutional protections of domestic criminal due process. The PATRIOT Act, therefore, ‘‘made substantial and controversial changes in the rules that govern the collection and sharing of information by law enforcement and intelligence agencies.’’ One such significant change involved eliminating the primary purpose test of foreign

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intelligence collection as stipulated in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Cole and Dempsey note that FISA’s ‘‘extraordinary authority was justified on the ground that intelligence gathering is different from criminal law enforcement, and that the FISA authority would not be used for the purpose of investigating crime.’’ The primary purpose test states that in order for a warrant to be granted, the primary purpose of the investigation cannot be criminal, but rather must be for the objective of foreign intelligence collection. However, the PATRIOT Act negated the provision, substituting instead its own significant purpose test. Under this new criterion, ‘‘so long as ‘a significant purpose’ of the intrusion is to collect foreign intelligence,’’ wiretaps and physical searches can be permissible without a definitive showing of probable cause. In essence, this creates a loophole that blurs the distinction between intelligence gathering in defense of national security and routine criminal investigation. Although the full legal repercussions of this policy have not been extensively challenged in court, it remains a thorn in the side of the Fourth Amendment. Such provisions erase the mutual exclusivity of intelligence and law enforcement by explicitly justifying routine criminal investigation as a possible gateway to discovering evidence of potentially dangerous terrorist activity. For the sake of fighting the War on Terror, the PATRIOT Act severely undermined the democratic principles protecting citizens against unreasonable searches and seizures in domestic criminal investigations. Erosion of the probable cause standard should only be considered with the gravest of reservations, for it plays a pivotal role in keeping the executive branch honest in its attempts to control crime. Even if this provision is eventually struck down as constitutionally unsound, the willingness of the United States government to whittle away criminal due process during times of crisis should pique the interest of any proponent of democracy. The Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 and the Military Commissions Act of 2006 Additional evidence of the questionable constitutionality of recent United States intelligence policy can be found in the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, which took advantage of the PATRIOT Act’s suspected terrorist provision to siphon even more discretionary power to the executive branch. By striking right at the heart of federal habeas corpus review, the 2005 Detainee Treatment Act widely expanded the executive authority to detain and interrogate people on the basis of their possible affiliation with terrorist groups. Sadly for watchdogs of judiciary oversight, these provisions liberally reinterpret Article 3 of the Geneva Convention, which outlines tolerable limits of detention and interrogation for the purpose of intelligence gathering. Contrary to the Geneva Convention’s rules for the humane treatment of prisoners of

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war, the Detainee Treatment Act has the dual effect of (1) restricting foreign detainees’ access to habeas corpus, which allows prisoners to petition the federal courts to review their cases and (2) allowing wide executive discretion in the definition of ‘‘cruel treatment and torture’’ for the purposes of interrogation. For the sake of national security, the intelligence gathering powers of the executive branch have been greatly improved at the expense of Article 3 in four primary ways. First, and most important, the Detainee Treatment Act boldly grants broad interpretive powers to the President of the United States when considering how to apply provisions of the Geneva Convention. Second, by refusing to grant detainees habeas corpus, this act prohibits incarcerated foreign nationals from seeking domestic legal relief under American federal law or international relief under the Geneva Convention. Conceivably, detainees could be held indefinitely without notification of charges or access to trial. Third, although the Detainee Treatment Act pays lip service to international law by prohibiting ‘‘grave breeches’’ of Article 3, its true intentions can be found in its liberal reclassification of interrogation tactics normally considered ‘‘cruel treatment and torture’’ under the Geneva Conventions as ‘‘coercive interrogation’’ under American law. While this may indeed be a matter of semantics, the practical effect of this change is that the President of the United States has almost unlimited decision-making authority to determine what constitutes ‘‘cruel treatment and torture,’’ which significantly widens the possible range of physically and psychologically coercive tactics that can legally be applied during foreign intelligence interrogations. Recent passage of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 reaffirms the perceived necessity of habeas corpus restrictions when investigating suspected terrorist activity. Consistent with the Detainee Act, the Military Commissions Act also enhanced executive privilege, in this case by insulating American executive officers from prosecution as war criminals under the War Crimes Act of 1996. Specifically, this legislation reduces the chances of American officials being prosecuted for violating the War Crimes Act’s prohibitions against humiliation and degradation of war prisoners. Taken as a whole, the provisions of the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 and the Military Commissions Act of 2006 further diminish the constitutional safeguards that limit executive power. When such controls are removed because of international and/or domestic upheaval, the United States government risks committing the very same human rights abuses the Geneva Conventions are intended to deter. In light of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and the recent spate of suicides by Guantanamo Bay detainees, it would seem this risk has become reality, bringing with it a renewed gravity to the constitutional interpretation of intelligence.

The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Act of 2004 With such a potential for human rights violations found in important recent legislation, it might seem as though the American government wields its intelligence weapons with reckless abandon. However, the very features of democratic government that make it susceptible to abuse also provide the means for its redemption. Legislation like the Freedom of Information Act ensures that the public can request notification of information that has been compiled about them by American intelligence. Although it is subject to several exemptions and exclusions, the passage of the Freedom of Information Act gave the American public unprecedented access to government records. Where legislation falters, congressional oversight like the Church Committee and the 9/11 Commission picks up the reins. When legislation and senate subcommittee hearings are not enough, a long judiciary hierarchy, culminating with the United States Supreme Court, helps ensure that every precedent, every argument for and against a given issue, is mulled again and again if necessary until the controversy is resolved. And if all else fails, First Amendment freedoms allow the public itself to keep a wary eye on any questionable governmental activities. By supplying information to the public and advocating publicly and legally on behalf of civil rights, constitutional watchdog groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights supplement the checks and balances on executive power provided by the legislative and judicial branches. However, the major problem with such reform efforts is that they often fail to address some of the more substantive practical and moral questions that come along with operating a system of intelligence. For example, Posner argues that legislative remedy and congressional oversight suffer ‘‘from a propensity to confuse the inherent, and largely incurable, limitations of intelligence with blunders that might be avoidable, perhaps with just better organization.’’ True, legislation such as the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 does recognize the importance of distinguishing ‘‘inherent, and largely incurable, limitations’’ from organizational inefficiency. It does so specifically by establishing a new office, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), to coordinate and direct the myriad responsibilities and agencies responsible for collecting domestic and foreign intelligence. However, a major criticism of this reform is incongruence between the responsibilities of this position and the official authority and decision-making ability to fulfill them. Although the Director’s duties require him or her to ‘‘prepare a consolidated budget, overhaul personnel, security, and technology policies, coordinate the different agencies that comprise the intelligence community, ensure that information is fully shared among them, monitor their performance,

Intelligence Agencies and Issues

[and] eliminate waste and duplication,’’ the Director is not provided the budgetary authority to properly fulfill these obligations. Posner argues that such gaps are typical of most efforts at intelligence reform. As shown by the limitations of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Act, the complicated constitutional sleight of hand required to justify the use of intelligence agencies often undermines the promise of organizational restructuring. So despite valiant efforts to better define the role of intelligence agencies in promoting national security and global stability, much work remains to be done.

Lessons from Nondemocratic Counterintelligence As if defining the proper role of intelligence for democratic governance was not challenging enough, scholars and politicians must also contend with the use of intelligence agencies by nondemocratic regimes. Consistent with the adage that most concepts are defined by their opposites, our study of democracy can be greatly supplemented by parallel study of the intelligence gathering practices of nondemocratic political entities, such as the former Soviet Union and, more recently, al-Qaeda and Chinese communism. Democratic and nondemocratic intelligence are two sides of the same coin in defining democratic practice; only by confronting nondemocratic regimes politically and militarily can we define the concept of what true democracy should mean. The counterpart to the United States’ CIA, the Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (KGB), was officially instituted in 1954 and remained in operation until its dissolution by Soviet President Boris Yeltsin on 21 December 1995. The Cold War, featuring the rise of the world’s first two nuclear superpowers, is consistent with Powers’ definition of intelligence war. As such, this war would be fought primarily within the trenches of espionage. Intelligence during this period was characterized by porous counterintelligence and high-profile examples of defection on both sides, which raises important questions about how the soldiers of intelligence war interpret the political and ideological righteousness of their cause. For example, theoretical physicist Klaus Fuchs, an integral member of the Manhattan Project, supplied detailed information to the KGB concerning the theoretical principles behind the construction of a hydrogen fission device and America’s production of Uranium 235. His reports to the KGB about United States production of Uranium 235 were particularly effective, for they suggested the United States did not yet have the resources to wage a full-scale nuclear combat against the Soviet Union. With this knowledge in mind, the Soviet Union could therefore adjust its diplomatic approaches

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accordingly, calling America’s bluff and further entrenching its communist footholds in Germany and China. It has been suggested that Fuchs’ motivation stemmed from his personal belief that the United States and Britain had no right to monopolize the military and political applications of nuclear physics. Once again, we are confronted with the paradox of using deception to further the cause of democracy. If Fuchs did indeed act on an egalitarian imperative, it could be argued that his defection reflects the core democratic values most prominently enunciated by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. His motivations seem consistent with the rationale behind America’s own Freedom of Information Act as a bastion of democracy: regardless of nationality, give the people the information and let them decide for themselves how to use it justly. The problem, however, lies in trust, for if a democracy cannot politically or ideologically trust its international neighbors, then it seems it must resort to antidemocratic means to control antidemocratic sentiment. Ironically, the dissolution of the Soviet Union did not bring a resolution to this dilemma, for in its wake, democracy faced a new set of challenges with the proliferation of Middle Eastern religious fundamentalism and the emergence of China as the heir to Soviet communist superiority. The potential dangers of Middle Eastern religious fundamentalism have been prominently displayed by the activities of al-Qaeda, an international collection of terrorist organizations that have been linked to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, the 1998 attacks on United States embassies in East Africa, the bombing of the USS Cole on 12 October 2000, and the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks on 11 September, 2001. The structure and ideology of al-Qaeda seems to be especially problematic for intelligence agencies defending democratic regimes. Intelligence agencies connected to discrete political entities are bound to a large extent by the foreign policies of the governments to whom they are beholden. However, in the case of al-Qaeda, there is no solid base of intelligence operations, no bureaucratically defined agency, which serves as the target of counterintelligence efforts. According to the United States’ Office of the DNI: Counterintelligence is the business of identifying and dealing with foreign intelligence threats to the United States. Its core concern is the intelligence services of foreign states and similar organizations of non-state actors, such as transnational terrorist groups. Counterintelligence has both a defensive mission—protecting the nation’s secrets and assets against foreign intelligence penetration—and an offensive mission—finding out what foreign intelligence organizations are planning to better defeat their aims.

Because terrorist cells can operate relatively independently with little more than religious ideology to connect

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them, they can only be identified and neutralized with significant expenditures in human and economic resources. The long list of successful attacks on democratic sovereignties, both domestically within the United States and internationally abroad, speaks to the limitations of counterintelligence to predict and prevent terrorist attacks carried under the auspices of al-Qaeda. Exacerbating the need for deeper understanding of the implications of intelligence war is the emergence of China as the heir apparent to Soviet communism. As modern politics has become increasingly synonymous with corporate development, industrial espionage has become as important to intelligence gathering as military and political intrigue. Just like the Soviet Union during the Cold War, China’s emergence as the third superpower has been due, in large part, to the development of its nuclear weapons program. And just like the Soviet Union’s reliance on the KGB, China relied upon its own Ministry of State Security to wrest the secrets of nuclear industry from the United States. According to the Cox Report, compiled by the Select Committee on US National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People’s Republic of China, industrial espionage under the direction of the Ministry of State Security provided China with the technological expertise to accelerate its own nuclear program. Specifically, the Committee concluded that China’s next generation of nuclear weaponry contained unmistakable elements of United States design. Furthermore, the Committee found that these incidents of industrial espionage were not isolated, but instead were part of a systematic intelligence effort carried out over the better part of the second half of the twentieth century. In its summary report, the Committee suggested that the Chinese have continued to circumvent the new and improved counterintelligence and security measures implemented by the United States government during the 1980s and 1990s. Taken along with the counterintelligence failures that have led to the Cold War and repeated al-Qaeda successes, China’s adeptness at industrial espionage suggests that democracies might be fighting a losing battle in these intelligence wars.

Conclusions Justum bellum, or just war theory, draws from historical example and philosophical debate to argue that the grave consequences of the decision to go to war demand caution and thoughtful consideration. The primary assumption of justum bellum is that in order for a war to be just, its ultimate goal must always be the alleviation of profound injustice. The American practice of democracy assumes that intelligence gathering, despite its dubious morality, can be consistent with just war. The jus ad bellum, or laws governing the justice of war, allow moral leeway in using

deception and violence in warfare, as long as it can reasonably be justified in self-defense or for the defense of a third party. Similarly, its counterpart, Jus In Bello, prescribes principles for just and fair conduct in the practice of war that guide our interpretation of the constitutionality of intelligence laws governing investigation, detention, and interrogation. In Packer’s terms, just war means not sacrificing civil liberty for the sake of national security when performing these essential executive functions. However, as our examples consistently suggest, just because a law can be theoretically consistent with the principles of just war does not mean such legislation will ever actually be enacted, and if so, it does not necessarily mean it will be effective. This brief article has shown how the democratic legal process shapes intelligence law in accordance with constitutional and international law. Recent intelligence legislation exemplifies the challenge of reconciling individual civil liberties with a nation’s right to protect itself from physical and ideological attack. For the sake of investigating possible terrorist violence, for example, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 allows considerable intrusion into a person’s First Amendment right to assemble freely and debate United States policy. Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure have also been compromised. The USA PATRIOT Act undermined the standard of probable cause by rejecting the primary purpose test in favor of its own significant purpose test. This blurs the line between domestic criminal law and international intelligence law by allowing the use of intrusive techniques such as wiretaps and physical searches without a warrant based on probable cause. A common danger of uncontrolled investigative authority is the fishing expedition, or the intensive search for evidence of criminal activity on only the barest glimmer of probable cause. Without proper constitutional safeguards, there is little to prevent domestic law enforcement officers from using the significant purpose standard as a pretext for initiating warrantless criminal investigations. The Fifth and Sixth Amendments and the Geneva Conventions have also been challenged by the passage of the Detainee Treatment Act of 2006. Denial of detainee access to court relief in cases of suspected terrorist activity stands in stark contrast to the very spirit of due process and purpose of habeas corpus. In addition, greater interpretative freedom is granted to the President of the United States to define ‘‘cruel treatment and torture’’ for the purposes of interrogation under Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. These provisions, along with the insulation of executive officials from international prosecution for human rights violations, further illustrate the willingness to sacrifice civil liberties in the face of threats, real or perceived, to national security.

Intelligence Agencies and Issues

Organizational reform like the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Act of 2004, if carefully considered, might be able to address some of the problems of intelligence gathering that arise from bureaucratic inefficiency; however, tinkering with the roles and functions of the various intelligence agencies and officials fails to address the deeper questions of ethics and purpose that shape the human rights implications of the democratic intelligence warfare model. Because the stakes of warfare are so high, anything less than the most rational and empathetic consideration of intelligence policy might very well doom us all. As it stands, several unsettling consequences of recent intelligence legislation beg to be reexamined. First and foremost, these examples illustrate how threats to national security create a climate of fear and irrationality that steers intelligence legislation into uncivil waters. Time and again, American history has reiterated this conclusion. From the internship of thousands of innocent Japanese-Americans after the attack on Pearl Harbor, to the McCarthy Hearings of the Cold War, from the passage of the 1996 Antiterrorism Act after the Oklahoma City bombing to the enactment of the USA PATRIOT Act following 9/11, threats to American security often push Packer’s pendulum away from considerations of due process. Because intelligence gathering plays an essential role in neutralizing such threats, legislators in times of national crisis empower executive authority to investigate, detain, and interrogate suspects at the expense of civil liberties and judicial and legislative restraint. Not only does lack of oversight compromise the effectiveness of intelligence agencies in gathering information and verifying its veracity, it also opens the door for human rights abuses and other forms of corruption. Friedrichs notes that ‘‘an intelligence agency, by definition, engages in covert operations that, at least sometimes, are of doubtful legality.’’ Because covert actions, by definition, occur in secret, in practice intelligence officials have much wider discretion than the law allows. The bottom line is that moral concessions must be made for the greater good of national security. However, secrecy combined with increasingly lax protocols of accountability make for a dangerous mix when it comes to executive action, as evidenced by the human rights violations allowable by the Detainee Treatment Act. The United States’ dismissive attitude toward international treaty certainly does not bode well for its diplomatic relations with other countries. As the National Intelligence Estimate suggests, recent intelligence policy threatens to alienate allies and encourage the dissent and righteousness that is the fuel of terrorism and antidemocratic sentiment. Unenlightened policies that fly in the face of international treaty and cherished beliefs about the sanctity of human rights dispel the trust of potential allies and lend credence to claims that

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‘terrorist’ violence is justified to combat the threat of American imperialism. History suggests that this will have tragic consequences, for distrust jeopardizes the international sharing of intelligence and resources that are so essential for preventing future violence. Just as problematic, however, is the potential for domestic unrest that comes from government violation of civil liberty. Not only is there growing public doubt about the efficacy of the war in Iraq, there is also apprehension about the erosion of due process standards guiding the enforcement of domestic criminal law. An internal audit by the FBI recently concluded that it abused powers granted to it by the USA PATRIOT Act by conducting over 1000 unnecessary and illegal investigations into private Internet and telephone records. The results of post 9/11 intelligence legislation are beginning to come in, and they cast much doubt on the ability of the executive office to find a proper reconciliation of civil due process with national security. Ironically, the loss of international and public confidence might have the unintended consequence of actually exacerbating the very problems intelligence legislation is designed to solve. After reviewing the first several years’ worth of court activity in the wake of the 1996 Antiterrorism Act and the PATRIOT Act, Cole and Dempsey found little evidence to suggest that the wider net cast by these provisions had any appreciable preventative effect on terrorist violence. They conclude that the sacrifices of civil liberty resulting from such legislation cannot be justified because this did not lead to comparable increases in national security. As history attests, the outcome of every major military and political crisis during and after World War II has been influenced by the efforts of intelligence gathering experts. With the advent of WMDs, it is not an exaggeration to say that intelligence agencies are crucial to both the short- and long-term survival of life on planet Earth. This danger is exacerbated by our continued failure to discover peaceful resolutions to violent ideological conflicts. With criticism that the ‘war on terror’ is actually making the problem worse by creating more anti-American sentiment, the functions and effectiveness of intelligence gathering agencies has come under increasing scrutiny. As recently declassified findings of the National Intelligence Estimate on terrorism suggest, not only is America far from winning this war, but efforts to stymie the spread of terrorist cells may have actually been undermined by America’s unrelenting efforts to quash potential threats with prolonged military intervention. The continued threat of terrorist violence, combined with high-profile examples of internal turmoil, inaccurate intelligence, and even purposeful deception of the American public, have combined to create an atmosphere of distrust and uneasiness that has heavily influenced the interpretation of

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American intelligence policy. This once again leads us back to the major dilemma posed by the paradox of democratic warfare. As long as it is deemed necessary to close our borders to one another and to practice ideologies of intolerance, deception, and aggression, intelligence gathering will continue to be a necessary evil, the price we pay for our failure to perceive ourselves as a global community. See also: Anthropology of Violence and Conflict, Overview; Civil Liberties and Security; Collective Emotions in Warfare; Combat; Correlates of War; Cultural Anthropology Studies of Conflict; Diplomacy; Evolution of Violence; Genocide and Democide; Health Consequences of War and Political Violence; Human Rights; International Criminal Courts and Tribunals; Just-War Criteria; Military Culture; Nuclear Warfare; Nuclear Weapons Policies; Peace and Democracy; Peace Studies, Overview; Social Theorizing About War and Peace; Terrorism; Total War, Social Impact of; War Crimes; Warfare and Military Studies, Overview; Warfare, Modern

Further Reading Berkowitz, B. (2003). The new face of war. New York: Free Press. Bodansky, Y. (2001). Bin Laden: The man who declared war on America. New York: Forum. Chalk, F. and Jonassohn, K. (1990). The history and sociology of genocide: Analyses and case studies. London: Yale University. Clarke, R. A. (2004). Against all enemies: Inside America’s war on terror. New York: Free Press. Cole, D. and Dempsey, J. X. (2006). Terrorism and the constitution: Sacrificing civil liberties in the name of national security. New York: The New Press. Diamond, J. (1999). Guns, germs, and steel: The fates of human societies. New York: W.W. Norton. Diamond, J. (2005). Collapse: How civilizations choose to fail or succeed. New York: Penguin. Friedrichs, D. O. (1996). Trusted criminals in today’s society. New York: Wadsworth. Gunaratna, R. (2002). Inside Al Qaeda: Global network of terror. New York: Columbia University.

Hagan, F. E. (1997). Political crime: Ideology & criminality. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Hauser, M. D. (2006). Moral minds: How nature designed our universal sense of right and wrong. New York: HarperCollins. Hiro, D. (2002). War without end: The rise of Islamic terrorism and global response. London: Routledge. Keegan, J. (1993). A history of warfare. New York: Vintage. Keely, L. H. (1996). War before civilization: The myth of the peaceful savage. New York: Oxford University Press. Kessler, R. (2002). The bureau: The secret history of the FBI. New York: St. Martin’s Press. LeBlanc, S. A. (2003). Constant battles: The myth of the peaceful, noble savage. New York: St. Martin’s Press. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States (2004). The 9/11 Commission report. New York: W.W. Norton. Packer, H. (1968). The limits of criminal sanction. Stanford, CA: Stanford University. Posner, R. A. (2006). Uncertain shield: The US intelligence system in the throes of reform. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield. Powers, T. (2004). Intelligence wars: American secret history from Hitler to Al-Qaeda. New York: New York Review Books. Priest, D. (2003). The mission: Waging war and keeping peace with America’s military. New York: W.W. Norton. Rees, M. (2003). Our final hour. New York: Basic. Rawls, J. (2005). A theory of justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard. Rhodes, R. (2002). Masters of death: The SS-Einsatzgrudden and the invention of the holocaust. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Sagan, C. and Turco, R. (1990). A path where no man though: Nuclear winter and the end of the arms race. New York: Random House. Shermer, M. (2004). The science of good & evil: Why people cheat, gossip, care, share, and follow the golden rule. New York: Times. Shirer, W. L. (1998). The rise and fall of the Third Reich. New York: MJF Books. Tzu, S. (2003). The art of war. Philadelphia, PA: Running Press. Walzer, M. (2006). Arguing about war. Yale University. Walzer, M. (2006). Just and unjust wars: A moral argument with historical illustrations. New York: Basic. Wright, R. (1995). The moral animal. New York: Vintage. Wright, R. (2000). Nonzero: The logic of human destiny. New York: Random House.

Relevant Websites http://www.aclu.org – The American Civil Liberties Union. http://www.amnesty.org – Amnesty International. http://www.cia.gov – Central Intelligence Agency. http://ccrjustice.org – Center for Constitutional Rights. http://www.usdoj.gov/oip/index.html – Freedom of Information Act.

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International Criminal Courts and Tribunals Danielle Dirks and Elyshia Aseltine, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

International Criminal Courts and Truth and Reconciliation Commissions International Criminal Court Models

Glossary The Truth Phase: A phase of political transitions that focuses on establishing accurate records of past human rights abuses (i.e., determining the ‘‘truth’’) and making recommendations that both redress past abuses and aid in the prevention of future abuses. The Justice Phase: A phase of political transition that focuses on punishment or retribution for specific perpetrators of human rights abuses to bring justice to victims and to deter future violations.

Crimes against humanity including genocide, war crimes, and the systemic denial and violation of human rights (e.g., Apartheid) have long necessitated international responses. In the aftermath of World War II, the desire to end deadly, large-scale global conflicts led to several calls for the establishment of international sovereign organizations to help prevent massive loss of life and crimes against humanity. Over the past half century, international governing bodies and individual nation-states have worked to develop criminal courts and tribunals to address, punish, and reconcile some of the worst atrocities witnessed by the global community. In this article, we discuss two predominant models for addressing human rights atrocities: the international criminal court model and the truth and reconciliation commission model.

International Criminal Courts and Truth and Reconciliation Commissions The aftermath of human rights atrocities have long necessitated difficult and often, international, responses. The twentieth century ushered in an era of human rights abuses to be witnessed by all in the global community. The responses have been varied, but the goals of bringing justice to victims and healing the past have been vital to addressing and preventing future violations during times of war, political transition, or peace.

Truth and Reconciliation Models Conclusion Further Reading

Truth and Reconciliation Models: Initiatives set up to address human rights violations through creating a historical record of the abuses and using a restorative justice approach for victims to prevent future violations. International Criminal Courts: International, governing bodies set up to address, punish and reconcile human rights violations through a punitive or adversarial approach to prevent future abuses.

Human Rights Watch characterizes two phases of political transition: the truth phase and the justice phase. The activities of international criminal courts and the like are characterized as moments of the justice phase in that they focus on punishment or retribution for specific perpetrators of human rights abuses to bring justice to victims and to deter future violations. In contrast, the activities of truth and reconciliation commissions are characterized as the truth phase of political transition in that they are convened for the purpose of establishing accurate records of past human rights abuses (i.e., determining the ‘truth’) and making recommendations that both redress past abuses and aid in the prevention of future abuses. Truth and reconciliation commissions (TRCs) in general do not have prosecutorial powers nor can they dispense punishments while international criminal courts are interested in handing out indictments and prosecuting criminals under international and humanitarian law. Like international criminal courts, TRCs are allowed privileged access to government documents and personnel; however, unlike criminal courts, they are unable to subpoena witnesses, compel disclosure of information, or bring cases to trial. Further, in most cases, recommendations that emanate from TRC proceedings are not obligatory; in other words, governments are not required to implement all or any of the TRC’s recommendations. Below we elaborate more fully on the basic structures of international criminal courts and TRC models.

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In addition, we highlight several case studies to demonstrate how the two models have been used to address human rights abuses in several different contexts. Finally, we offer a brief discussion on countries that have utilized both models (or have implemented a blended model) to address human rights violations and the challenges inherent in such approaches.

International Criminal Court Models The customs of war have long involved the ‘laws of war’ delineating just actions during wartime from those out of the accepted norm, even during times of conflict. Since the nineteenth century, international law has codified these customs, with a particular focus on the human aspect of war, directly addressing the treatment of combatants and civilians. Despite the codification of international law to protect human rights in times of war and peace, the twentieth century has been host to some of the worst human rights atrocities to ever be witnessed by the global community. Making peace a global priority, the international community has long set out to codify a set of rules to govern the relations of nations. As early as the 1814 Congress of Vienna, the Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907, and the protocols set forth by the Geneva Conventions, the international community has attempted to outline the rights of nations and their citizens. Despite international attempts at preserving human life and avoiding global conflict, World War I began while the third Hague Peace Conference was being planned. The massive loss of life and atrocities witnessed during this global conflict proved to be a major impetus for the preservation of life in international humanitarian law. Shortly after World War I, the development of international law through the Covenant of the League of Nations, the Geneva protocol for peaceful resolution of disputes in 1924, and the Declaration of aggressive wars in 1927 began to view war as a crime of aggression, and thus an international crime. It appeared as if the reports of murder, sexual assault, and other atrocities used as tools of terror and intimidation that went unpunished during World War I further solidified support for the punishment of war criminals during World War II. It is here that we begin to see a shift in individual responsibility for war crimes. As victors of World War II, the major Allied forces – the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and France – were determined to prosecute war criminals before an international criminal tribunal, despite their differing opinions on how to do so. The Nuremberg Trials of 1945–49 became the most notable set of international trials for war criminals in history. Before the International Military Tribunal (IMT), the political, military, and economic leaders of Germany’s Nazi Party were prosecuted

and sentenced for war crimes, crimes against humanity, waging wars of aggression, and for the accomplishment of crimes against peace. In addition, the Doctors’ trials and Judges’ trials would prosecute individuals responsible for carrying out gross human rights abuses (e.g., medical torture) and ‘racial purity’ programs. Out of the Nuremberg Trials, the Nuremberg Principles arose and outlined the protection of human life and defined war crimes in international law. Further, they set the precedent for trying some of the highestranking government officials for their roles in crimes outlined in international law. No longer would heads of state involved in the political, military, and economic aspects of war aggression be immune. Several scholars have chronicled the development of the Nuremberg Trials, their influence on international humanitarian law, and their various criticisms as they relate to procedural justice; therefore our discussion of them is not developed beyond this early description. As an international criminal tribunal, the Nuremberg Trials differ greatly in their goals and character and warrant further individual treatment beyond the scope of this article. Below, we address more recent international responses that employ the international criminal court model of punishment for human rights violations, beginning with the International Court of Justice (ICJ), developed by the United Nations (UN).

International Court of Justice Also known as the World Court, the ICJ is the judiciary component of the UN that was developed in 1945. The ICJ acts as an intermediary to settle disputes between nations and advise the UN General Assembly or Security Counsel on legal questions. Early on, the League of Nations established the Permanent Court of Justice (PCIJ) in 1921 to hear international disputes and provide legal counsel. The ICJ succeeded the PCIJ when it was dissolved at the same time as the League of Nations in 1946. Unlike the International Criminal Court (ICC) discussed in greater detail below, the ICJ only handles cases between states involved in contentious cases against one another rather than prosecuting individuals or organizations. One example includes the 1980 Iran hostage crisis wherein the United States made a complaint that Iran was supporting the capture and detention of American diplomats after a takeover of the American embassy in 1979. However, Iran did not participate in the case brought against them, nor did they heed the ruling made against them. Issues of nonparticipation highlight for some the need for an internationally binding criminal court given the ICJ’s lack of power in enforcement. Other more recent examples of contentious cases involve the 2004 Maritime Delimitation in the Black Sea (Romania v. Ukraine) and the

International Criminal Courts and Tribunals

2005 dispute regarding Navigational and Related Rights (Costa Rica v. Nicaragua). Examples of the ICJ’s legal advising involve the legal consequences of the wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory in 2003, the legal process of a Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights in 1998, and the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons between 1993 and 1996. Typically, the ICJ applies international law, conventions, or international custom recognized by ‘all civilized nations’ in their decisions. There are 15 judges in the ICJ, elected by the General Assembly and the Security Council of the UN. Judges serve 9-year terms and no two judges may represent the same country. Decisions made by the ICJ only apply to that individual case and the parties involved. Yet, legal scholars and international lawyers often use ICJ rulings as precedent. Some criticisms of the ICJ involve the fact that it only handles cases between states and that individuals and other private entities such as corporations or nongovernmental organizations cannot bring cases before the ICJ. Even with the establishment of the ICC that has the ability to handle these types of cases, some still argue that this is insufficient. For example, rulings of the highest national courts cannot be appealed to the ICJ. Lastly, the UN Security Council still has veto powers over the rulings and enforcement of decisions of the ICJ.

Ad Hoc Criminal Trials In the absence of a permanent international criminal court, the UN has been influential in ensuring that human rights violations do not go unnoticed and unpunished as most war crimes have over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Two examples where the UN has stepped in and created ad hoc tribunals include the International Criminal Court for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR); these are both discussed below. The International Criminal Court for the Former Yugoslavia

Brutal accounts of ethnic cleansing, prison camps, systematic rape, and other serious war crimes came out of the war in the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. In response, the UN Security Council established a commission to document and investigate crimes committed on all sides of the conflict at this time. Despite having few resources, the UN established an ad hoc criminal court beginning in 1993. The ICTY was established to address grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and 1977; violations of the laws or customs of war; crimes

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against humanity; genocide; and to hold individuals accountable for gross human rights atrocities since 1991. This ad hoc court is located in The Hague in the Netherlands and employs more than 1200 staff members. The UN reports that the ICTY is the first truly international criminal tribunal and in 2004, reported on the five major successes in the 10 years of the court’s existence: 1. Spearheading the shift from impunity to accountability: According to the UN, ‘‘the question is no longer whether leaders should be held accountable, but rather how can they be called to account.’’ The ICTY is the first criminal court to indict an acting Head of State, Slobodan Milosevic, the former President of Serbia and the former Yugoslavia, in addition to the indictment of others in the highest political and military positions for crimes committed during their governance. 2. Establishing the facts: The UN is creating a historical record of the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, facts they argue will not be up for future debate. Further, ‘‘It is now not tenable for anyone to dispute the reality of the crimes that were committed in and around Bratunac, Brcko, Celebici, Dubrovnik, Foca, Prijedor, Sarajevo, Srebrenica, and Zvornik to name but a few. As other trials are completed, further facts will be established regarding these and other areas in the former Yugoslavia.’’ In this sense, the ICTY is similar to the truth and reconciliation model discussed below in its goal of investigating and documenting the ‘truth’ of atrocities committed by all sides. 3. Bringing justice to thousands of victims and giving them a voice: Over 3500 victim witnesses have testified in court to tell their stories and an additional 1400 witnesses have been interviewed by staff of the court. Similar to the goal above and the goals of truth and reconciliation commissions, these stories help to create a historical record of the atrocities of the conflict. 4. The accomplishments in international law: The UN reports that the ICTY has created several legal and institutional precedents, including being the first truly international criminal tribunal and making innovative advances in the treatment of victims, witnesses, and procedural justice. In addition to making progress in developing and enforcing international law, it has also been one of the first criminal courts to address and punish sexual violence in wartime. 5. Strengthening the rule of law: The ICTY has not only served as a catalyst for legal changes in the former Yugoslavia, but has also set an example for other criminal courts in the region and abroad. Finally, the UN reports that the ICTY’s existence has promoted the rule of law across the former Yugoslavia, which they argue is vital for their sustainability.

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To date, the ICTY has indicted 161 persons for ‘serious violations of international humanitarian law.’ Of those, 51 have been sentenced (for which the most serious sentence is life in prison); another 36 have died or have had their indictments withdrawn (including Milosevic who died during the proceedings); and 13 have had their trials moved to national jurisdiction. Others are still awaiting trial, and the ICTY plans to finish the tribunal proceedings by 2010. While the UN has extolled the virtues of the ICTY, others have had a less favorable view of the tribunal. Some have questioned whether the ICTY in fact worsens tension in the region, rather than promote reconciliation among all of the involved parties. Public opinion among Serbs and Croats indicate a low trust of the court and the legal procedures. Criticism among UN members focus on the cost of the tribunal. For the year 2006–07, the budget was $276 474 100 (USD), in comparison to its first-year budget in 1993 of $276 000 (USD). Despite these issues, the UN argues that ICTY has offered a voice to thousands of victims in the process. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) was established in 1994 by the UN for the prosecution of those responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. The Rwandan Genocide included the mass killing of 500 000 to 1 million ethnic Tutsis by Hutu militia groups during the Rwandan Civil War for the 100 days following 6 April 1994. Thus, the ICTR has jurisdiction to prosecute individuals for crimes committed during the period from 1 January 2004 to 31 December 1994. Despite serious calls for help during the conflict, the international community – including the UN – remained inactive in sending support to help end the mass killings. In fact, the UN denied the request to the UN Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) which was specially developed in 1993 to aid with peacekeeping and security. Belgium, France, and the United States also declined to help during the height of the conflict. One hundred days after the beginning of the wellplanned genocidal killings, the Rwandan Patriotic Front overthrew the Hutu regime, ending the conflict. After the violence ended in mid-July 1994, the Rwandan government began national genocide trials in 1996 and 1997. During the same time, the UN set up the ICTR, which is currently headquartered in Arusha, Tanzania. Thus far, the ICTR has been the first to prosecute the crime of genocide for a Head of State, Prime Minister Jean Kambanda, but has also prosecuted the crime of sexual assault and crimes related to the media’s support of genocide. The national court has been prosecuting – albeit slowly – less highly ranked officials. With regard to sexual assault, the tribunal defined that ‘‘rape and sexual violence may constitute genocide in the same way as any other act of serious bodily or mental

harm, as long as such acts were committed with the intent to destroy a particular group targeted as such.’’ This is a major advancement in international humanitarian law as most crimes of sexual violence have been dropped as charges in previous tribunals and courts, or have been ignored altogether as the acts of individuals. In addition, the tribunal marks the first time since the Nuremberg Trials that an individual has been prosecuted for their role in media support of genocide or war crimes. Overall, 28 individuals have been prosecuted, and several more await trial. The ICTR is set to be finished in 2010, yet there is some question as to whether this will be feasible.

Criticisms of ad hoc tribunals

While the ad hoc tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda have certainly been instrumental in bringing justice to thousands of victims of these conflicts, there are several critiques of ad hoc tribunals that require attention. As the UN has pointed out itself, the issue of ‘selective justice’ must be raised in questioning which victims and conflicts not only receive international attention, but international support in the form of criminal prosecution through such tribunals. The UN counts numerous examples wherein ad hoc tribunals could have been set in place. For example, the Killing Fields massacre in Cambodia wherein roughly 2 million people were executed through mass genocide by the Khmer Rouge communist regime. Thirty years later, there has yet to be an internationally supported criminal tribunal to prosecute former Khmer Rouge officials, although there has been recent support by the Cambodian government and the UN. This example speaks to another critique of ad hoc tribunals in that major time delays between crimes and their handling often result in problems that affect the ability for tribunals to successfully prosecute war criminals. The UN refers to this as ‘tribunal fatigue’ in that perpetrators can disappear, evidence can be lost or destroyed or witnesses may move or fear participating in criminal proceedings. As the 2006–07 budgets for the ICTR and the ICTY suggest, criminal tribunals are prohibitively expensive. Some UN members are growing weary of funding the tribunals’ large budgets and are encouraging their prompt resolution. Lastly, the UN points out that the jurisprudence issues that arise out of time limits also prove problematic for ad hoc tribunals in that they are not able to prosecute for crimes not covered. For example, thousands of Rwandans have been killed since 1994, but these crimes cannot be prosecuted under the ICTR. Several international calls had been made for a permanent court to handle cases involving not only states, but individual war criminals for some of the worst atrocities witnessed both in times of war and peace. The ICC addresses many of these concerns and is discussed below.

International Criminal Courts and Tribunals

The International Criminal Court In 2002, the ICC was established as a permanent global tribunal to prosecute individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and crimes of aggression, although it is currently unclear how crimes of aggression will be handled by the court. Its presence was cemented by the ratification of the Rome Statute of the ICC by the UN. Currently, there are 104 nation-state members including nearly all states in Europe and South America and half of those in Africa as of mid-2007. In October 2007, Japan will become the 105th member. In addition, there are another 41 nations that have signed but not ratified the Rome Statute. However, several powerful nations voted against the Rome Statute and refused to join the court – China, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Qatar, the United States, and Yemen. The United States’ refusal to ratify but still sign the treaty is discussed below. Following the Nuremberg Trials and Tokyo Tribunals, the UN General Assembly requested the International Law Commission to develop an international criminal court to prosecute individuals involved in the kinds of atrocities witnessed during World War II. Yet, it was not until 1989 that the concept was reintroduced as a solution to prosecute individuals involved in the international drug trade. During this time, ad hoc tribunals were developed to respond to war crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Nearly 10 years later, the Rome Statute of the ICC was ratified on 17 July 1998. It would not, however, be until 1 July 2002 that the Statute would be enforceable; thus, only crimes committed after this date can be prosecuted under the Rome Statute as there is no retroactive jurisdiction. The ICC has four divisions: the Presidency, the Judicial Divisions, the Office of the Prosecutor, and the Registry. There are 18 judges involved in the ICC; their terms are 9 years, and the positions are not typically eligible for re-election. In addition, a member state may not have more than one judge involved in the ICC. Of the 18 judges, one individual is elected to a 3-year term for the role of the President to administer the court. The Judicial Division is divided into three groups that handle pre-trial, trial, and appeals proceedings. The Office of the Prosecutor includes one Prosecutor and two Deputy Prosecutors. These individuals are to act independently in their decisions, and may not accept counsel from states, international organizations (governmental or nongovernmental), or individuals. Lastly, the Registry handles all other legal aid matters such as the administration of the victims, witnesses, and defendants. Currently, the ICC is investigating cases involving Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic, and Sudan for crimes against humanity and war crimes in Darfur. Since its inception, the ICC has

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received thousands of requests to open investigations, yet the large majority of them fall outside of the ICC’s jurisdiction. Since 2003, the ICC has received hundreds of complaints regarding the legality of the invasion of Iraq and the alleged war crimes that have occurred since the invasion began. In 2006, the Chief Prosecutor of the ICC, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, published a letter to all those who had concerns about the Iraq invasion. In it, he outlined that the ICC’s preliminary investigation on the invasion of Iraq did not fall within the ICC’s jurisdiction or that he was unable to conclude on certain allegations because they were out of his competence. Largely these complaints involved the United Kingdom, a state party of the ICC; however, the United States, a non-member state, was also named for their complicity in war crimes. However, non-member states and their citizens are unable to be prosecuted by the ICC, so the United States would not be subject to the ICC’s decisions. The United States and the ICC

The United States, along with China, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Qatar, and Yemen, has stated that it does not intend to ratify the Rome Statute, although President Bill Clinton had signed the treaty to guarantee the United States’ participation in the development of the court. Since 2002, the United States has taken several steps to exempt itself from the jurisdiction of the ICC. For example, in 2002, President George W. Bush signed into law the American Service-Members’ Protection Act, which states that American military aid will not be given to countries that ratify the Rome Statute (however, there are some exceptions for NATO members, some non-NATO allies, and countries that signed into Article 98 agreements that prohibit nation-states from surrendering government officials, military personnel, and nationals to the ICC). These bilateral immunity or ‘non-surrender’ agreements ensure protection only to Americans; countries that do not enter them not only lose military aid from the United States, but also American financial aid for peacekeeping, truth and reconciliation commissions, and HIV/AIDS education from the Economic Support Fund (ESF) as a result of the Nethercutt Amendment to the Foreign Appropriations Bill signed into law by President George W. Bush in late 2004. Essentially, if nations decide to participate in the ICC without signing into an immunity agreement with the United States, they will lose vital financial and military support. There has been a great deal of controversy over the use of the agreements and in the manner in which they have been secured. The European Union (EU) took a common stance and suggested to EU member states that although they could enter into Article 98 agreements with the United States, they should not allow for the general protection of all nationals. The United States rebuffed the EU’s call for its member states to wait to enter into the

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agreements until the EU could review them and develop a common stance. A few EU members, particularly newer members, had already agreed to the articles prior to the EU’s announced position. In 2005, the United States signed its 100th Article 98 agreement with Angola. At least seven bilateral agreements have been signed in secrecy and approximately a third have not involved the approval of their national parliaments, creating criticism among legal scholars who question the constitutionality of such arrangements. However, not everyone has agreed to enter into these arrangements. To date, several nations in Latin America (e.g., Brazil, Venezuela) and Africa (e.g., South Africa) have been cut off from economic and military aid from the United States for their refusal to enter into these immunity agreements. Overall, the United States argues that international laws governed by the ICC conflict with the rights and processes afforded by the American justice system and the Constitution. In some areas, the United States suggests that the justice process of the ICC is in direct conflict with due process (i.e., the right to a jury trial by one’s peers; protection from double jeopardy) afforded in the American criminal justice system. In response, the developers of the ICC cite that the ICC has one of the most comprehensive due process and procedural fairness protocols in the world. In addition, accounts of human rights violations in the form of abuse, sexual assault, murder, and torture of detainees held in the American-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq during their invasion in 2004 have led several to believe that the refusal of the United States to ratify the Rome Statute is a result of their own widespread human rights abuses and war crimes. Some argue that even members of the United States’ government and military personnel realize the potential for being tried in international courts for their roles in criminal misconduct or interrogation techniques in the United States’ War on Terrorism. It has been reported that Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) counterterrorism officers in the United States have been purchasing legal insurance for fear that the United States Justice Department may not represent them for allegations of torture, abuse, human rights violations, or other illegal misconduct under international law or even domestic criminal legislation. Lastly, as Human Rights Watch points out, the United States’ anti-ICC campaign undermines efforts to bring war criminals such as those involved in the Balkans to international justice by diminishing their credibility as being against human rights violations. Further, they argue, the United States shows the international community that it is willing to align itself with nation-states with long histories of human rights abuses such as Libya and China.

Criticisms of the ICC Other countries that have critiqued the ICC include India and China. China has questioned their definition of war crimes, arguing that the ICC removed the standard of ‘war time’ and allows for the ICC to punish the worst atrocities both in and out of war time. The Chinese government argues that this runs contrary to the purpose for establishing the ICC in the first place for war-related crimes. Clearly, the United States is not the only country to level criticism at the ICC but it is certainly the most active in fighting its jurisdictional powers. Other criticisms of the ICC include the fact that its jurisdiction does not cover terrorism, drug trafficking, or the use of weapons of mass destruction. Lastly, others argue that the ICC may interfere with other processes, such as national reconciliation processes or commissions, that often grant amnesty to certain violators in violent regimes. Some argue the ICC’s involvement may in fact hinder other, less punitive processes that may also bring about peace. One such model of such a process of reconciling human rights violations without criminal prosecution is the truth and reconciliation model; below we discuss how this model has had success across the globe bringing justice to victims.

Truth and Reconciliation Models Truth and reconciliation commissions (TRCs) are most often national initiatives set up after a significant political transition, such as a civil war or a regime change in the government. As such, TRCs focus primarily on human rights violations that occur within a specific country, and, more specifically, on the human rights abuses of a particular governmental regime and/or its armed opposition. As discussed above, Human Rights Watch characterizes the political transition of nations into two phases: the truth phase and the justice phase. TRCs are most often considered to be examples of the truth phase because of their emphasis on creating a historical record of human rights abuses. Proponents of TRCs believe that, through the process of coming to terms with past experiences of human rights violations, TRCs serve cathartic purposes for both the nation and those who have experienced human rights abuses. Truth and reconciliation commissions are often convened on the premise that, in order to successfully transition towards peace and cooperation, a country must honestly confront its past. Because of the focus on healing relationships between human rights victims and perpetrators and on the fostering of national unity, TRCs are often categorized as a restorative approach to justice, as opposed to a retributive or adversarial approach that can be seen in various international criminal courts.

International Criminal Courts and Tribunals

Common Characteristics of TRCs While there is diversity among the various TRCs held throughout the world, most TRCs share at least five characteristics: 1. TRCs are similar in terms of purpose. They are convened for the purposes of fact-finding as well as generating recommendations to both heal victims of past human rights abuses and to prevent future victims. 2. Most TRCs are convened to consider a specific span of time when human rights abuses occurred. They are generally concerned with documenting abuses that have occurred in the past rather than current abuses. In addition, the focus is on gathering information on a period of time where human rights abuses were widespread rather than on a specific incident of human rights abuse. 3. TRCs tend to focus primarily on the internal forces or actors that committed human rights abuses within a particular region or country. While international actors exert influence over the conflict that resulted in human rights abuses by providing funding, material goods or training, and technical support for parties on either side of the conflict, truth commissions rarely address this issue (e.g., the former Soviet Union and the United States in El Salvador). 4. TRCs are temporary bodies that convene for a specified amount of time, usually a year or less with some allowances for time extensions should more time be needed. 5. At the end of the TRCs’ mandated time frame, TRC’s are expected to produce a final report. These final reports summarize the nature, extent, and experiences of human rights abuses and offer recommendations on reparations for past abuses and preventative strategies of future abuses. (In some cases, such as that of Chad and El Salvador, perpetrators of human rights abuses are also named in the final report.) TRCs disband once the final report has been completed. The Diversity of TRCs While most TRCs share similar purposes, foci, and duties, there are also some important differences that distinguish TRCs. One such difference is the circumstances of their creation. As suggested above, TRCs are convened during periods of political transition, but the nature of this transition varies. Considerations such as how prolonged the period of violence was, when it ended, whether the end was brought about voluntarily or by military force, and how much power is maintained by former human rights abuse perpetrators influence the construction of a TRC. A TRC that results from a gradual democratization (such as, the National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation in Chile), a negotiated settlement of civil war (such as the Commission for the Truth for El Salvador), a result of the

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victory of military rebels over the former government (such as the Ministry of Justice’s Commission of Inquiry on the Crimes of the Regime of Hissene Habre in Chad), or from rapid democratic openings after a repressive military rule (such as the National Commission on Disappeared Persons in Argentina) operate under different circumstances that influence the activities of a TRC. A second distinction between TRCs is the convening authority. In some cases, TRCs are convened based on a presidential mandate or at the insistence of national governing bodies or officials. In other cases, TRCs are initiated by the UN. Although less common, TRCs are also convened by local nongovernment organizations or business entities. A third distinction between TRCs is the amount of staff and financial support they receive. TRCs convened in Chad, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, and the Philippines, for example, had small budgets and a minimal number of staff, while TRCs convened in Chile and Argentina had significant budgets and as many as 60 full-time staff members. Below we highlight the Greensboro TRC as it serves as one of the only TRCs to have occurred in the United States and is unique among international TRCs. The Greensboro TRC

The Greensboro TRC is a unique example of a TRC that breaks the mold of many of the TRCs held throughout the world. Convened in Greensboro, North Carolina, USA in 2004, the Greensboro Truth Commission utilizes the TRC model to address local human rights violations that occurred in November 1972. On 3 November 1972 residents of the predominantly African American Morningside Homes public housing project were demonstrating in a ‘Death to the Klan’ rally. During the demonstration, members of the Ku Klux Klan and the Nazi National Socialist Party of America shot into the crowd of demonstrators and demonstrators returned fire. During the gunfight, five people were fatally wounded and at least 10 were injured. Over the span of 15 months, seven commissioners and three support staff held public hearings and conducted archival research to uncover the truth of the events on 3 November. The Greensboro TRC is the only known example where the TRC model was explicitly used to address a local and specific event. TRCs around the World The first recognized TRC, the Commission of Inquiry into the Disappearances of People in Uganda since 25 January 1971, was held in Uganda in 1974. Since 1974, approximately 60 TRC commissions have been convened across the globe, with the bulk convened after 1991. Although a majority of these commissions have been held in Latin America and Africa, nearly every region of the world has experienced some version of a TRC. Table 1 reflects many of the TRCs held around the world.

1050 International Criminal Courts and Tribunals Table 1 Truth and reconciliation commissions by country Start year

Country

Name of body

Start year

2004

Liberia

Truth and Reconciliation Com.

2006

2003

Mexico

National Human Rights Com.

2001

1983

Morocco

Human Rights Advisory Council

1998

1996

Morocco

Commission on Arbitration

1999

1982

Nepal

1990

2004

Nigeria

1995 1991

Paraguay Peru

Com. of Inquiry to Locate the Persons Disappeared Human Rights Violations Investigation Com. (Oputa Panel) Truth and Justice Com. Truth and Reconciliation Com.

2004 2001

2003

Philippines

Presidential Committee on Human Rights

1986

Ministry of Justice’s Com. of Inquiry on the Crimes of the Regime of Hissene Habre National Com. for Truth and Reconciliation National Reparation and Reconciliation Corporation

1990

Rwanda

International Com. of Investigations of Human Rights Violations

1993

1990

Rwanda

National Unity and Reconciliation Com.

1993

1992

Rwanda

1999

National Com. on Political Prisoners and Torture Independent Com. of Inquiry

2003 2004

Sierra Leone South Africa

International Panel of Eminent Personalities to Investigate the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda and the Surrounding Events Truth and Reconciliation Com.

Democratic Republic of Congo

Truth and Reconciliation Com.

2004

South Africa

East Timor

2000

East Timor & Indonesia Ecuadora

Com. for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation Com. on Truth and Friendship

2005

South Africa South Korea

Truth and Justice Com.

1996

Sri Lanka

El Salvador

Com. on the Truth for El Salvador

1992

Sri Lanka

Germany

1992

Uganda

Ghana

Study Com. for the Assessment of History and Consequences of the SED Dictatorship in Germany National Reconciliation Com.

2003

Uganda

Guatemala

Historical Clarification Com.

1994

Uruguay

Guatemala

Recovery of Historical Memory

1995

USA

Haiti Lebanon Lebanon

National Truth and Justice Com. Com. of Inquiry Com. on Disappearances and Abductions

1995 2000 2001

USA Zimbabwe

Country

Name of body

Afghanistan

Afghan Independent Human Rights Com. Ad Hoc Inquiry Com. in Charge of the Question of Disappearances National Com. on Disappeared Persons Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Com. National Com. of Inquiry into Disappearances Com. for Investigation of the Events in & around Srebrenica International Com. of Inquiry Royal Com. on the Aboriginal Peoples National Reconciliation Forum

Algeria Argentina Australia Bolivia Bosnia Burundi Canada Central African Chad

Chile Chile

Chile Cote d’Ivoire

a Disbanded after three months Source: Justice In Perspective http://www.justiceinperspective.org.za Com. ¼ Commission

1999

2002

Com. of Enquiry into Complaints by Former African National Congress Prisoners and Detainees (The Skweyiya Commission) Com. of Enquiry into Certain Allegations of Cruelty and Human Rights Abuse Against ANC Prisoners and Detainees by ANC Members (Motsuenyane Commission) Truth and Reconciliation Com.

1995

Presidential Truth Com. on Suspicious Deaths

2000

Com. of Inquiry into the Involuntary Removal or Disappearances of Persons Presidential Com. of Inquiry into Involuntary Removals and Disappearances Com. of Inquiry into Violations of Human Rights

1994

Com. of Inquiry into the Disappearances of People in Uganda Com. for the Investigation of the Situation of Disappeared Persons Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians The Greensboro Truth Com. Commission of Inquiry

1992

1993

2001 1986

1974 1985 1981 2004 1985

International Criminal Courts and Tribunals

The South African TRC

In 1948, the National Party (a political party formed by South Africa’s white minority) implemented a formal system of racial segregation called Apartheid. Under Apartheid, every South African was placed into one of four racial groups (African, colored, Indian, or white). Placement in a racial group determined all aspects of a South African citizen’s life, from where s/he could live, go to school or work to where s/he could receive healthcare and socialize. Whites were at the top of the racial hierarchy and enjoyed a privileged and protected place in South African society. Unrest began to ensue shortly after the implementation of Apartheid, with conflict becoming most intense beginning in the 1960s. In 1994, South Africa’s comprehensive system of formal racial segregation was dismantled and Nelson Mandela, a long-time leader in the African National Congress (ANC) who had been imprisoned by the National Party for 27 years, was elected the first president of the new democratic South Africa. South Africa’s TRC is probably the most well-known of all TRCs; however, it was not the first of its kind to be held in South Africa. In fact, the South African TRC was preceded by two commissions assembled to address issues of human rights abuses of 32 detainees of the ANC detained between 1979 and 1991. The ANC’s detainees were suspected agents and infiltrators of the National Party government and were detained in various countries surrounding South Africa, including Angola, Zambia, and Tanzania. During detainment by the ANC, prisoners were subject to human rights abuses including the withholding of food, beatings, and other extreme types of physical torture. Two commissions were convened to consider the abuses of the ANC detainees: The Commission of Enquiry into Complaints by Former African National Congress Prisoners and Detainees (also known as the Skweyiya Commission) and the National Executive Committee of the African National Congress (also known as the Motsuenyane Commission). Like most TRCs the charge of these commissions was to garner testimony from the victims and perpetrators of the abuses, to make recommendations on how to prevent future abuses, which may include reparations or monetary compensation, and to publish a final report. Both Commissions released reports, the Skweyiya Commission in October 1992 and the Motsuenyane Commission in August 1993. Influenced by the TRCs in Chile in 1991 and El Salvador in 1993, both Commission reports emphasized the need for a nation-wide discourse on the human rights violations of the past. Members of the ANC’s National Executive Council state, ‘‘This will not be the Nuremburg Tribunal. Its role will be to identify all abuses of human rights and their perpetrators, to propose a future code of conduct for all public servants, to ensure appropriate compensation to the victims, and to work out the best basis for reconciliation. In

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addition, it will provide the moral basis for justice and for preventing any repetition of abuses in the future.’’ The ANC’s call for a national TRC was heeded soon after the inauguration of the elected democratic government in 1994. In November, the national government approved the Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act. Included in this act was a mandate for a TRC that would ‘‘provide for the investigation and the establishment of as complete a picture as possible of the nature, causes, and extent of gross violations of human rights during’’ the Apartheid era, provide amnesty to those who ‘‘make full disclosure of all the relevant facts relating to acts associated with a political objective committed in the course of the conflicts of the past’’ and to take ‘‘measures aimed at the granting of reparation to, and the rehabilitation and the restoration of the human and civil dignity of, victims of violations of human rights.’’ The TRC implemented a ‘public and participatory process’ through a three-committee structure which includes the Amnesty Committee, the Reparation and Rehabilitation (R & R) Committee, and the Human Rights Violations (HRV) Committee. Each of these committees served a different role in the facilitation of ‘‘individual and collective ‘getting over’ and liberating South Africa of the ghosts of its past.’’ The Amnesty Committee was charged with the task of determining amnesty for ‘‘any act, omission or offence associated with a political objective’’ during the Apartheid era. The R & R Committee was responsible for ensuring that the ‘‘Truth Commission process restores victims’ dignity’’ and for formulating ‘‘policy proposals and recommendations on rehabilitation and healing of survivors, their families, and communities at large.’’ Finally, the HRV Committee was responsible for establishing ‘‘the identity of the victims, their fate or present whereabouts,’’ determining the ‘‘the nature and extent of the harm they have suffered,’’ discerning ‘‘whether the violations were the result of deliberate planning by the state or any other organization, group or individual’’ and referring victims to the R & R Committee. The Amnesty and the HRV Committees are the primary bodies where a dialogue about experiences under the Apartheid regime occurred and these proceedings resulted in thousands of pages of transcriptions from hearings across 80 South African communities. Those who publicly confessed their crimes and proved that such crimes were politically motivated were granted amnesty from prosecution. The R & R Committee was the least staffed and least funded arm of the TRC. Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu was selected to act as the Commission Chair. Perhaps the most notable aspect of his tenure at TRC Chair was the infusion of his religious beliefs into the work of the TRC. Archbishop Tutu’s Ubuntu theology is based on an African notion of the ‘‘organic wholeness of society, a wholeness realized in and through other people.’’ He encourages the Christian

1052 International Criminal Courts and Tribunals

values of forgiveness, repentance, and reconciliation. Transcripts of TRC proceedings often capture Archbishop Tutu urging victims to forgive their violators and insisting that is it only through forgiveness that abuse sufferers could reclaim their own humanity. The work of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission lasted 3 years, employed a staff of approximately 400 people, and had an annual budget of about $9 million a year. The Human Rights Committee heard testimony from 20 000 individuals; public hearings were held in 80 communities throughout the country. In every location where hearings were held at least 200 people participated or provided testimony. The activities of the TRC were highly publicized with hearings frequently appearing on television or in the news. The TRC’s 4000-page final report was published in October 1998 and included 250 recommendations. Two recommendations of South Africa’s TRC were the provision of reparations victims and to the construction of public memorials to commemorate those who suffered. To date, there has been no systematic efforts for reparations to those most impacted by human rights abuses, nor has a shorter, more accessible version of the TRC’s final report been published. Additionally, the final report has yet to be published in a language other than English, despite South Africa’s formal recognition of 11 national languages. One criticism of the TRC hearings is the scant attention paid to the women’s experiences of human rights abuses, and, more specifically, their sexual assault victimization. According to Lyn Graybill, ‘‘TRC press releases and media coverage of the special women’s hearings were limited, arguably because violations against women were not regarded as sensational given the almost commonplace nature in [South African] society of sexual assault.’’ Further, cultural norms and fear of speaking out against perpetrators who hold positions in the new democratic government undoubtedly influenced women to refrain from speaking publicly about their sexual abuse. Interestingly enough, of all the applications for amnesty that were processed by the TRC, none applied for amnesty from sexual assaults. If indeed the TRC hearings were a national strategy for healing, there is glaring omission when it comes to the healing of the sexual assault victims. The Commission on Truth for El Salvador

For the 12 years prior to the Commission on Truth, El Salvador had been fighting a civil war. From 1982 to 1992, the Salvadoran government and a coalition of several leftist and/or Communist parties known collectively as the Farabundo Martı´ National Liberation Front (FMLN) had engaged in a brutal conflict in which upwards of 75 000 people were killed, 8000 went missing, and one million were left homeless. The events often credited with cementing a sustained conflict between the

Salvadoran government and the FMLN are the assassina´ scar Romero, and tion of Archbishop of San Salvador, O those who attended his funeral soon after. Archbishop Romero, a vocal critique of the Salvadoran government, was shot while giving mass on 24 March 1980. During his funeral service, 42 attendees were killed by government bombs and snipers. Shortly thereafter, five organizations joined forces to form the antigovernment FMLN. Throughout the conflict, Salvadoran government forces continued to be funded and supported by the United States while the FMLN received financial backing from the former Soviet Union. While there were several brief periods of peace, including one inspired by a major earthquake in 1986, the 12-year period was consistently punctuated with violence. One of the most notorious scenes of violence occurred during Operacio´n Rescate in the rural village of El Mozote, Department of Moraza´n. In 1981, during a 2-day raid of the village by government forces, men, women, and children were pulled from their homes and locked in the church. The men were taken outside first, tortured for information about guerilla forces, and then slaughtered. Women and children were then shot with M-16 rifles and the buildings set on fire. The bodies of villagers not shot in the church were left outside until survivors and neighbors were able to bury them. During a subsequent exhumation, the skeletal remains of 143 bodies were found, 131 of which were under the age of 12, according to the Report of the Commission on Truth for El Salvador. In 1991, government officials and representatives of the FMLN declared a truce and began peace negotiations. During these negotiations, a new constitution was enacted, a civil police force was established, and regulations of the Armed Forces were implemented. Additionally, negotiations called for the convening of a Commission on Truth for El Salvador. Funding for the Commission on Truth in El Salvador was provided primarily by members of the United Nations. Commissioners, none of whom were Salvadoran, were appointed directly by the Secretary-General of the UN with agreement from the Salvadoran government and the FMLN party. The Commission for Truth’s mandate allowed for broad discretion in terms of what could be studied by the Commission. This is significant as earlier examples of TRCs in Latin America, such as Uruguay’s 1985 Commission for the Investigation of the Situation of Disappeared Persons and Chile’s 1991 National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation, investigations were limited to those incidents involving disappearances or deaths only. The Commission for Truth was given 6 months to conduct its activities and to write a report. With some time for preparation and a 2-month extension, the Commission completed its activities in 9 months and published its final report in March 1993. Staffing for the Commission on Truth ranged from 5 to 25 or more.

International Criminal Courts and Tribunals

Hearings were private and almost no information about the Commission’s proceedings, such as who was testifying and what conclusions were being drawn, was released until the final report was issued. Unlike the final reports of many other TRCs, the Commission on Truth for El Salvador identified by name over 40 perpetrators of human rights violations, including the president of the Supreme Court and the Minister of Defense. Within 5 days of the issue of the final report, Salvadoran legislature passed legislation for general amnesty in any human rights abuses that occurred during the 12 years of civil war.

Conclusion We end our discussion of international criminal courts and truth and reconciliation models with a discussion of cases wherein both models have been utilized to bring justice to victims of gross human rights atrocities. Many countries that have experienced significant human rights abuses have participated in an ICC or truth commission either as part of their transition to a new governance structure or as a means to symbolically sever ties with a brutal past and move towards national healing and unity. While many countries adopt only one model for addressing human rights abuses, it is not uncommon for countries to experiment with both. Cote d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo, East Timor, and Germany have utilized both strategies in coming to terms with histories of human rights violations. In East Timor, for example, the Commission for Reception, Truth, and Reconciliation and a criminal-court structure (known as the Special Crimes Unit and Special Panels for Serious Crime Cases) worked collaboratively to inquire into human rights abuses and identify individuals deserving of prosecution. While the Commission for Reception, Truth, and Reconciliation could not bring charges against perpetrators, part of their mandate was to publish a final report that recommended specific individuals to prosecute. Bosnia has also adopted multiple approaches with their Commission for Investigation of the Events in and around Srebrenica and the International Criminal Tribunal of the Former Yugoslavia discussed above. While the Commission focused on discerning the location of mass graves around Srebrenica and establishing a reparations and memorial program, the Tribunal focused its efforts at prosecuting the military and political leaders responsible for human rights abuses in Croatia, Bosnia, and Serbia since 1991. At least one country has also attempted creating a body that blends the justice-dispensing and truth-seeking functions of ICCs and truth commissions. Ethiopia’s Special Prosecution Process of War Criminals and Human Rights Violators original mandate included creating a historical record of human rights abuses from 1974 to 1991 and prosecuting those identified as being responsible for the abuses. While the truth-seeking

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efforts were ultimately abandoned (i.e., the truth is to be determined through criminal trials) in favor of prosecution, Ethiopia serves as a good example of the potential benefits and challenges of trying to blend punitive and reconciliatory efforts. In terms of benefits, truth commissions are sometimes criticized for allowing perpetrators of heinous human rights abuses to escape meaningful accountability for their actions because the commissions lack the power to prosecute. However, others have argued that criminal courts may interfere with peacekeeping processes and reconciliation that does not involve criminal prosecution. A blended approach that allows for both the opportunity to create an official historical record and to punish those most responsible for the abuses may address some of the weaknesses of truth commissions and criminal courts. On the other hand, blending justice and truth approaches may reduce the effectiveness of truth-seeking efforts. First, it may be difficult to effectively reconcile the different emphasis of each of the bodies. In the case of criminal courts or tribunals, the emphasis is on locating specific individuals that are responsible for perpetrating human rights abuses. While focusing on individuals may shed some light on the nature of abuses during conflict periods, these types of pointed efforts are less successful at discerning overall patterns of violations or considering broader strokes of violations with a time period. Further, attempts at discerning truth may be hindered when uncovering such information explicitly linked with the possibility for punishment. Individuals who are likely to be punished for human rights abuses may be less likely to expose themselves and their actions. If the goal of both models is to seek justice in the name of victims while giving voice to their suffering, both models have their merits. The struggle for peace, justice, and fundamental, universal respect for human rights may best be sought through the use of both of these models, complementing their strengths and weaknesses for victims worldwide. See also: International Variations in Homicide and Warfare; Interpersonal Conflict, History of

Further Reading African National Congress National Executive Committee (1993). NEC response to Motsuenyane commission report, http:// www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/pr/1993/pr0829.html (accessed on Nov 2007). Cisse, C. (1997). The international tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda: Some elements of comparison. Transnational Law and Contemporary Problems 7, 103–118. Freeman, M. (2006). Truth commissions and procedural fairness. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Ginsburgs, G.and Kudriavtsev, V. N. (eds.) (1990). The Nuremberg Trial and international law.Boston: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.

1054 International Relations, Overview Graybill, L. S. (2002). Truth & reconciliation in South Africa: Miracle or model? Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Hayner, P. B. (1994). Fifteen truth commissions – 1974 to 1994: A comparative study. Human Rights Quarterly 16, 597–655. Human Rights Watch (2007). The United States and the International Criminal Court, http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/icc/us.htm (accessed on Nov 2007). Jia, B. B. (2006). China and the International Criminal Court: Current situation. Singapore Year Book of International Law 10, 1–11. Kerr, R. (2004). The international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia: An exercise in law, politics, and diplomacy. New York: Oxford University Press. Posel, D.and Simpson, G. (eds.) (2002). Commissioning the past: Understanding South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press. Ratner, S. R. and Abrams, J. S. (2001). Accountability for human rights atrocities in international law. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Ratner, S. R. and Bischoff, J. L. (2004). International war crimes trials: Making a difference? Austin, TX: The University of Texas at Austin School of Law. Ross, F. C. (2003). Bearing witness: Women and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa. London: Pluto Press. Smith, R. J. (2006). Worried CIA officers buy legal insurance. The Washington Post, A01 (September 11). Truth & Reconciliation Commission (2006). Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act, No 34 of 1995. Cape Town: Truth &

Reconciliation Commission, http://www.fas.org/irp/world/rsa/ act95_034.htm (accessed on Nov 2007).

Relevant Websites http://www.amnesty.org – Amnesty International. http://www.doj.gov.za/trc – South Africa Truth and Reconciliation Commission. http://www.greensborotrc.org – The Greensboro Truth Commission. http://www.hrw.org – Human Rights Watch. http://www.icc-cpi.int – International Criminal Court. http://www.justiceinperspective.org.za – Justice in Perspective. http://www.usip.org/library/truth.html – United State Institute of Peace, Truth Commissions Digital Collection. http://www.un.org/icty – International Criminal Court for the Former Yugoslavia. http://www.un.org/itcr – International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

International Relations, Diplomatic Aspects of See Diplomacy

International Relations, Overview Carolyn M Stephenson, University of Hawai’i at Manoa, Honolulu, HI, USA Published by Elsevier Inc.

The Practice and Study of International Relations A Brief History of International Relations Structures in International Relations Theoretical Perspectives in International Relations

Glossary Arms Control and Disarmament Related but not identical concepts. Disarmament is an older concept that encompasses the reduction or elimination of weapons, while arms control implies regulation or restraints on production, deployment, or use of weapons. Nuclear arms control generally accepts the deterrence paradigm, while disarmament does not. Balance of Power A central concept in realist international relations theories that centers on an equilibrium between states. Sometimes used descriptively, sometimes as a policy guide, the concept is both widely used and widely criticized. Often used in

History of the Field of Study Conclusions: Evolving Issues in International Relations Further Reading

historical terms to describe the international system pre-World War I, when England played the role of balancer between opposing coalitions in order to prevent a universal hegemony. Collective Defense Concept under which states agree to band together to defend each other against outside aggression, agreeing that they will see an attack on one member as an attack on all. Concept on which NATO and other alliances are based. Collective Security Concept by which states agree that they will jointly put forth rules against aggression, and that violation of those rules will result in punitive action by all the members of the organization against the

International Relations, Overview

violator. Concept on which major UN approach to peace and security is based, especially in Chapter VII of UN Charter. Conflict Resolution The resolution of conflicts, usually including attempts to meet long-term human needs, often by the use of third parties. Some authors include conflict management and conflict settlement approaches; others distinguish conflict resolution from those. Concept enshrined in Chapter VI of UN Charter. Democratic Peace Theory Theory that originated with Kant’s Perpetual Peace, that hypothesized that democratically organized republics, organized in a world republic, would not go to war. Much research on this hypothesis has been simplified to the question of whether democratic states will be less war prone. Deterrence The use of implicit or explicit threat to coerce an opponent not to take a particular action. While the concept began to be employed early in the nuclear age, and while its widest use refers to nuclear deterrence, or the threat of nuclear retaliation to prevent either nuclear or conventional war, it is actually broader than that. Primarily a psychological concept, it implies some degree of rationality. International Governmental Organization (IGO) Generally considered to be an international organization created by a treaty among states, composed primarily of states, and thus having some derivative degree of legal standing under international law. International Nongovernmental Organization (NGO or INGO) International organization having regular meetings and decision-making procedures and a permanent secretariat, and comprising individuals and/ or private organizations, and not created by state agreement. Generally does not include multinational corporations or terrorist organizations. Just War Theory Ethical framework originated by Augustine in AD 400 that puts forth the just causes of war and the conditions that must be met for the waging of war to be just. Incorporates both the jus ad bellum and the jus in bello. Liberalism A conceptual framework that includes many theories that center on the importance of international interdependence, democracy, and international institutions. Liberals tend to believe in the importance of human rights and the free market. Neoliberal

The Practice and Study of International Relations International relations is both the practice and the study of the relations of nation-states and other entities in the international system. This article reviews both of these.

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institutionalists work to explain why international cooperation happens. Multinational Corporation (MNC) A for-profit corporation with headquarters in one country but subsidiary branches in at least several others. Regarded as one of the carriers of globalization. Nation A group of people with a shared identity in terms of history, traditions, and culture, sometimes religion, and usually language. Peacemaking, Peacekeeping, Peace building Mechanisms for peace and security as defined in the UN Agenda for Peace 1992. Peacemaking is usually thirdparty peaceful resolution of conflict, peacekeeping the deployment in the field of military, police, and civilians to keep the peace after a cease-fire, and peace building the establishment of the conditions that will keep war from breaking out. Realism An international relations conceptual framework that places central emphasis on the struggle for power between states in an anarchic system. It includes many varieties of theory within it. Neorealists especially argue that the anarchic nature of the international system is a major cause of war. Regimes ‘‘Sets of implicit or explicit principles, norms, rules and decision-making procedures around which actors’ expectations converge in a given area of international relations.’’ Definition from Krasner. Security Community A community with dependable expectations of peaceful change among its members. Concept defined by Karl Deutsch. State A human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory. Definition per Max Weber. Sustainable Development Development that meets the needs of the current generation without compromising the needs of future generations. Concept articulated by the Brundtland Commission in 1987. United Nations Universal organization established in 1945 to provide international peace and security, as well as development and human rights. Includes UN General Assembly with all 192 member states, Security Council with 15 states, and other organs. The UN system also includes each of the independent UN Specialized Agencies.

Traditionally, international relations focused primarily on state-to-state relations, but today the field focuses as well on other actors such as intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), multinational corporations (MNCs), and even individuals. Thus today these interactions and their study

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are often termed global politics or world politics. While international relations as a field of study originated largely within political science and remains centered there, it is also an interdisciplinary field, encompassing the study of economic, social, and cultural interactions as well. While international relations has tended to be dominated by those who term themselves realist theorists, liberal or idealist theories continue to abound, and radical theories of many varieties also exist. While international relations began as a field largely in the United States, today it is studied widely all over the world in different ways.

A Brief History of International Relations In a sense, the history of international relations, literally meaning the relations between nations, must begin with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, which is regarded as the founding moment of the nation-state. At the end of the Thirty Years’ War in Europe between those states that wished to maintain the Catholicism of the former Holy Roman Empire and those who wished to be Protestant, it was concluded that each state would follow the religion of its sovereign. In that time we moved from what was primarily a feudal system to what became the nation-state system, so named when we assumed that each state would govern a single nation of people, and each nation would have its own state. Original concepts of the nation defined it as a group of people who shared history, traditions, and culture, sometimes religion, and usually language. Over time, some have come to distinguish the concept of an ethnically based nation from that of a civic nation, based in common identity and loyalty to a set of political ideas and institutions. Today the word nation, which rightly refers to the people, is often used synonymously with state, as in the United Nations (UN). In practice, however, a state may comprise more than one nation or, alternatively, a nation may be spread out over several states. For example, the Kurdish people are spread between parts of Turkey, Iraq, and Iran, among other places. During the period when European colonialism ended in Africa and elsewhere, the lack of congruence between nations and the states that were established led to many conflicts that continue even today. It is probably more appropriate today to speak of the interstate system than the international system, as the system is generally regarded as comprising sovereign and equal states. A state is more properly the governmental apparatus by which a nation rules itself. Max Weber provided the classic definition of the state: Today, however, we have to say that a state is a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the

legitimate use of physical force within a given territory. Note that ‘territory’ is one of the characteristics of the state. Specifically, at the present time, the right to use physical force is ascribed to other institutions or to individuals only to the extent to which the state permits it.

It is important to keep in mind that this definition specifies the ‘legitimate’ use of force. International relations, more broadly speaking, could be regarded as originating much earlier than 1648, as it generally includes the relations between groups or sovereign units of any kind, or between any actors across the boundaries of those sovereign units. The interaction between technological, social, economic, and political change has changed the character of international relations over time. During the hunting and gathering period, people wandered from place to place in search of food. At the time of the Agricultural Revolution, people began to settle in one place. The Industrial Revolution led to settlement in cities, to the rise of the bourgeoisie and eventually the labor movement, and to changes both in governance and warfare. Cities in Germany began to form into economic units, the Zollverein, or customs unions, and other city-states formed in Italy, Greece, and China, eventually integrating into nation-states. By 1776 the Declaration of Independence led to the United States as the first new democratic nation. In France, in 1789, the Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man was one of the first statements of the human rights of individuals. The rise of democracy coupled with industrial technology led to the rise of nationalism and a new kind of warfare by the Napoleonic period, where civilian loyalty began to play a role and war was no longer a matter between kings and far removed from civilians. By 1815 the first IGOs had come into being. In that year the Congress of Vienna established a system of regular meetings of diplomatic representatives of states, a system that would become the forerunner of the United Nations Security Council. It also established the Central Commission for the Navigation of the Rhine, the first of many river commissions which would presage the international single-functional organizations which would attempt to solve the technical and economic problems of the international system. Along with the rise of international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs), this new level of aggregation would bring about both normative and legal changes that would eventually become one of the forces changing the character of international relations. Periods of war and peace have alternated in international relations, with periods of war often followed by the creation of international organizations intended to prevent additional war. World War I, 1914–18, led to the 1919 creation of the League of Nations, the first international organization open to universal membership. The

International Relations, Overview

League was based in the theory of collective security, by which states agreed that there would be rules against aggression, and that violation of those rules would result in punitive action by all the members of the organization against the violator. However, the League, with a voting structure requiring unanimity, was discredited when it was unable to stop the violations when Italy invaded Ethiopia and Japan attacked Manchuria. This, coupled with the failure of the Unites States to join the League, and with other states leaving the organization, were among the factors that led to its failure. From World War II to the End of the Cold War Modern international relations changed significantly at the end of World War II and with the construction of the UN and many other new international structures. In the areas of economics, security, and human rights, major changes occurred in the international system (Table 1). The Great Depression, which had begun with the American stock market crash of October 1929, spread throughout the world for roughly the next decade, becoming one of the factors that led to the next major war. World War II began in Europe in 1939, and the United States joined the war after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, 7 December 1941. The war led to the defeat of the Axis powers, Germany, Italy, and Japan, and to the restructuring of European and other states. During and after the war, states came together to create both economic and security organizations, so as to reduce the future possibility of either economic collapse or world war. The Bretton Woods conference created the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), otherwise known as the World Bank, and its sister institution, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), in 1944. The IBRD had as its original purpose the reconstruction of Europe after the war, and later broadened its purpose to include the economic development of the less-developed states. The IMF, on the other hand, had the purpose of stabilizing the international monetary system, by providing shorter-term loans that would help stabilize a nation’s currency in times of difficulty. There was also originally an attempt to create an International Trade Organization, but agreement could only be reached on creating a more modest General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1947. GATT conferences focused on outlawing quotas and foreign exchange controls, on reducing tariffs, and on extending most-favored-nation protection to all members (meaning there would be no most-favored nation in trade agreements). By the time of the Kennedy Round in the early 1960s, there had been tremendous reductions in tariffs, especially for industrial goods, and increases in exports, but the trade gap between the industrialized North and the primarily agricultural and

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commodity-based South had become more pronounced. This led to the rise of North–South conflict especially during the 1970s, and discussion of whether there should be a New International Economic Order. Problems were compounded by the start of the international debt crisis, often said to have begun on Friday, 13 August 1982, when Mexico announced it could not meet its payments on its foreign debt. By the Uruguay Round of GATT, in 1995, the agreement had transformed into the World Trade Organization (WTO), which continued, with the Doha Round beginning in September 2001, to be unable to come to agreement on issues of commodity and service trade and patents and intellectual property rights. Regional economic organizations also began to play important roles, with the original institutions of what would become the European Union (EU) created in 1952 and 1958, ultimately culminating in the creation of the EU in the Maastricht agreement in 1992. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), created in 1960, had an important impact when it cut supplies and raised prices during the 1973 and 1979 oil crises, thus forcing the high energy usage countries to pay attention to oil suppliers. During the war, beginning in 1942, some of the Allied powers began to work on a charter for a new global general-purpose organization to replace the League of Nations. In the summer of 1945, after the end of the war in Europe, but before the end of the war in Asia, the Allied powers, including the US, France, United Kingdom, China, and Russia, and 51 states in all, came together in the San Francisco conference to sign the United Nations Charter. The Charter came into force on 24 October 1945, now celebrated as UN Day. In the Charter, the member states declare the maintenance of international peace and security to be a central purpose of the organization, and collective security and peaceful settlement to be the central methods to accomplish this. In Article 1.1, the first purpose stated is: To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace.

Achieving international cooperation to solve economic, social, cultural, and humanitarian problems and to promote respect for human rights are also important purposes. The General Assembly was set up to include all member states (51 originally, 192 by 2007), with an equal vote, and the Security Council to include as permanent members the five Allied powers, the winners of World

Table 1 A time line of major events, treaties and organizations in twentieth-century international relations Decade

Year

1910–19

1914–19 1917

1920–29 1930–39 1940–49

1919 1929

General

World War II IMF IBRD United Nations GATT Universal Declaration of HR Genocide Treaty

1952 1955

Warsaw Pact

1961

Political

Stock market crash Depression

NATO

1958

Environment

League of Nations

1949

1960–69

Human Rights

Russian Revolution

1929–39

1945 1947 1948

Economic

World War I

1939–45 1944

1950–59

Security

Chinese Revolution ECSC Bandung conference EEC EURATOM NAM

1964 1966

1970–79 1980–89

1990–99

G-77 Covenant on Civil and Political Rights Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

1970 1972 1975 1979 1987 1989–90 1992 1995 1997

NPT UNCHE UNEP CEDAW Brundtland Commission Cold War ends Maastricht:EU

UNCED FCCC

WTO Kyoto Protocol

CEDAW, Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women; ECSC, European Coal and Steel Community; EEC, European Economic Community; EU, European Union; EURATOM, European Atomic Energy Community; FCCC, Framework Convention on Climate Change; GATT, General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade; IBRD, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development; IMF, International Monetary Fund; NAM, Nonaligned Movement; NATO, North Atlantic Treaty Organization; NPT, Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty; UNCED, United Nations Conference on Environment and Development; UNEP, United Nations Environment Program; WTO, World Trade Organization.

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War II, who would have the right of veto, and eventually ten other rotating members, with decisions requiring 9 votes out of 15 (and no vetoes of permanent members). Under Article 25 of the Charter, UN member states agree to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council. Its decisions, unlike the recommendations of the General Assembly, have the force of international law. Resolutions of the General Assembly, on the other hand, are important because they represent the widespread consensus of the states members of the international system. The Economic and Social Council of the UN, along with its commissions focusing on particular matters within its jurisdiction, is unique in providing (under Article 71 of the Charter) consultative status for many NGOs, thus providing a voice for at least portions of civil society in UN affairs. Any member state of the UN must also be a member of the International Court of Justice, the court intended to provide judicial decision making for disputes between states as an alternative to war. While there are other organs that are part of the UN, and also many specialized agencies that are part of the broader UN system, although not a part of the UN itself, the central ones are those discussed above. Human rights became important especially in the decades after World War II. While the American and French Revolutions had produced a codification of civil and political rights, often termed the first generation of human rights, the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917 and the Maoist Revolution in China in 1949 acknowledged economic and social rights, or the second generation of human rights. With the establishment of the UN, human rights began to become a recognized priority in the international system, with the Preamble of the Charter stating that the peoples of the UN were determined: to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small.

The UN Commission on Human Rights, led by Eleanor Roosevelt, produced the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 10 December 1948. By 1966 this had been codified into international law, in the form of two treaties: the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, both of which came into force in 1976. Other global and regional human rights treaties, on genocide, women’s rights, against racial discrimination and torture, created an infrastructure of rights based in treaties and courts which began to recognize at least some rights for individuals under international law. Decolonization of the empires of the European states, occurring primarily during the period from the late 1940s

through the early 1960s, changed the political and economic landscape. The independence of India and Pakistan from the British Empire in 1947 was followed by the independence of Burma (now Myanmar) and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in 1948, and of Indonesia in 1949. In the period 1957–63 most African states became independent from the French and British Empires, with others gaining independence from Portugal in 1974–75. The rise of this new group of states began to change the power structure of the international system as they came to be able to act together, first in terms of joint interests in national liberation and in overcoming Western colonialism and neocolonialism, especially beginning at the Bandung Conference of 18–24 April 1955. The Group of 77 (G-77), which got its name from the 77 nonaligned nations who first signed a joint declaration on 15 June 1964 and then adopted the Charter of Algiers in October 1967, established a permanent institutional structure to promote the collective economic interests of the lessdeveloped states. During the period of the mid-1970s, while the international system debated the question of whether there would be a New International Economic Order, a unified political position strengthened the negotiating position of the G-77, but as development proceeded at different rates in different states, the group began to see regional and national divisions. Today the G-77 continues to play an important role in international politics and in the UN, where it has a membership of 130 states out of the total UN membership of 192. Many of these same countries joined with others in establishing the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), setting forth the principle of nonalignment with respect to both the Eastern and Western blocs in their Cold War. The NAM, originally 25 states convened by Tito of Yugoslavia at the Belgrade Conference in 1961, and now a group of 118 states, chose not to create a formal structure. Consensus decision making (which does not imply unanimity) has helped it to maintain solidarity. The emergence of Europe as a major player in the international system was aided in the wake of World War II by reconstruction assistance from the IBRD and through Marshall Plan aid from the United States, but regional integration in Europe, eventually culminating in the formation of the EU, also played an important role. The Treaty of Paris led to the creation in 1952 of the supranational European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), established by France, Germany, Italy, and the Benelux countries, Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg, in order both to provide an engine of growth for the region, as well as to link the economies of France and Germany in such a way that it would make it more costly and difficult to go to war with each other again. The treaty was intended to lead to spillover into other sectors of the economy and did so with the establishment in 1958 of the European Economic Community

International Relations, Overview

(EEC) and the European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM), under the Rome Treaties among the same countries. The Merger Treaty of 1965 integrated the three into the European Communities, and eventually the European Community. By February 1992 the Maastricht Treaty on European Union had been signed, and by 1 January 2002, the Euro had been adopted by most EU members as a common European currency. On 1 January 2004, the EU was enlarged from 15 to 25 members with the addition of Eastern European members plus Malta and Cyprus, with two more Eastern Union memberships increasing the EU to 27 by the present. While the EU has been unable to adopt a constitution, it does now have a Common Foreign and Security Policy that allows it to act in unified fashion in many areas in other international forums such as the UN. While economics, security, and human rights received increasing attention and institutionalization in the period immediately after World War II, it was not until the 1970s that attention began to be paid to environmental matters. Concerns with pesticide pollution and with the rapidly rising world population led the UN in June, 1972 to hold the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment (UNCHE) in Stockholm, Sweden. This was followed, during the decade of the 1970s, by a large number of ad hoc- or mega-conferences intended to put a variety of issues, especially environmental issues, on the agenda of the UN and its members. Among these were conferences in 1974 on population and on food, in 1976 on human settlements (especially cities), in 1977 on water and on desertification. The Stockholm Conference began a pattern of holding not only a meeting of UN member states, but a parallel forum of NGOs and civil society, which would consider the same issues as the UN conference. The pattern was to persist throughout the other conferences, and to repeat as these conferences repeated in the 1980s and 1990s. This led to an increased role for civil society organizations in the UN system by the mid1990s. While these ad hoc conferences did not produce treaties, they led to the development of environment ministries in many countries, and to the further development of international law on the environment, and of certain international organizations as well. The Stockholm Conference resulted in the 1975 creation of the United Nations Environment Program, or UNEP. The 1992 Rio Earth Summit, or the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), was the occasion for the signing of the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) and the Convention on Biodiversity, and also led to the creation of a new UN organ, the Commission on Sustainable Development. Environmental matters began to be seen as more and more significant, and led the parties to the FCCC to adopt the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, but political will to implement measures to deal

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with many environmental issues has not yet attained the momentum to actually stop a lot of environmental damage. Security continued after World War II to be a major concern to states, and a variety of approaches were pursued to further international peace and security. First, the UN Security Council was based in the theory of collective security, continuing the system put forth in the League, by which states agreed that they would jointly put forth rules against aggression, and that violation of those rules would result in punitive action by all the members of the organization against the violator. In the case of the UN, Chapter VII of the UN Charter put forth the basic principles for the operation of collective security. However, the unity of the permanent members of the UN Security Council, which had been presumed for the effective working of the Security Council, vanished with the onset of the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union, and their allies in the Western and Eastern blocs, and the Security Council was left unable to function as planned when faced with vetoes from one side or the other on security matters. With George Kennan’s 1947 article in the journal Foreign Affairs, espousing US and Western containment of Soviet communism, especially in Europe, came the 1949 development of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, based in the theory of collective defense. As the theory behind the security alliance, collective defense was based on the concept under which states agreed to band together to defend each other against outside aggression, agreeing that they would see an attack on one member as an attack on all. When West Germany joined NATO in 1955, the Soviet Union formed its own alliance of the Eastern bloc, the Warsaw Pact, which lasted until 1991. Collective defense, backed up by nuclear deterrence, superseded collective security as the dominant theory of security during most of the period of the Cold War. Nuclear deterrence played a central role in the security theory of the superpowers during the Cold War, and reliance on nuclear deterrence made the achievement of nuclear weapons capability attractive to other states as a result. The US dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945 marked the advent of the nuclear era. The Soviet Union tested its first atomic bomb in 1949, the United Kingdom in 1952, France in 1960, China in 1964, India a ‘peaceful nuclear explosion’ in 1974 and a nuclear bomb in May 1998, followed within weeks by a Pakistani test. Initial reliance on ‘massive retaliation’ led eventually to the notion of graduated nuclear responses and to the advocacy of limited nuclear war fighting by the Reagan administration in the early 1980s. Along with nuclear deterrence, however, states also pursued arms control and disarmament. Bilateral efforts between the US and the USSR led to the first Strategic

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Arms Limitation Treaty and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 1972 and the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty in 1991, as well as other agreements. Multilateral agreements included, most importantly, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) of 1970, and a series of nuclear free zones in the Southern Hemisphere, beginning with the Latin American Nuclear Free Zone in 1967. Nuclear nonproliferation was relatively successful until the North Korean withdrawal from the NPT and subsequent testing of a nuclear weapon in October 2006. Diplomacy and international law also played a role in the maintenance of international peace and security. In the case of the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, when the US discovered that the Soviet Union was in the process of placing nuclear weapons in Cuba, the crisis was resolved by a combination of a generally low-key military blockade and diplomatic efforts. The development of a variety of instruments of international humanitarian law, otherwise known as the laws of war, was also significant in regulating war. The Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the 1977 Protocols to those conventions are most significant here, focusing especially on the protection of noncombatants. During the period when the UN Security Council was unable to make collective security work in the intended way, the UN did develop a set of new instruments for international peace and security. Beginning in the late 1940s, and especially in 1956, the UN developed a set of techniques that were not specifically mentioned in the UN Charter. In 1956, when Israel and Egypt were engaged in conflict involving the Suez Canal, and Britain and France entered on the side of Israel, and there was a threat of Russian entry on the side of Egypt, Canada proposed that there be a withdrawal by all parties and their replacement by UN peacekeeping troops, supplied not by the major powers as with collective security, but by middle-level powers such as Canada, India, and the Scandinavian countries. Thus the United Nations Emergency Force came into being, policing the border between Israel and Egypt after a cease-fire had been agreed upon. Many peacekeeping missions were utilized to keep the peace after cease-fires in many regions of the world, both during the Cold War and after that. There continue to be important advances in the development of all of these mechanisms, both in the UN and in regional organizations. After the Cold War While the end of the Cold War meant that there was a possibility of joint action for international peace and security in the UN, it also led to the preponderance of the Western states and especially the United States. In the early 1990s, the first Gulf War was viewed as a triumph of collective security, as the UN Security Council unanimously agreed to stop Iraq’s illegal occupation of Kuwait.

Peacekeeping also experienced a resurgence. In 1992, the Security Council asked the UN Secretary-General to look again at the options for maintaining international peace and security after the end of the Cold War, and the resulting report Agenda for Peace suggested that a combination of preventive diplomacy, peacemaking (especially mediation), peacekeeping, and peace building would be effective. A renewed effort toward development also transpired, and thinking on development expanded from an emphasis solely on economic development to a focus on human development as well, with the publication of the first Human Development Report by the UN Development Program in 1990, and the Human Development Index, encompassing not only GDP, but also indicators of human health and education. There was the hope that developed states would finally reach the goal of increasing their official development assistance (ODA) to the level of 0.7% of GDP, a goal they had established during the second ‘Decade of Development’, but most had never met. With the Millennium Declaration and the Millennium Development Goals in 2000, hope was further increased, but instead, foreign aid after that period remained between 0.2% and 0.3% of GDP. Many have argued that the end of the Cold War transformed international relations. Some argued transformation from an ideological battle between East and West to greater international cooperation. Huntington argued that the East– West conflict would be superseded by a clash of civilizations, or a battle of the West versus the rest. Others argued that the basis of conflict would be the poverty, crime, corruption, and environmental degradation that would accentuate conflict between the haves and the have-nots. Much of the debate over a possible transformation of international relations occurred again after the terrorism that caused the destruction of the World Trade Center and damage to the US Pentagon on 11 September 2001. Worldwide opposition to terrorism led to a variety of multilateral initiatives against terrorist activities. By March of 2003, however, when the US began its war against Iraq, this time it was without the support of the UN Security Council. UN Security Council Resolution 1441 of 8 November 2002, had explicitly denied the authorization of the use of military force without a further resolution, deleting the language of ‘‘all necessary means’’ that would have authorized force. The international consensus which had appeared to develop after the end of the Cold War, and after 9/11, evaporated as US intervention accentuated the conflict in the Middle East.

Structures in International Relations The question of structure in international relations includes both who the actors are in the international system and how the system itself is structured.

International Relations, Overview

Traditionally, nation-states have been regarded as the primary actors in international relations, but today most international relations scholars and practitioners also recognize the importance of IGOs, NGOs, MNCs, and other nonstate actors such as social movements, as well as terrorist networks. The structure of the system, which had traditionally been regarded as anarchic, in that it had no overall government, has at various times been considered to be bipolar, multipolar, or unipolar. One of the basic debates, often termed the structure versus agency debate, asks whether stability and change in the system result primarily from the agency of individual actors or from the structure of the system itself. While in earlier periods of history we witnessed the presence of city-states, such as the Greek city-states of Athens and Sparta, or Chinese city-states, as well as the growth of empires, such as the Roman Empire, the Mayan and Inca Empires, the Ottoman Empire, successive iterations of Chinese empires, and later, the British Empire; the dominant form of organization in the international system by the time it came to be studied as a separate field was the nation-state. Generally judged to have begun with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, at the end of the Thirty Years’ War, the nation-state system, based in the sovereign equality of independent states governing people of a single nationality, replaced the Holy Roman Empire. While in practice both extensive immigration, and empires dividing up and combining tribes and nationalities under different governing structures, led to each state actually comprising multiple nationalities, the system of independent states became the basis of the structures of international law and organization that developed over the course of time. International organizations began to coordinate the relations between these independent states. IGOs are organizations created by a treaties among states, composed primarily of states, and thus having some derivative degree of legal standing under international law. IGOs are generally regarded to have been first created at the time of the Congress of Vienna in 1815, when both diplomatic forums that can be regarded as the predecessor of the UN Security Council and functional organizations like the International Commission for the Navigation of the Rhine were created. IGOs come in both regional and global forms, with some being general purpose, and others more specifically oriented to single subjects. The first major universal organization, open to all nation-states, was the League of Nations, created primarily to avoid a relapse into war after World War I in 1919. Both the League and the UN, its successor created in 1945 after World War II, were based on the principle of collective security, under which states agreed to create international law against aggression and to enforce this with sanctions, both nonmilitary and military, if the law should be violated. While the League was plagued with a

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cumbersome structure, including a unanimity voting requirement, and ultimately did not include the US and some other major states, the UN has been relatively successful in providing international security, sometimes under the collective security doctrine of enforcement, but more often under the peacekeeping mechanisms which were not originally provided in the Charter, but evolved beginning in 1948, and especially at the time of the Suez Canal crisis in 1956. The security, development, human rights, and environmental aspects of the UN, and its specific organs, are discussed in the previous sections. Among the single-subject organizations are the functional organizations, many of which were formed before the UN, but which became the specialized agencies of the UN system. These separate organizations have separate memberships and budgets from that of the UN itself, but are parts of the broader UN system. Among these are the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) located in Rome, the Universal Postal Union (UPU) and the International Telegraphic Union (ITU), the International Labor Organization (ILO), and the World Health Organization (WHO), all located in Geneva, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), located in Vienna. Regional IGOs have developed with different degrees of integration in different regions. One of the earliest was the Organization of American States, reorganized formally by the Rio Treaty in 1945 to include security functions, but which had previously been created as the Pan-American Union in 1890. Among other multipurpose regional organizations are the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), and the African Union, formerly the Organization of African Unity. Probably the most significant, and certainly the most integrated of the regional organizations, is the EU, of which the first part began in 1952, but which was formally constituted as the EU under the Maastricht Treaty of 1992. The EU, which was discussed in the previous section, is really the only international organization (and then only the European Community part of the EU), that can be regarded as being supranational or having powers over the nationstate in the form of being able to tax, borrow, and lend, and to have direct power over individuals and firms. Other IGOs, in contrast, still function by means of cooperation between nation-states, with final authority resting with the agreement of their member states. Many other regional free-trade organizations, such as the North American Free Trade Association, were also formed later, modeled on the success of the EU, but none have the close degree of integration present in the EU. Other types of IGOs include alliances, like the NATO and the former Warsaw Pact, which were regional defense pacts of the Western and Eastern blocs, respectively, organized under collective defense principles, under which each member agreed to regard an attack on one

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as an attack on all. Cartels, like the OPEC, and Intergovernmental Council of Copper Exporting Countries (CIPEC), the copper cartel, and others in bauxite, bananas, and the like, bounded together to attempt to increase the prices of their goods, while international commodity organizations, like the International Coffee Agreement, included both producers and consumers. INGOs, like IGOs, have regular meetings and decision-making procedures and a permanent secretariat, but comprise individuals and private organizations, and are not created by state agreement. There are far more NGOs than IGOs. Among prominent NGOs are groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund, as well as the International Chamber of Commerce. The term NGO generally does not include MNCs or terrorist organizations. Many NGOs have consultative status with IGOs, and thus can attend the meetings of IGOs and sometimes even speak at those meetings. Under Article 71 of the UN Charter, both national and international NGOs can apply for consultative status with the UN’s Economic and Social Council, and many attend UN human rights bodies and international conferences on environment, food, population, development, and women’s and other human rights. NGOs were responsible for the early development of ideas for having environment conferences and for having the International Women’s Year conference in 1975. At many General Assembly conferences, the practice has also developed of having a separate meeting outside the formal conference structures for other NGOs that do not have formal consultative status. NGOs have also become important in the delivery of development aid and humanitarian aid in the field. Me´decins sans Frontie´res won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1999 for its work in the delivery of medical aid, and the Grameen Bank in 2006 for its micro-credit programs. MNCs, which developed first in the mining, milling, and transportation industries around the 1850s, initially spread among the industrialized countries, and later throughout the world. These corporations have been lauded as being a great force for peace and criticized as being a great threat to peace, by creating exploitative relations between developed and developing countries. The corporations have certainly been one of the vehicles of globalization, spreading around the world patterns of trade, consumption, and the cultural aspects associated with them. While in the late 1950s multinationals were often regarded as a major force for economic development, providing foreign direct investment that would catapult economies without sufficient savings into export-led industrialization, only a few countries developed in this mode, with others continuing to be damaged by the repatriation of profits to multinationals’ home countries and by the declining terms of trade for the

primarily agricultural and commodity products that were the chief exports of the less-developed countries. With economic capacities larger than that of most nationstates, MNCs came to be regarded as significant actors in the world system, although different theorists have argued as to whether they reinforce or challenge the power of nation-states. There are many actors that are not formal organizations. Among these are social movements and networks. The anti-nuclear-weapons movements of the late 1950s were a major force in leading to such treaties as the Partial Test Ban Treaty in 1963. Both environmental NGOs and the broader environmental movement were important in leading to the UN’s Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment in 1972, and in turn to the creation of the UN Environment Program and later the Commission on Sustainable Development. Transnational advocacy networks, consisting of certain states, IGOs, and NGOs, were significant in leading to the development of the international ban on land mines, the program of action against illicit trade in small arms, and the International Criminal Court. Finally, terrorist networks such as Al-Qaeda have come to be regarded as significant forces in the world system, beginning with the bombing of the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in 1998, and especially with the 9/11 attacks on of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Terrorist networks, in order to avoid detection, are more likely to be structured in small cells, with a looser central structure. While some groups employing terrorism were formed specifically to push for liberation of certain territories, as originally with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and later Hamas, others have more diffuse aims and more global reach. The notion that one man’s terrorist is another’s liberation fighter has meant that it has been difficult for states to agree on a definition of terrorism that would allow the completion of a comprehensive treaty. While new actors have been recognized in international relations, the structure of the system itself has also changed over time. While many theorists regard the international system as anarchical, in that it has no formal government, there have in fact been various structures that have governed the system. Until World War I, the system was generally considered to be a balance-of-power system, with Britain shifting its power so that neither continental European alliance could overpower the other. This system evolved over the course of two world wars and the development of the Cold War into a bipolar system of the Western (capitalist and democratic) and Eastern (communist and authoritarian) blocs, each organized in military alliances, NATO and the Warsaw Pact. The hierarchical structure of the two blocs, led by the US and the USSR, each with nuclear weapons thought to deter the other bloc from attack, is also thought by

International Relations, Overview

many to have provided stability within the blocs as well. At the end of the Cold War, offensive realist Mearsheimer argued that we would soon miss this hierarchical set of structures backed by nuclear deterrence, as we would more likely see armed conflict without it. With the end of the Cold War, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the decline of the Soviet bloc, it can be argued that the international system is now characterized by a unilateral power structure dominated by the US. Some have even argued that there is a US empire. Others note the relative decline of the economic power of the US, and the rise of other states such as China and India, and regional organizations, especially the EU, but also other regional free-trade areas and organizations such as ASEAN, the Organization of American States (OAS), and the African Union (AU), and conclude that the system is in fact becoming more multilateral. Arguments over the power structure of the system rest to some degree on definitions of power. Those who argue that we have a unilateral system tend to emphasize the overwhelming military power of the US, while others emphasize economic power. Joseph Nye and others have emphasized ‘‘soft power’’ or the power of diplomacy, and cultural and other factors. If one takes into account all of the various possible measures of power, it is more difficult to see the system as unilateral.

Theoretical Perspectives in International Relations Traditionally, the main competing theoretical perspectives in international relations have been the metatheoretical approaches known as realism and liberalism, but radical and critical perspectives on international relations have always existed along with those. Over the course of time, the two main sets of theories evolved to become known as neorealism and neoliberalism. Among radical theories have been a variety of theories known as critical theories, including Marxism and neo-Marxism, dependency theory, world systems theory, feminism, and postmodernism or post-structuralism. Finally, constructivism, which emphasizes the role of changing norms and the changing construction of identities, and which some consider to be a spin-off from liberal thinking, has become an important theoretical perspective. Among the forerunners of realist thinking were Thucydides’ ‘Melian dialogue’ from his fifth-century History of the Peleponnesian war, Machiavelli’s Prince (1513), Thomas Hobbes’ On the natural condition of mankind, as concerning their felicity and misery (1651), and Karl von Clausewitz’s On war (1832). Each expressed concern with the acquisition and preservation of state power that continues to characterize those who identify themselves as

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realists. Machiavelli urged those who govern to protect their own power. Hobbes believed human beings were greedy and self-interested, and that life was a war of all against all, and thus nasty, brutish, and short. He urged the creation of Leviathan, all-powerful government, as the solution. Clausewitz, defining war as ‘‘an act of violence intended to compel our opponent to fulfill our will,’’ argued that war was the continuation of politics by other means. Clausewitz, however, also reminded us that war is a messy business, that armies in real war get mired in mud, and that there is thus a big difference between real and ideal war. Among the forerunners of liberalism, or idealism (as it was more often termed in the period between World Wars I and II), were Immanuel Kant’s Perpetual peace (1795), and William Penn’s proposals in the late 1600s for international law and government. Kant’s thesis that democratic governments associated in a republic would bring about peace became the foundation of one of today’s major theoretical research areas in international relations, that of democratic peace theory. Hugo Grotius, who authored The law of war and peace (1625), is widely regarded as the father of international law. Woodrow Wilson, in his address to Congress in April 1917, argued that the world needed to be made safe for democracy. In 1918, among his Fourteen Points were the notion of open covenants openly arrived at and the creation of a general association of nations. Realism became the dominant theory of international relations after World War II. Among the realists are Carr, Morgenthau, Aron, Waltz, Gilpin, and Grieco. Hans Morgenthau, perhaps the quintessential realist thinker, argued in 1948 that politics, especially international politics, is a struggle for power and that, in an anarchical world, with no central government, each state will protect its survival with self-help methods, seeking a preponderant balance of power in its favor. Morgenthau enumerated eight elements of power: geography, natural resources, industrial capacity, the state of military preparedness, population, national character, national morale, and the quality of diplomacy. Yet power can only be approximate, and the key elements of power change over time and space and issue. Deterrence theory rests in the theory of realism, yet sophisticated deterrence theorists recognize that it is the perception of both capability and intention that deters, rather than capability alone, and that such perceptions can only be estimated, rather than calculated. Traditional liberal thinking stressed both democratic and economic ideals, placing emphasis on the development of both democracy and a market economy and free trade, based in Adam Smith’s laissez-faire theory that if each pursued his own interest, the invisible hand of the market would transform this into the common good. Neoliberal institutionalists, beginning with the

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functionalist integration theory of Mitrany and moving through the neo-functionalism that underlaid Monnet’s plans for the development of the EU, now emphasize the importance of the role of multilateral international institutions and regimes. Traditional realists and liberals differ over values, actors, and the dynamics of the system (Table 2). Neorealism and neoliberalism are adaptations of traditional realism and liberalism that bring them closer together. While traditional realists and idealists tended to argue over whether human beings were essentially evil and greedy, or good, with a concern for others, the neorealist versus neoliberal debate focuses more on the anarchical structure of the international system and its consequent impact on state behavior. Kenneth Waltz’s structural realism, the best-known neorealist theory, suggests that it is the lack of central authority that leads states to behave as they do. Baldwin outlines the main differences in the neorealist versus neoliberal debate. While both acknowledge that the international system is to some degree anarchic, neorealists argue that anarchy limits cooperation more than neoliberals believe. For neorealists, cooperation is difficult; for neoliberals, easier. Neorealists tend to place more emphasis on states’ concerns with relative gains over others, neoliberals on the pursuit of absolute gains. Neorealists tend to study security and to believe security is a more important goal of states, while neoliberals emphasize economics. In terms of analysis of power, neorealists focus on capabilities, neoliberals on intentions. Finally, while neorealists see international institutions and regimes as insignificant, neoliberals, particularly neoliberal institutionalists, see them as significant. Steven Lamy, in his ‘Contemporary mainstream approaches: neo-realism and neo-liberalism’ in the Baylis and Smith text, provides more detail on the wide variations among neorealist and neoliberal thinkers. Foremost among early radical theorists was V. I. Lenin, who extended Karl Marx’s theories on capitalism and communism as he wrote Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism (1916). Dependency theory, which was nurtured in the Economic Commission for Latin America, was a later version of neo-Marxism, arguing that dependency of the less-developed states on the more developed in the capitalist international system was causing their underdevelopment, and that they needed to de-link themselves

from that system. Since the system controlled world markets, independence eventually proved impossible. Wallerstein’s world systems theory advanced similar arguments, arguing that the world economy consists of a core (largely democratic, high-wage, industrialized countries) which utilizes its power to redistribute resources from the periphery (largely nondemocratic, low-wage, raw material exporting countries). Galtung expanded on this by arguing that there exists a core and periphery in each country, as well as in the world system. Gramsci’s work on hegemony argues that hegemony is not simply domination, but a mixture of coercive power and consent. For example, one might argue that the US role immediately after World War II was hegemonic in the sense that it got other states to buy into the security system underlying the UN, and the economic system exemplified by the IBRD, IMF, and GATT. Robert Cox reminds us that ‘‘Theory is always for some one, and for some purpose.’’ Cox makes the point that both neorealism and neoliberalism are both status quo ‘problem-solving’ orientations which legitimate injustice in the international system, as opposed to critical theory, which questions the status quo and works for change. Critical theory is more often associated with the work of the Frankfort School, which has focused more on the role of culture and on a reconceptualization of emancipation, including a reconciliation with nature. Habermas, probably the most influential of the Frankfurt School, stressed the centrality of communication and of participatory democracy. For a while after the end of the Cold War, critical theory and neo-Marxist theories fell out of favor in international relations, often dropping out of textbooks altogether, but the increasing inequality of the world economic and political system today has brought back serious theoretical concerns based on more radical theorizing.

History of the Field of Study Political science, in some sense, can be regarded as having begun with the work of Plato in Greece and Confucius in China in the fourth and fifth centuries BC. International relations, understood in the broader sense as the relationships between independent units, has always been a part of

Table 2 Realism vs. liberalism Realism

Liberalism

Human nature Values

Evil, greedy Security, survival, power, national interest

Actors Dynamics

States primary, states as unitary actors Anarchy limits cooperation

Good, concern for others Individual freedom, democratic representation, private property, equality of opportunity IGOs, NGOs, MNCs also, states as pluralistic Interdependence fosters cooperation

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Table 3 Chronology of start-up dates in the study of international relations Date

Journals

1910

1948 1955 1957 1958 1962 1971 1983 1994 2004

Education

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Council for Ethics in International Affairs Hoover Institution

1914 1918

1921 1922 1946 1947

Research

Dept. of International Politics, Univ. College, Wales

Council on Foreign Relations Foreign Affairs SIPA, Columbia Journal of International Affairs World Politics School of International Studies, J. Nehru Univ. Journal of Conflict Resolution Int. Inst. for Strategic Studies International Studies Quarterly Millennium World Policy Journal Global Governance Foreign Policy Analysis

SIPA, School of International and Public Affairs.

that study. However, international relations as a separate field of study is generally understood as having begun in the United States in the early twentieth century (Table 3). British scholar E. H. Carr, writing in 1939 The twenty years’ crisis 1919–1939, spoke of the debate between what were then called idealists and realists in the growth of the science of international relations. He argued that international relations as a field came about as a result of democratization and of the popular demand to overcome the secrecy of international politics as practiced by professional diplomats. Presaging the rise of critical theory and post-behavioralism almost half a century later, Carr spoke of the inextricable linkage of purpose and analysis, and the impossibility of separating the role of the investigator from that of the practitioner of politics. He argued that purpose – especially the specific purpose of preventing war – was the initiator of the study of international politics, and that purpose remained, along with observation and analysis, as a necessary element of a mature science. French scholar Raymond Aron argued that the study of international relations, defined as the relations among nations or political collectivities that are territorially organized, was a peculiarly American form of study, and that international relations in reality could not be separated from other social phenomena. He argued that the focus on international relations was actually interstate relations, symbolized by the actions of the diplomat and the soldier who represent the state in peace and war. His

argument that international relations could not ‘‘rigorously separate inter-state relations from inter-individual relations involving several political units’’ presaged the distinction otherwise not clearly made until the 1970s between international and transnational relations. Yet he simultaneously argued that an essential difference remained between internal and foreign policies, based on the notion that states internally ‘‘reserve the monopoly on violence to those wielding legitimate authority’’ while states, not having emerged from the (Hobbesian) state of nature, exhibit foreign policies accepting ‘‘the plurality of centers of armed force.’’ Aron argued that historical and sociological analysis was a more appropriate method of studying international relations than the formal rationalism that seemed to be the basis of this new American field. He also argued that the realist–idealist distinction made by American international relations scholars, who particularly saw the old Europe as realist and the United States as idealist, simply made no sense, as all states ultimately followed realist principles in a system in which each was responsible for its own survival. In terms of the development of the infrastructure of the new field, research institutions came first, with the foundation of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in 1910, the Council for Ethics in International Affairs in 1914, the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace at Stanford University in 1918, and the Council on Foreign Relations in 1921. The first university department of international relations appears

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to have been the Department of International Politics, at University College of Wales at Aberystwyth in 1919. It was followed by the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University in 1946 and the School of International Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University in 1947. Journals in the field proliferated with the advent of research and educational institutions. The Council on Foreign Relations began Foreign Affairs in September 1922, a journal which has been seen as US foreign policy establishment oriented. World Politics followed in 1948, the Journal of Conflict Resolution, which has bridged the fields of peace research and international relations, in 1957, and the International Studies Quarterly, more oriented to work employing quantitative and behavioral methodologies, in 1962. The International Studies Association (ISA) is probably the most important international organization of scholars in the field of international relations. Created in 1959, ISA has sections on virtually all of the subfields of international relations, five journals, including its flagship journal International Studies Quarterly, and holds an annual meeting that, while still including predominantly Americans and political scientists, attracts international relations scholars from around the world. ISA cooperates with 57 international studies associations in over 30 countries. Other scholarly organizations include the British International Studies Association, sections of the European Consortium for Political Research, and sections of professional organizations in many of the social science disciplines. The Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs lists as members institutes in 19 schools from the United States (American University, Columbia, Duke, George Washington, Georgetown, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Princeton, Syracuse, Tufts, University of California, San Diego, the Universities of Denver, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Pittsburgh, Southern California, Washington, and Yale), and 11 outside the US, as well as 21 affiliates. While the institutes focus on the theory, as well as practice of international relations, they place a particular emphasis on producing professionals who will practice in the field of international relations, either as diplomats or in international business or NGOs. Chief among the best-selling textbooks in international relations today are, at the graduate and advanced undergraduate level, Baylis and Smith’s Globalizataion of world politics, and at the undergraduate level, Goldstein’s International relations, by 2005 in its 7th edition authored by Goldstein and Pevehouse. Both offer comprehensive introductions to the theory and practice of the field, although in both cases there is little emphasis on human rights. A debate continues as to whether international relations is a subfield of political science, or whether the

international parts of the social science disciplines, such as political science, sociology, anthropology, are subfields of the interdisciplinary field of international relations. In institutional terms, international relations is studied in both of those contexts. International politics has generally been seen as that part of international relations that focuses on interstate relations, while international relations encompasses the broader relations between all entities, including individuals, nongovernmental and business organizations, across the boundaries of sovereign states. Particularly after Keohane and Nye’s introduction of the concept of transnational relations as the interaction of all entities, at least one of which is not a state or an agent of a state, across state boundaries, the conceptualization of international relations has broadened. Some may still consider the relevant distinction to be between the international politics of state-to-state relations and the transnational relations of other entities across state borders, but in actual usage the terms have become blurred. Even within political science the term politics has broadened beyond a sole focus on government and the state to a focus on the political or power relations in all entities, ranging from the family to university departments, to NGOs, and the media as well. Today the blurring of the lines between domestic and international politics has meant that the study of international relations itself has broadened, examining the relations between the twolevel games of international and domestic politics (as per Putnam’s work), and the two areas of transnational and international relations. The terms global politics and world politics are often used to replace the term international relations, indicating movement away from the traditional state-based analysis. Strangely enough, though, the terms global relations and world relations seem not to be used at all.

Conclusions: Evolving Issues in International Relations The study and the practice of international relations, or global or world politics, continues, then, to focus around both conflict and cooperation. Carr has argued that the fundamental problem of political change is ‘‘the compromise between power and morality’’ and that the difference in the way this plays out in the domestic and international realms is due to the lack of organization in the international sphere. He argues that change is inevitable and that thus ‘‘the defence of the status quo is not a policy which can be highly successful.’’ Ignoring either power or morality is thus unrealistic. Sovereign equality, as embodied in the Westphalian order, in international law and most forms of international organization, may no longer be adequate in the face of challenges from both those who argue that international

International Relations, Overview

politics should reflect the international power structures and those who argue that the continuously emerging framework of individual human rights means that international structures should become increasingly democratic, based on one person one vote, rather than one state one vote. A change of views in the centrality of states in the international system versus the role of individuals on the one hand, and complex interdependence among Western industrialized states on the other hand, has led to a more nuanced understanding of the relationships between the structure of the system and the behavior of the multiple actors in the system. The development of human rights perspectives and human rights treaties, commissions, and courts, especially in Europe, the Americas, and Africa, has increased the standing of the individual in international law, a domain that formerly recognized only states. The growth of MNCs, on the one hand, and NGOs, on the other hand, has forced the field to reconsider its understanding of the relationship of the state system to global civil society. As the structure of the system continues to change, with increasing globalization and shifts in power as successive waves of countries develop economic and military power, the theories of the field have adapted to these changes. As the system changes, the question of global governance has come to occupy a central place in international relations. As states emphasize the rule of law and good governance, and some begin to cede powers to larger integrative efforts, while others continue to utilize military force to advance their interests, the question of whether the role of military force is changing remains front and center. The theoretical diversity in the study of international relations, strengthened now with the return of radical perspectives to join realism and liberalism, will continue to be a source of strength in examining these questions from the full range of vantage points.

See also: Balance of Power Relationships; Nongovernmental Actors in International Politics; Peace Agreements; Peace and Democracy; Peace Culture; Peace, Definitions and Concepts of; Peace Education: College and Universities; Peace Education, International Trends; Peace Education: Peace Museums; Peace Movements; Peace Organizations, Non-Governmental; Peace Prizes; Peace Studies Overview; Peaceful Societies; Peacekeeping; Peacemaking and Peacebuilding

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Baldwin, D. (ed.) (1993). Neo-realism and neo-liberalism: The contemporary debate. New York: Columbia University Press. Baylis, J. and Smith, S. (eds.) (2005). The globalization of world politics: An introduction to international relations. (1st edn. 1997). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Carr, E. H. (1939). The twenty years’ crisis 1919–1939. London: Macmillan. Cox, R. (1981). Social forces, states and world order: Beyond international relations theory. Millennium: Journal of International Studies 10(2): 127–155. Deutsch, K. W., Burrell, S. A., Kann, R. A., et al. (1957). Political community and the North Atlantic area. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Finnemore, M. and Sikkink, K. (2001). Taking stock: The constructivist research program in international relations and comparative politics. Annual Review of Political Science 4, 391–416. Galtung, J. (1971). A structural theory of imperialism, Journal of Peace Research 8(2), 81–117. Gilpin, R. (1981). War and change in world politics. New York: Cambridge University Press. (power transition theory) Goldstein, J. S. (1994). International relations, 1st edn. New York: Harper Collins. Goldstein, J. S. and Pevehouse, J. C. (2005). International relations, 7th edn. New York: Longman. Gramsci, A. (1971). Selections from the prison notebooks, ed. and trans. Q. Hoare and G. Nowell Smith. London: Lawrence and Wishart. Huntington, S. (1993). The clash of civilizations, Foreign Affairs 72(3), 22–49. Kennan, G. (1947). The sources of Soviet conduct. Foreign Affairs 25(4), 566–582. Keohane, R. (1984). After hegemony. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Keohane, R. and Nye, J. S. (1973). Transnational relations and world politics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Keohane, R. and Nye, J. S. (2001). Power and Interdependence 3rd edn. New York: Longman. Krasner, S. D. (ed.) (1982). International regimes. New York: Cornell University Press. Mearsheimer, J. (2001). The tragedy of great power politics. New York: W. W. Norton. Morgenthau, H. J. (1948). Politics among nations. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Nye, J. (2002). The paradox of American power. New York: Oxford University Press. Putnam, R. D. (1988). Diplomacy and domestic politics: the logic of twolevel games. International Organization (42: summer), 427–460. Wallerstein, I. (1974, 1980, 1989). The modern world-system. Vol. 1, Vol. 2, Vol. 3. San Diego: Academic Press. Wallerstein, I. (1979). The capitalist world economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Waltz, K. (1954). Man, the state and war. New York: Columbia University Press. Waltz, K. N. (1979). Theory of International Politics. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Weber, M. (1946). Politics as a vocation. In Gerth, H. and Mills, C. W. (eds.) From Max Weber, pp. 77–128. New York: Oxford University Press. Wendt, A. (1992). Anarchy is what states make of it: The social construction of power politics. International Organization 46(2): 391–425. Wright, Q. (1965). A study of war. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (orig. publ. 1942). World Commission on Environment and Development (1987). Our common future. New York: Oxford University Press.

Relevant Websites Further Reading Aron, R. (1966). Peace and war: A theory of international relations. (trans. from the French by Howard, R. and Fox, A.). Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company.

http://www.asil.org – American Society of International Law. http://europa.eu – European Union. http://www.G77.org – Group of 77.

1070 International Variations in Homicide and Warfare http://www.worldbank.org – International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. http://www.imf.org – International Monetary Fund. http://www.usip.org – International Relations Research Centers, US Institute of Peace. http://www.nam.gov.za – Non-Aligned Movement.

http://www.oecd.org – Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. http://www.un.org – United Nations. http://www.state.gov – US Department of State. http://www.wto.org – World Trade Organization.

International Variations in Homicide and Warfare Alfred L McAlister, University of Texas School of Public Health, Austin, TX, USA ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction Pan American Health Organization: ACTIVA Study International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations (IFMSA): Peace Test

Glossary Attitudes Individuals’ predispositions to accept and respond favorably to statements representing values, beliefs, judgments, and perceptions regarding actions and objects of action.

Introduction In recent years, epidemiologists and social scientists have begun to investigate international and cross-cultural differences and trends in violent mortality, finding very large differences among and within nations of the Americas in homicide rates. The situation in Colombia has been thoroughly analyzed, revealing large differences between different cities. Among groups in the US, homicide rates are highest among persons of African origin. In Colombia, homicide rates are lowest in coastal cities with large populations of African origin and highest in the cities with predominantly European groups. Studies conducted within the US have found that specific norms and attitudes are associated with different rates of aggressive behaviors in different regions of the US. Cohen and Nisbett found that homicide rates among the dominant ethnic group (‘white’ or Anglo-Americans)are highest in the Southern states of the US, where surveys also find a high prevalence of attitudes supporting violence.

This article is reproduced from previous edition, volume 2, pp 247–256, Ó 1999, Elsevier Inc.

Conclusions Further Reading

Moral Disengagement A process through which people excuse themselves for inflicting suffering on others by justifying their actions, minimizing and distorting perceptions of harmful consequences, avoiding personal responsibility, and blaming and dehumanizing victims.

Baron and Straus have found a relationship between homicide and an index of legitimate violence that reflects different cultural norms in different US states. Attitudes, skills, and perceptions of institutions may also influence national responses to international conflict. The effectiveness of international mediation and diplomacy, while greatly aided by formal structures such as the UN, is dependent upon the ‘grassroots’ attitudes and skills of the people who are experiencing and helping to resolve the conflict. In democracies, the propensity to invest national product in military capability may depend upon public attitudes toward war. These differences in attitudes may be an important factor influencing national tendencies to build and use military weaponry. Bandura developed a social–psychological explanation of how attitudes influence tendencies toward violent and inhumane behaviors. Moral disengagement allows people to cause or allow others to suffer or die without guilt or shame. Mechanisms of moral disengagement include (1) attitudes and beliefs that make violent action or inaction justifiable, (2) use of euphemistic labels and ways of thinking that minimize the perceived suffering that is inflicted, (3) dehumanization and related prejudicial beliefs about enemies and victims, and (4) diffusion and

International Variations in Homicide and Warfare

displacement of responsibility. National and cultural differences in attitudes that predispose people to moral disengagement may help explain corresponding differences in objective factors such as homicide rates and levels of military spending.

Pan American Health Organization: ACTIVA Study Project ACTIVA (Attitudes and Cultural Norms Toward Violence in the Americas), a regional initiative coordinated by the Pan American Health Organization, was a multi center project designed to evaluate and compare violence and related cultural norms and attitudes in selected cities of the Region of the Americas and Spain. The study was an inter-American effort supported by technical cooperation provided by the Pan American Sanitary Bureau and by research centers of excellence in the region, with joint financing by both entities. Detailed reports were published by Orpinas in the Pan American Journal of Public Health. ACTIVA researchers surveyed a sample of the population between 18 and 70 years of age living in householdsin the metropolitan areas of selected cities. More than 10 000 individuals were surveyed. Data were collected using a common questionnaire. One item evaluated respondents’ perception of efficiency of the police in a five-point scale ranging between ‘very good’ and ‘very bad’. One item measured attitudeto ward war: ‘‘War is necessary to settle differences between countries.’’ Four items measured respondents’ attitudes toward personal violence and weapon carrying: ‘‘A person has the right to kill to defend his/her family (or property),’’ ‘‘A weapon in the house makes the home safer,’’ and ‘‘Carrying a gun makes a person safer.’’ Another item concerning community violence contained the statement: ‘‘If authorities fail, people have the right to take justice in their own hands.’’ Agreement with these items was rated on a five-point scale ranging between ‘strongly agree’ and ‘strongly disagree’. Three additional items concerned approval of extralegal killing in the community. Approval of the acts cited in these three items was measured on a three-point scale: ‘would approve’, ‘would not approve but understand’, and ‘would neither approve nor understand’. The items were (1) ‘‘If your community feels threatened by an individual and someone kills this person, you. . .,’’ (2) ‘‘Suppose a person kills someone who has raped his/her child, you. . .,’’ and (3) ‘‘If a group of people begin to carry out‘social cleansings’, that is, to kill undesirable people, you. . ..’’ Another item asked about support for the execution of criminals found guilty of capital crimes. The study found that confidence in the police system was highest in Texas, followed by Santiago and Madrid, and lowest in Venezuela. In Texas, almost two-thirds of the

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population rated the police system as ‘good’ or ‘verygood’. In the rest of the cities, less than half of the respondents rated the police positively. Cities with lower confidence in the police tended to have a stronger support for taking the law in their hands. The Pearson correlation coefficient between these two lines was_0.58. One-third of the respondents in Texas stated that keeping a weapon makes the home safer; however, less than a fourth of the population of the other cities believed that keeping weapons at home increased security. Justification of killing not in self-defense or to defend the family followed a different pattern. Justification for killing people who threaten the community and of ‘social cleansings’ was highest in Cali, Caracas, and Bahia, and lowest in Madrid and Texas. Madrid and Texas also had the lowest approval of killing someone who has raped their child. The strongest support for war as a way to solve international conflicts and the least support for the government to negotiate with groups that use violence was found in Texas, where almost one-fourth of the population (28% of the men and 20% of the women) stated that war was necessary, almost twice as high as the percentage of approval of the next highest city: Caracas (17% of the men and 8% of the women). The lowest support for war was in Madrid (6% of the men and 2% of the women), San Jose (6% of the men and 3% of the women), and Santiago (9% of the men and 6% of the women). In all cities, a stronger support for war was found among men than women. Support for war did not vary by educational level. Given the level of support for war in Texas, it is not surprising to note that military spending in the USA, as a proportion of Gross National Product, was two to five times higher there than in the other nations participating in the ACTIVA study.

International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations (IFMSA): Peace Test Based on Bandura’s concepts of moral disengagement, a scale that was named ‘Peace Test’ was developed to measure (1) judgments about moral justifications for war, (2) perceived severity of consequences of war, and (3) dehumanization of enemies. In a study of diverse groups from 21 nations, the Peace Test questionnaire was included with questions about support for killing from the ACTIVA study in different situations in surveys of 14–18-year-old students at selected high schools conducted by medical students from the IFMSA Standing Committee on Refugees and Peace. The Peace Test scale has been validated in the US through factor analyses from a national telephone survey and a study of changes in tendencies toward moral disengagement and support for military action against Iraq following the 11 September 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.

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The questions about support for killing asked the students to indicate their agreement or disagreement with three statements regarding the justification of killing to protect property, avenge the rape of a child, and legally execute criminals judged guilty of capital crimes. In an analysis by the author of this article that combined data from the IFMSA and ACTIVA studies, responses to the three questions were used to calculate a single score indicating attitudes supporting killing from 19 nations, with four distinct geographic samples within the USA. These analyses found relatively high levels of support for killing in Venezuela, USA, Taiwan, Finland, Russia, and Belarus. Brazil, Mexico, Denmark, and the United Kingdom were in an intermediate position. Scores indicating the lowest levels of support for killing were found among respondents from the Netherlands, Malta, Sweden, and Spain. Data from all 22 national or regional groups found a strongly significant correlation between the groups’ mean scores indicating for attitudes toward killing and the reported homicide rates from those nations or regions. This correlation was equivalent to, but independent of, the observed correlation between homicide rates and levels of social inequality. Data from the Peace Test section of the IFMSA questionnaire were analyzed by comparing scores calculated from the ten questions in the survey that asked about agreement with statements regarding the justification of war, minimization of its perceived consequences, and dehumanization of enemies. As expected, males were more likely to have higher scores (more supportive of war) than females in all the nations where the surveys were conducted. Within each nation, students who supported hypothetical military actions had significantly higher sores than students who did not support those actions. Comparisons between large samples of equivalently aged students in eight of these nations found the highest support for war in the USA, Taiwan, Denmark, and the Netherlands. Compared to students from these nations, significantly lower scores indicated lower support for war in Mexico, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and Finland. When data from the different nations were combined, the mean scores from each nation were found to be significantly correlated with the reported proportion of Gross National Product allocated for military spending.

Conclusions Despite the differences in manifestations and degrees of complexity, much of the international and cross-cultural

variation in demand for deadly weapons and perpetration of individual and collective violence may result from measurable differences in tendencies toward moral disengagement. Through survey research conducted from a public health perspective, it is possible to study and compare national and cultural levels of attitudinal ‘risk factors’ and develop international and population-level programs to reduce them. In addition to environmental changes such as better law enforcement, limitations on proliferation of weapons, and more equitable economic development, comprehensive prevention programs for the prevention of violence may need to include cultural change to modify attitudes toward war and killing.

Further Reading Baron, L. and Straus, M. A. (1988). Cultural and economic sources of homicide in the United States. The Sociological Quarterly 29(3), 371–390. Bandura, A. (1999). Moral disengagement in the perpetration of in humanities. Personality and Social Psychology Review 3, 193–209. Cohen, D. and Nisbett, R. E. (1994). Self-protection and the culture of honor: Explaining southern violence. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 20(5), 551–567. Deutsch, M. (1962). Psychological alternatives to war. The Journal of Social Issues 18(2), 97–119. Devine, P. H. (1989). When peacekeeping does not lead to peace: Some notes on conflict-resolution. Bulletin of Peace Proposals 18(1), 47–53. Fournier, M., de los Rios, R., Orpinas, P., and Piquet-Carneiro, L. (1999). Multicenter study on attitudes and cultural norms toward violence (Project ACTIVA): Methodology, (in Spanish). Pan American Journal of Public Health 5(4/5), 222–231. Grussendorf, J., McAlister, A. L., Sandstrom, P., Udd, L., and Morrison, T. (2002). Resisting moral disengagement in support for war. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology 8(1), 73–83. Howard, B. H., Shegog, R., Benjamins, J., Stelzig, D., and McAlister, A. L. (2007). www.PeaceTest.org: Development, implementation and evaluation of a web-based war prevention program in a time of war. Journal of Peace Research 44(5), 559–571. McAlister, A. L. (2000). Moral disengagement and support for military action against Iraq. International Journal of Public Opinion Research 2, 191–198. McAlister, A. L. (2001). Moral disengagement: Measurement and modification. Journal of Peace Research 38(1), 87–99. McAlistser, A. L. (2006). Acceptance of killing and homicide rates in nineteen nations. European Journal of Public Health 16(3), 260–266. McAlister, A. L., Bandura, B., and Owen, S. (2006). Moral disengagement in support for war: The impact of September 11. Journal of Clinical and Social Psychology 25(2), 141–165. Orpinas, P. (1999). Who is violent? Factors associated with aggressive behaviors in Latin America and Spain. Pan American Journal of Public Health 5(4/5), 232–244.

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Interpersonal Conflict, History of William A Donohue, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA Deborah A Cai, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Interpersonal Relationships and Conflict Historical Perspectives Modern Research Domains

Glossary Affiliation Messages Communicating to the receiver a sense of relational belonging and inclusion. Communication Exchange Sequences Repetitive communication patterns observed in dialog between two or more individuals. Integrative Agreement An agreement that takes into account the needs and interests of both parties.

The history of interpersonal conflict is embedded within the history of interpersonal relationships. Sustained human social contact demands the formation of interpersonal relationships, and the inevitable and frequent changes in those relationships make conflict surface. For as long as history has reflected on interpersonal relationships, it has also reflected on conflicts associated with changes in relational parameters. For example, creation stories in all religions chronicle conflicts that emerged from changes in relational parameters among the characters, with Adam–Eve and Cain–Abel filling this role in the Judeo–Christian account. Thus, interpersonal conflict must be understood in the context of interpersonal relationships and how they function.

Interpersonal Relationships and Conflict Defining Interpersonal Relationships Interpersonal communication constitutes the production, transmission, and interpretation of symbols by relational partners. This definition focuses on relational partners, or individuals who have unique, personal knowledge of the other and base their production, transmission, and interpretation decisions on this personal knowledge. Interpersonal communication allows partners to exchange resources to help them coordinate their actions to

Conclusions Further Reading

Organizational Climate Perceptions organizational members have about the organization’s conditions of communication openness, such as supportiveness and encouragement of employees to participate in the organization’s decision making. Relational Parameters The boundaries of the social relationship that exist between two individuals. Social Distance The degree of relational separateness felt by one individual toward another.

produce the relational rewards necessary for relational maintenance and growth. According to Hinde, a relationship is a sequence of interchanges that is essentially dyadic, that occurs over an extended period of time, and that has specific cognitive and affective effects. The affective and cognitive relational parameters that partners create over time include goals, expectations, values, feelings, and understandings. Hinde contends that these cognitive and affective understandings are the key features affecting how individuals produce, transmit, and interpret symbols. For example, a number of studies find that negotiators who demonstrate a balanced power orientation, anticipate future interactions with one another, clarify their values on key points, and avoid prolonged periods of negative affect are more likely to reach integrative (i.e., win-win) agreements. Researchers have identified several key cognitive/affective relational parameters that significantly predict outcome issues such as satisfaction, intimacy, and commitment. A review by Burgoon and Hale finds that the central relational parameters guiding the study of interpersonal relationships include the following: dominance–submission (i.e., control), intimacy (i.e., affection, attraction, interest, and inclusion), trust, depth, emotional arousal, composure, similarity, formality, and social-task orientation. Topics that partners explore that include these types of themes or include these types of issues as a subtext to the primary topic can be considered to be relationally focused.

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Hinde emphasizes that these cognitive/affective parameters are altered through communication-exchange sequences. For example, negotiators use communication tactics to continually and tacitly bargain such issues as power, solidarity, formality, and affiliation. Following the key insight by Ruesch and Bateson in 1951 that all communications contain content and relational information, Donohue and his colleagues have demonstrated how negotiators continue to bargain relational parameters as they interact. A move to interrupt displays power. A move to change the topic rejects the other party’s ability to control the agenda. A change to more formal language may be an attempt to bolster the speaker’s status. The use of humor or puns communicates decreased social distance and increased affiliation. This complex relational negotiation often occurs underneath the substantive, content negotiations. But both the relational and the substantive aspects interact so that the relational parameters that evolve out of the discussion shape the interaction as well as the agreements that are formed. Defining Interpersonal Conflict Deutsch charged that ‘‘conflict exists whenever incompatible activities occur. An action that is incompatible with another action prevents, obstructs, interferes, injures, or in some way makes the latter less likely or less effective’’ (1973: 10). This perspective points to two types of interpersonal conflict. The first type is at the subtextual, tacit level, in which individuals may find themselves vying for relational control as they make language choices that seek to dominate or control the linguistic code used in the interaction. In a series of studies, Taylor and his colleagues found that relational synchrony, or consistency around these relational parameters, is most often associated with integrative outcomes in a conflict. When individuals cannot develop a common relational form for their communication, they are most likely to reach an impasse in their dispute. The second type of interpersonal conflict involves an explicit, overt dispute about relationship issues such as control, trust, and affiliation. For example, in a series of projects about conflict in organizations, Kramer and Lewicki demonstrated the importance of trust in team productivity. Trust was shown to be a relatively overt issue that can often become the focus of a dispute. However, most interpersonal conflict emerges at both the tacit and overt levels. Even substantive conflicts are likely to involve negotiating relational parameters, making all conflict in some sense interpersonal. For example, Kennedy and Khrushchev’s exchange of letters during the Cuban Missile Crisis clearly involved intense negotiations on a relational level associated with status, respect, and control. As a result, this international negotiation over the substantive issues of missiles in Cuba between two

adversaries was certainly an interpersonal conflict in addition to being an international conflict. This example illustrates that interpersonal conflict can evolve in any context in which individuals communicate and in the course of their communication. Because relationships are an ancient topic, many philosophers have reflected on relational conflict. The section on ‘Historical perspectives’ probes the historical foundations of interpersonal conflict.

Historical Perspectives Ancient and Medieval Perspectives Ancient religion and philosophy provide different cultural perspectives for understanding interpersonal conflict. For example, the Jewish Torah emphasizes righteous judgment against wrongdoers with ‘an eye for an eye’ and the instruction by God in the time of the patriarchs to completely destroy the enemies of the people of Israel. In contrast, Christian religious teaching promotes forgiveness. ‘Turning the other cheek’ and the golden rule of ‘treating others as you would like to be treated’ are common themes related to interpersonal conflict in the New Testament. Across religions, interpersonal conflict is often represented as the opposite of loving and peaceful relationships. Influential in East Asian cultures, Confucius taught the value of social harmony and that a gentleman should have no contentions with others. Confucian tradition emphasizes the importance of understanding and enacting appropriate social roles as a means of maintaining harmony. Focus on the ‘five relationships’ of ruler–subject, father–son, elder brother–younger brother, husband– wife, and older–younger meant that if individuals would properly enact their roles with appropriate respect and relationship toward others, order and peace would be maintained within society and harmony would exist between individuals. Within the ancient Greek and Roman philosophical traditions, the focus of conflict management is on the individual communicating to the audience. For example, Aristotle’s emphasis on the effects of the persuader’s ethos, logos, and pathos (ethics, logic, and emotion, respectively) on the audience points to the importance of the communicator’s responsibility in preparing and delivering effective messages. Socrates and Plato similarly attended to the role of the communicator within the ‘conversation’ as the focus for understanding conflict. Logic and character, in particular, played important roles among the ancient Romans and Greeks, who emphasized the communicator’s ability to persuade through logical discourse and personal credibility. Thus, in ancient Western philosophy conflict is addressed with directness and appropriate argument, whereas in Confucian philosophy

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conflict is averted by enacting appropriate roles that will preserve relational harmony. Beginning of Modern Perspectives The Magna Carta in 1215 marks an important development in Western thought regarding interpersonal conflict. With its emphasis on guaranteeing individuals’ rights and freedoms within society, Western thought about conflict began to follow a similar shift from considering public entities of government and community as the locus of conflict to considering the individual as responsible for and affected by conflict. Numerous theoretical and philosophical perspectives have since contributed to the development of Western cultural values toward interpersonal conflict. Darwin’s theory of evolution, for example, upholds the value of competition in conflict, giving support to the belief that conflict is fundamental in all existence and those who are fit to compete are more likely to survive. Marxist theory similarly promotes the need for struggle and dominance in conflict. Freud further defined the individual and aggressive drives that are exhibited, whereas Adler focused on the individual’s drives for selfadvancement. These few examples highlight the development of Western thinking about conflict, with the overall emphasis on the importance of the individual and the value of dominance and competition as the individual struggles to survive in a competitive world. Out of this pattern of thought emerges some of the most important early thinking about interpersonal conflict. Although the precise origins of the study of interpersonal conflict as a scholarly endeavor are difficult to trace, one of the earliest contemporary considerations of interpersonal conflict can be traced to Lewis Coser. Coser viewed social conflict largely in relational terms by focusing on its many social functions, arguing that conflicts serve a number of relational functions such as binding groups together as they seek to manage differences with out-groups. Coser’s work laid the groundwork for later efforts by scholars in psychology and communication in understanding how conflict affects many different types of relationships.

Modern Research Domains Primary Theories and Models of Interpersonal Conflict

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other communications are precursors to war. Most of the case-study material that Winter uses consists of interpersonal exchanges between leaders of states, qualifying his research as both international and interpersonal. Winter’s research has demonstrated that as the ratio of power motives to affiliation motives increases, the likelihood of war increases. As these messages become more balanced in communication, the leaders tend to find more diplomatic solutions to their conflicts. Donohue and Hoobler replicated this motives analysis by examining Palestinian and Israeli leaders’ rhetorical exchanges leading up to the Oslo 1 and Oslo 2 peace accords. This research found that motives tend to dominate leaders’ rhetorical strategies making it more difficult to set the stage for constructive dialog at the bargaining table. Using a similar approach, Donohue and Roberto examined power and affiliation motives in hostage negotiation. The research focused on motives reflected in the verbal exchanges of hostage takers and police during hostage negotiations. These researchers found that when affiliation messages dominate the interaction, regardless of whether or not the power messages were prevalent, parties are much more likely to build relational consensus and make progress toward a peaceful resolution of the hostage situation. A notable feature of motives in interpersonal conflict is their role in forging or supporting individual identities. The concept of ‘face’, which stems from traditional social interactionist perspectives, contends that individuals develop identities through their experiences in satisfying their needs for inclusion, control, and affection. If individuals have been successfully included into important groups, have experienced success in asserting control in important situations, and have received positive affection from valued individuals, their social identities are likely to be relatively strong. But when others threaten or attack these needs, individuals strive boldly to defend them because they comprise the core of their identity. As the work by Felson and his colleagues points out, conflict creates circumstances that are inherently facethreatening. Disagreement may suggest rejection of group identity and the potential loss of affection and control. Thus, when relational conflict tips toward issues centering on these identity needs, parties lose their focus on substantive issues, and as Felson discovered, parties become more focused on restoring their identities, often through violence when words fail to accomplish this goal.

Motives-based theory

Social knowledge theories

The early work on motives suggests that individuals are intrinsically driven to be included into social groupings, to achieve or accomplish tasks, and to affiliate, or receive some kind of affection from others. Winter’s research on international conflict uses this framework to understand how leaders’ expressions of these motives in speeches and

A theoretical staple for studying interpersonal conflict has been the focus on theories related to how individuals make sense of other people and themselves, often referred to as social knowledge theories. Roloff and Miller identify five forms of social knowledge about interpersonal conflict. The first is frames, or cognitive structures, based on

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past experiences and present concerns and interests, that help guide strategy, communication, and behavior in conflict. For example, Pinkley and Northcraft found that individuals reached better outcomes with task-oriented as opposed to relational frames and with compromising rather than winner-take-all frames. Cultural differences in framing are also apparent. In a study by Gelfand and her colleagues, US Americans and Japanese disputants shared a compromise frame, but those in the Japanese sample focused more on obligations whereas US Americans focused more on rights. A second form of social knowledge is beliefs – or assumptions about how relationships operate and the standards for how they should function. Some of the early research found that marital partners holding irrational beliefs that successful marriages are trouble-free tend to have a lower tolerance for conflict in the marriage. Other beliefs about the partner’s ability to mind read, or know the other’s thoughts and needs without expressing them, and about the inability of the other partner to change were related to decreased marital satisfaction. Regarding standards for what the marriage should be like, research by Baucom, Epstein, Rankin, and Burnett found that marital partners who maintained high standards for one another regarding flexible boundaries, respect for each other’s opinions, and egalitarian decision making adjusted better to one another. A third area of social knowledge is scripts. According to Schank and Abelson, a script is a predetermined sequence of actions and expected actions within a particular context. Researchers have found that individuals rely heavily on scripts in managing interpersonal conflict. For example, when individuals in close relationships become angry, they often follow a scenario in which certain behaviors are expected as the conflict unfolds. Understanding of scripts provides insight into the expectations people hold about how conflicts are likely to unfold. A fourth area of social knowledge is rules, which are beliefs about the social norms for what behaviors should or should not be enacted when managing a conflict. Researchers have found that intimate couples often maintain a fairly extensive list of rules for managing their conflicts. For example, research by Jones and Gallois found that couples rely on various rules to manage their relationship including consideration rules (avoiding hurting the other person), rationality rules (managing expressed anger), self-expression rules (information disclosure), conflict-resolution rules (problem-solving behaviors), and positivity rules (how and when to reward one another). These social conventions often remain tacitly negotiated and understood but become clarified over time as partners begin to solidify their roles in the relationship.

Finally, a fifth area of social knowledge is problem appraisal. Witteman found that when individuals face a problem they engage in an appraisal process to form a judgment about that problem. Individuals first compare the problem with others they have experienced; they then assess their goals, attribute a cause to the problem, and then determine their feelings for the other party. When individuals engaged in integrative, win-win strategies, they were more likely to see the problem as unique, view their goal as important and mutually shared, and attribute the cause to the environment as opposed to one another. When parties used distributive or competitive strategies, they were more likely to believe that the problem was related to negative feelings about the other party, the problem occurred frequently, and the other person intentionally caused the problem. Further research in attribution theory, described below, explains similar results: When individuals attribute the cause of the problem to the other party they are more likely to use aggressive strategies in managing the dispute. Gender also appears related to social knowledge in managing conflict. Gender refers to the social– psychological–cultural meanings attached to one’s sex. In a review of research about gender differences in conflict, Cupach and Canary found that men and women engage in more similar than dissimilar behaviors when managing conflict: Men and women act in a similar manner in about 75% of the types of behaviors analyzed. The differences found are relatively counterintuitive: Women are more assertive and aggressive whereas men are more withdrawn and passive, but men and women are equally likely to use cooperative behavior during conflict. Consistent with these findings, women tend to pursue the conflict topic whereas men tend to withdraw, but pursuit and withdrawal depend on who wants change in the relationship. The person resisting change will tend to withdraw regardless of gender. Women also tend to use more tears when they get angry whereas men view tears as a sign of weakness and capitulation. Conflict styles theory

Individuals vary in their approaches to managing conflict based on their general styles of handling conflict. Researchers have posited various dimensions by which these styles differ. The work by Blake and Mouton is credited with providing the initial conceptual framework for this body of research. These researchers, who studied organizational conflict management, predicted that the style of conflict management a manager uses is predicted by high versus low levels of two concerns: concern for production and concern for people. Variations of this model have developed over many years. For example, Kilmann and Thomas posited that conflict styles are a result of individuals’ personality traits of high or low cooperation and high or low assertiveness. Pruitt and

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Rubin proposed a dual concern model for negotiation, crossing concern for a negotiator’s own outcomes with concern for the other’s outcomes as predictors of conflict styles used at the negotiation table. Models of conflict styles traditionally yielded five styles: integrating (showing a high concern for own and other’s goals), avoiding (low concern for own and other’s goals), dominating (high concern for own goals), obliging (low concern for own and high concern for other’s goals), and compromising (moderate concern for both own and other’s goals). More recent research, however, has reduced the number of styles to either three or four, sometimes combining integrating with compromising or yielding with avoiding. For example, Cai and Fink demonstrate that yielding and avoiding are perceived as similar styles. Conflict styles are not expected to be fixed across situations. Instead, research on conflict styles often looks at how context and culture affect both the predispositions and variations in how individuals manage conflicts. As a result, conflict styles research differs from personalitybased approaches by focusing on contextual differences in managing conflict. The personality-based approaches assume an individual’s way of managing conflict is relatively stable across situations. The conflict styles approach assumes that individuals change based on the situations they confront in managing conflict. Researchers have shown that more competitive approaches work best when conflict must be brought out into the open and keep individuals motivated to confront it, whereas more integrative approaches work best when parties are highly interdependent and must work together in the future. East Asian cultures that have roots in Confucian philosophy such as China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong are often stereotyped as using a more avoidant conflict style than Western cultures. But researchers have found mixed results about culture’s influence on conflict styles. For example, Cai and Fink found that US Americans tend to avoid conflict more than East Asians. In addition, when individuals across nationalities were compared by levels of high versus low collectivism, higher collectivism was associated with a more integrative conflict style but low collectivism, or high individualism, did not associate with any one particular conflict style. But recent comparisons of Chinese, Japanese, and Americans have found the Chinese and Japanese to be more individualistic than Americans, contrary to cultural stereotypes. As conflict styles research demonstrates, the context of the conflict influences the conflict styles that are likely to be used. This conclusion is also true across cultures. Cultural background itself is not a sufficient predictor of conflict styles, rather conflict styles are influenced by an interaction between culture and context.

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Attribution theories

Another theoretical approach used to explain individuals reactions to conflict situations focuses on attributions, or the explanations people have for the causes of social events. Individuals search for the causes of conflict to determine how they should respond to the situation. According to Fincham, Bradbury, and Scott, people view causes in six different dimensions: (1) globality – the extent to which the cause is specific to the situation or can be generalized across situations; (2) stability – whether the cause lasts for a long time or is short-term; (3) locus – whether the cause is internal or external to the person and relationship; (4) intent – if the cause was deliberately created or beyond the person’s control; (5) selfishness – the extent to which the cause was self-serving for the individual; and (6) blameworthiness – where the responsibility lies for the cause. In interpersonal relationships, individuals seek to protect their identity as responsible, reasonable partners who conform to role expectations. Based on the attributions made about a situation, individuals may or may not perceive a situation as a conflict and if they do perceive conflict, the attributions will influence how they respond to project or protect their identity. For example, in a conflict, one partner might accuse the other of being consistently insensitive and uncaring. Such an accusation suggests that the accuser attributes the cause of the conflict as global (long-lasting), stable, internal, and deliberate on the part of the accused who is considered selfish and blameworthy. The tendency to immediately link the cause of the conflict to the partner’s internal, stable personality traits is a common attributional bias referred to as the fundamental attribution error (FAE). In cross-cultural comparisons, US Americans have been found to be especially prone to making FAEs whereas the Chinese are more likely to attribute cause to situational rather than internal factors. Sillars found that roommates who view the cause of the conflict as stable and internal to the partner were more likely to engage in competitive communication styles that include the use of threats and sarcasm. When both partners continue to make these types of attributions communication can quickly turn destructive to the relationship. Notice how these theories interrelate at this point. In a relationally focused conflict, issues quickly center on essential needs for inclusion, control, and affection that define the parameters of the relationship that is up for negotiation. This stressful event begins to evoke certain forms of social knowledge that are salient to the context. The person may apply a script to the conflict and a set of beliefs that provoke a conflict style that is highly competitive. The conflict is likely to trigger attributional biases within the individual so that the cause of the conflict is attributed to the other’s personal problems in an attempt

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to protect the individual’s own relational identity. If the parties are not particularly skilled at argumentation, they may resort to aggressive tactics in an attempt to hurt one another. Thus, the various theoretical perspectives reviewed each punctuate different aspects of the conflict; each approach to the study of conflict quickly emerges in any relationally sensitive conflict situation. Facework and identity theories

This article makes it evident that face, or an individual’s situated identity, is an ever-present feature in interpersonal conflict. Brown and Levinson’s work on politeness argues that individuals are concerned about two types of face, or situated identities, during interactions. Negative face is the concern for an individual’s own autonomy or freedom from others, whereas positive face is an individual’s need to be approved of by others within the role that the individual is enacting. Many studies have found support for individuals’ need to vigorously defend their face, both positive and negative, from attacks within conflict situations. When a conflict focuses directly on attacking either person’s face, substantive issues quickly become secondary. Because interpersonal conflict inherently exhibits relational challenges, face plays an important role in how conflict is managed in relationships and affects the satisfaction within relationships. Culture influences how face issues are communicated in conflict situations. Low-context communication emphasizes the verbal content of the message, so meanings are expected to be verbalized with little meaning left for interpretation. People from cultures that emphasize low-context communication – such as most of northern Europe, Australia, and the United States – are more likely to rely on direct modes of communication to resolve conflicts, such as face-to-face negotiation or direct confrontation. High-context communication, in contrast, emphasizes the interpretation of messages based on the context in which the message is given and the relationship between the communicators; in other words, less meaning is based on words and more meaning is based on contextual and relational cues, and more indirect means of communication are valued so that personal identities and interpersonal relationships are not put at risk. People from cultures that emphasize high-context communication, such as China, Japan, and much of the Far East, are more likely to rely on indirect modes of communication to resolve conflicts, such as using third-party intervention or talking around the issues without addressing the conflict directly. Research on why individuals in interpersonal conflict resort to violence has focused on the need to manage face or impressions. Felson and Tedeschi indicated that individuals may resort to aggression to restore an identity that has been attacked, because the extreme retaliation is an effort to rebuild an external impression of strength.

Retaliation is especially likely if third parties are present because face-saving concerns are heightened with the presence of an audience. Individuals may resort to violence if they need to bolster their identity even if the aggression is not a response to a prior attack. Perhaps not all violent acts can be explained using this theory of impression management, but it performs well in understanding ritualistic violence, particularly in a public domain. This explanation demonstrates how aggression can escalate quickly and become cyclical, especially within a public context. Attack follows attack, and to restore face, each attack escalates beyond the prior attack. Failing to escalate opens the individual to accusations of weakness and exploitation, particularly in cultures in which the strength of an individual’s face is the primary social currency. Breaking the escalation cycle requires the use of communication to resolve the conflict so that both parties can present solutions that do not center on destroying the other party. In the case of intense conflict, mediation by a third party may be needed to initiate this communication approach and to monitor the face concerns on both sides. Emotion theories

Conflict often generates many emotions; recent research has just begun to understand the range of emotions related to conflict. In a recent review of research on conflict and emotion, Guerrero and La Valley isolated a number of the more prominent emotions that parties must learn to confront. The first set of emotions focuses on anger and includes feelings such as rage, irritation, exasperation, contempt, envy, and torment. Research indicates that anger is perhaps the most common emotion in conflict. This emotion is caused by many factors, including identity challenges, lack of fairness, incompetence, threat to control, unmet expectations, and fear. A second set of emotions stems from competition for affection and includes jealousy, or the perception that one’s primary relationship is threatened by a third party. These emotions often trigger hurt (sadness and suffering) and guilt (shame and self-reflection). The competition for affection within multiple relationships can result in a great deal of conflict and place parties at risk for intense negative emotions. Recent theories have begun to shed light on how these emotions affect conflict outcomes. Perhaps the most welldeveloped theory is Gottman’s Cascade Model. The basic tenet of the theory is that verbal and nonverbal expressions of contempt and disgust often cascade down upon distressed couples resulting in an emotional flooding that impairs individuals from negotiating substantive differences. Emotional flooding often results from the partner’s negative behavior, which leads to diffused physiological arousal. This arousal makes it difficult for parties to listen to one another. Expressions of positive emotion can

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counteract these negative emotions and serve as a buffer against flooding. People in unstable relationships engage in about as much positive as negative emotion, but more successful couples learn to control emotions more modestly. A second theoretical perspective related to emotion and conflict is Burgoon’s Expectancy Violations Theory. This theory argues that people hold both predictive and prescriptive expectancies for each other’s behavior. Predictive expectancies are expectations about how others will act whereas prescriptive expectancies are expectations about how individuals should act within certain situations. These expectancies help regulate both emotion and behavior. Positive violations of expectation lead to validating behavior whereas negative violations lead to the kind of emotional flooding that Gottman described. In some cases people compensate in response to negative expectancy violations using behaviors similar in intensity to the violator but opposite in form whereas in other cases people may reciprocate, using behaviors similar in intensity to the violator and in the same form. Reciprocity may increase the likelihood of emotional flooding and thereby increase feelings of anger and guilt. Competence theories

Communication competence is evaluated along two dimensions: effectiveness and appropriateness. Communication is effective when it accomplishes the goals of the communicators. Three kinds of goals are often present in interpersonal interactions: instrumental, self-presentational, and relational goals. Instrumental goals are the substantive objectives a communicator seeks to accomplish, such as persuading a friend to go to a movie. Self-presentational goals are the protection and promotion of face, such as appearing competent or caring, or whatever impression is necessary to help support the accomplishment of instrumental goals. Relational goals are concerns for the relationship with the other person and may include status and power, informality and formality, attraction, trust, and intimacy. For example, asking someone out on a date (instrumental goal) is generally best accomplished if the person appears confident and caring (self-presentation goals), and is informal, approachable, attractive, and trustworthy (relational goals). Appropriateness is an evaluation of how individuals accomplish their goals. Do they enact appropriate roles and expectations of others? Do communication strategies conform to appropriate rules for communication and social interaction? Individual partners in a relationship often develop unique roles and rules and are expected to act within those roles and rules when communicating. Individuals are judged as competent when they are effective and follow the expected rules for interacting. Within this framework, conflict occurs when individuals communicate goals that are incompatible with one

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another, or break rules or role expectations when attempting to accomplish goals. For example, an aggressive act is viewed as incompetent because, although aggression may be effective in accomplishing the individual’s instrumental or self-presentational goals, it violates rules of appropriateness and is likely to be damaging to relational goals. If partners view each other as incompetent in handling conflict, they may become less interested in the relationship and turn to others who support their goals and their vision of appropriate ways of accomplishing those goals. Communication competence theory proposes that partners in a relationship judge one another’s competence in handling conflict, and this judgment is critical in determining whether the person is satisfied with the relationship. If both partners are competent in handling conflict, they are likely to assess the relationship as rewarding and continue to develop that relationship. Mindfulness has been shown as being important for managing conflict appropriately. When people communicate mindlessly, or at a minimal level of consciousness so that they behave without much thought, they tend to communicate more incompetently, especially in conflict interactions. Canary and Lakey note that conflict is typically not routine behavior that can be approached mindlessly. Individuals that act more strategically are better able to interpret the conflict appropriately and create a more constructive path for managing the conflict. Thus, competence requires a fair amount of thought to manage interpersonal conflict effectively. Summary

The theoretical perspectives discussed above provide a sample of the current ways of thinking about conflict in interpersonal relationships. As noted previously, these perspectives overlap in several ways: 1. Interpersonal conflict generally revolves around goal or process incompatibilities. 2. Interpersonal conflict is often driven by internal needs, individual traits, and social knowledge that predispose individuals to either escalate or de-escalate the emphasis on relational and self-presentation goals. 3. Conflict is the product of intense social interaction that generates diverse and intense emotions and must be approached strategically for it to be managed competently.

Marital and Family Conflict The three points enumerated in the above list summarize the overlap of theoretical perspectives providing the basis for understanding how conflict evolves in various relational contexts. The one context that has received considerable attention is the family, particularly marriage

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within the family. Due to concerns for the health of the family as a key social institution, researchers have sought to understand how family members manage differences that threaten it. In general, work on marital conflict has moved within three primary domains. In the first domain, a number of scholars have expressed an interest in learning how intimate-partner (generally marital) relationships develop over the life span, characterizing couples into three groups: young, midlife, and older couples. The young couples face the challenges of coping with the rapid pulse of family life, learning how to live with each other, responding to declines in relational satisfaction, and negotiating roles. Young couples respond to these considerable challenges by using dynamic behaviors that are often confronting, analytical, and sometimes humorous. In contrast, midlife couples have moved into equilibrium and solved problems of autonomy and interdependence, which helps their conflict evolve into more analytical and less confrontational forms. Older couples avoid intense analyses of relational issues and are more passive in their conflict interactions. Across the life span, conflict becomes more problem-centered and less relationally centered as some types of issues fall away due to relational longevity. The second domain of marital conflict research compares marital types, or the manner in which couples define and enact the nature of their interdependence. This research characterizes the psychological and behavioral patterns that couples exhibit in their marriages and the effect of those patterns on their conflict habits. The chief contributor to this line of research, Fitzpatrick, has identified three general marital (pure) types: (1) Traditionals adhere to traditional marital roles with the male as the breadwinner and the woman assuming domestic duties, (2) separates detach from one another physically and emotionally, and (3) independents form partnerships for mutual goal achievement but reject traditional values. Traditionals avoid conflict over relational issues because those issues are largely predetermined and instead focus on larger substantive issues such as financial management. These couples prefer cooperative conflict management strategies. Separates avoid conflict altogether and may even constrain their partner’s ability to raise issues of disagreement. Because conflict pulls people together, separates find this kind of behavior unrewarding. In contrast, independents move in the opposite direction by actively confronting differences and often prevent their partners withdrawing from important conflicts. The third domain of marital conflict research focuses on communication patterns, or the messages that couples exchange and the manner in which these exchanges create contexts that are tied to couples’ levels of martial satisfaction and functioning. For example, Gottman

examined the communication patterns between couples who lived in unsatisfactory marriages. He discovered that these couples were not very mutually supportive nor were they skilled at negotiating differences when discussing their marital problems. They were less likely to actively listen to one another’s positions on issues and were more likely to repeat their own positions and label the other person’s feelings and intentions. These unhappy couples also were more likely to enter a complaining loop at the beginning of their discussions in which one party complained while the other ignored the issue surrounding the complaint. These couples were much more likely to reciprocate negative feelings about one another and much less likely to reciprocate positive feelings. The results of research by Notarius and Markman on couple communication patterns contrasted sharply with prior research that relied heavily on psychological predictors of marital success. These researchers demonstrated clearly that psychological compatibilities or incompatibilities were significantly less important in relationships than how couples communicated about conflict. For example, they learned that personality traits do not predict marital happiness or marital stability: Similarity and difference is much less important than how couples handle their differences. These researchers even dismissed the issue of need compatibility and such cornerstone traits as relational intimacy as predictors of happiness. Instead, they found that couples who handle conflict poorly regardless of gender, personality, or need differences are much less likely to survive. For example, when couples enter a pursuit–withdrawal cycle, they tend to become relationally focused and ignore substantive issues. Stereotypically, the woman pursues the issue and the man withdraws (but, as noted earlier, this pattern depends on the importance of the issue to either party). These roles feed off each other because the more the woman pursues the more the man withdraws, making meaningful conversation difficult. Similar to the Gottman findings, when couples learn to step out of such patterns and adopt more active listening strategies, the relational issues are taken off the table and parties are capable of focusing on substantive issues. Family Conflict Moving a step further into a more complex relational system is research dealing with family conflict. This research views families as complex systems that deal with conflict in complex ways depending upon how the system functions. In her synthesis of several systems perspectives on family functioning, Sieburg identifies four types of family systems and discusses how each deals with differences. A System One family demonstrates low familial involvement and indifference, with weak connections and a limited capacity to deal with stress. These

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families tend to avoid conflicts when they arise. Feedback is lacking, and the use of conflict for system selfcorrection is limited because parties will not persevere to resolve divisive issues. System Two families are unresponsive to changes in its members or in the environment. These families rely on already-programmed behavioral patterns, applying old rules to new situations, using old information, and avoiding new information. Because this closed, inflexible system is dedicated to maintaining the status quo, conflict is more frequent than in the System One families because there is more communication. However, conflict is still very limited and highly ritualistic. These families live with the illusion of family-togetherness, but exclude individual preferences that require individuals to avoid authentic conflict, control the expression of spontaneous anger, and avoid any potential source of unpleasantness. Conflict often takes the form of ritualistic and pointless bickering in repetitive family quarrels. System Three families are troubled with extreme instability and have little or no structure. In these families, communication is ambiguous so there is little disagreement or turbulent disagreement. These families demonstrate a fragmented, interruptive communication style with hints of underlying power struggles. The most notable characteristics of these disordered families are confusion and convolution, denial and manipulation. Individuals are invited to take the lead then criticized; opinions are solicited then rejected. As a result, family members avoid personal blame through external attribution of cause. Parents speak in riddles, and children are not permitted to raise questions about these riddles. This ambiguity places stress on relational issues because relational issues remain at the forefront of every family interaction. This trait promotes a highly volatile environment. System Four families are also referred to as openfacilitative families. Members are open to new information and interface freely outside the environment. They continually seek to change rather than preserve the status quo. Conflicts can be resolved in a number of different ways because the rules for managing conflict are flexible. Members feel loved and supported, intimacy is present, and autonomy is respected and nurtured. In this environment, members concentrate more on substantive issues because members support each other’s relational needs. Generational separation is maintained; leadership is stable, appropriate, and recognized; yet all members have a voice in decision making. Although conflict frequency differs by system-type, researchers suggest that the family conflict process evolves through five recognizable stages. First, the prior conditions stage focuses on the situation and circumstances preceding the actual conflict such as role responsibilities, family rules, power struggles, and

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negative experiences. Second, the frustration awareness stage is when a frustration surfaces that is focused on another member of the family. Sorting out such frustrations can be difficult, which leads to the active conflict stage, in which the conflict escalates into a full-blown discussion, involving both verbal and nonverbal communication. Depending on the family system, this third stage can be either vociferous or subdued. During the fourth stage, the solution stage, parties move past relational issues to focus on substantive matters, eventually bargaining around a specific resolution to the problem. The final stage is the follow-up stage in which family members review the conflict after it has been resolved to provide additional understanding about the implications of the conflict for family functioning. Crisis Conflict One area of interpersonal conflict research with a broad range of applications examines crisis bargaining. In a series of studies, Donohue and his colleagues have sought to understand how police negotiators develop relationships with hostage takers and how that relationship affects outcomes in hostage-taking incidents. A theoretical framework for conceptualizing these relationships functions across two dimensions: affiliation (e.g., trust, liking, and acceptance) and interdependence (e.g., the mutual acceptance of rights and obligations). To track the relationships over the course of each incident, a coding system for verbal immediacy was used to track each relationship as it moved through different phases. The research found that negotiations that demonstrate more relational stability were more likely to yield cooperative agreements. Negotiations in which the phases were brief and volatile resulted in less cooperation between parties. The negotiations were more likely to vary in levels of interdependence because power struggles are an inherent part of hostage negotiations, but levels of affiliation were consistently either high or low. Relational discussions seemed to stabilize around such issues as trust and attraction but vary in terms of power and control. An important revision of this model was offered by Womack and Walsh in their discussion of hostage negotiation. These researchers contend that the extent to which the participants are genuine or deceptive affects the extent to which parties can develop a cooperative or competitive relationship. Undetected deception as well as genuine communication can set the stage for increased affiliation and interdependence. However, if deception is detected or the issue of deception is raised, then affiliation is likely to decline, and a power struggle is likely to ensue. The links between the research on hostage negotiation and research on aggression is worth noting. In dispute-related aggression, the parties focus on power

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and interdependence issues because forcing compliance becomes the objective. The extent to which parties like or trust one another is likely to remain at a fairly low level throughout the interaction. Moving away from an aggressive format in a relationship requires bridgebuilding at the affiliation-level in advance of other issues. If parties are sufficiently competent to articulate their positions, they may be able to demonstrate more cooperative behavior that will allow for increased mutual affiliation.

International Conflict While this article focuses on interpersonal conflict it is useful to understand how these processes are reflected within the context of international conflict. In a recent study, Donohue, Druckman, and Tripscha explored the public rhetorical exchanges between Palestinian and Israeli leaders leading up to the Oslo 1 accords as a way of understanding the public context surrounding the secret negotiations. The analysis coded the content of each speech/interview for messages related to trust, power, affiliation, and looking forward or backward with respect to issue framing. While the results revealed that the Palestinian rhetoric expressed mistrust, power, and backward-looking issues focusing on justice, the analysis illustrates how interpersonal conflict plays out on an international stage. For example, the language clearly displayed goal and process incompatibilities among the respective leaders. The Israelis displayed more rhetoric aimed at issues focused on looking forward to resolve the disputes whereas the Palestinians were more focused on justice. Selfpresentation differences with respect to face, identity, and culture were also apparent. Rhetoric from both sides displaying high power and mistrust appeared to be aimed more at constituents as a means of looking ‘tough’ publicly. These messages can certainly stir emotions and make the de-escalation of conflict more difficult. The paper concluded by arguing that the public rhetoric leading up to Oslo 1 was not particularly indicative of the progress being made in the private talks. One implication of this research is that processes of interpersonal conflict play out in conflicts that have international implications. The language that both sides use to set the stage for negotiations is clearly driven by interpersonal principles. Paying attention to these messages, as Kennedy did in responding to Khrushchev’s letters during the Cuban Missile Crisis, can have profound consequences for de-escalating a crisis. It is clear, as we know from Winter’s research and subsequent studies like his, that communication exchanges generally precede war and that understanding the interpersonal

principles underlying that language can be used to avert intense, violent conflict if they are clearly understood.

Conclusions Three main lessons about interpersonal conflict emerge from this article. First, interpersonal relationships are at the center of all conflicts. Even in large-scale conflicts, from conflicts between social groups to international conflicts between nation-states, conflicts are still managed through interpersonal relationships and affected by matters such as levels of trust, cooperation versus competition, and the use of distributive tactics. Even when the issues in contention do not center on relationships and the relationship quality of the disputants is not in jeopardy, the quality of the relationship shapes the strategies and tactics disputants select to manage the conflict. The prominence of identity and face issues in conflict also suggests that relationship is a very central part of any conflict and can quickly shape the direction of the conflict if parties are mindless or resort to tactics that can destroy the relationship. Second, interpersonal conflict exists on a precarious edge between negotiation and violence. The edge is often narrow, making it easy for individuals to lose their balance and slip into violence. This edge is even narrower in areas in which the culture, socioeconomic context, and availability of means to perform violent acts contribute to a higher likelihood for deadly violence to occur. As issues center more on identity and interpersonal relationships, parties become more personally threatened. If those threats become severe, individuals in cultures that are less restrained in their verbal and emotional expression are more likely to cross the line into violence as an attempt to gain control. Preventing such violence requires that individuals develop the argumentation and communication skills that serve as constructive tools for managing conflict. Third, understanding interpersonal conflict provides a window into the social structure of organizations. For example, organizational climate issues tend to emerge quickly when parties are in conflict and extend to areas such as support, decision-making structure, autonomy, and rewards. How individuals play out their conflicts in the workplace reveals information about an organization’s climate. Assumptions about how individuals function as a social system become more apparent when the social system is stressed by conflict. Examining interpersonal conflict provides insight into organizational values and goals, in the same way that such examination provides insight into families, marriages, and all types of relationships.

Interpersonal Conflict, History of See also: Aggression, Psychology of; Family Structure and Family Violence; Mediation and Negotiation Techniques; Religious Traditions, Violence and Nonviolence; Theories of Conflict

Further Reading Bateson, G. W. (1951). Conventions of communications: Where validity depends on belief. In Ruesch, J. and Bateson, G. (eds.) Communication, the social matrix of society, pp 212–227. New York: Norton. Baucom, D. H., Epstein, N., Rankin, L. A., and Burnett, C. K. (1996). Assessing relationship standards: The inventory of specific relational standards. Journal of Family Psychology 10, 72–88. Blake, R. R. and Mouton, J. S. (1964). The managerial grid. Houston, TX: Gulf. Brown, P. and Levinson, S. (1987). Politeness: Some universals in language usage. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Burgoon, J. K. (1993). Interpersonal expectations, expectancy violations, and emotional communication. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 12, 30–48. Burgoon, J. K. and Hale, J. L. (1984). The fundamental topoi of relational communication. Communication Monographs 51, 193–214. Cai, D. A. and Fink, E. L. (2002). Conflict style differences among individualists and collectivists. Communication Monographs 69, 67–87. Canary, D. J. and Lakey, S. G. (2006). Managing conflict in a competent manner: A mindful look at events that matter. In Oetzel, J. and TingToomy, S. (eds.) The Sage handbook of conflict communication. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Coser, L. (1956). The functions of social conflict. New York: Free Press. Cupach, W. R. and Canary, D. J. (1995). Managing conflict and anger: Investigating the sex stereotype hypothesis. In Kalbfleisch, P. J. and Cody, M. J. (eds.) Gender, power, and communication in human relationships, pp 233–252. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Cupach, W. R. and Canary, D. J. (1997). Competence in interpersonal conflict. New York: McGraw-Hill. Deutsch, M. (1973). The resolution of conflict. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Donohue, W. A. and Hoobler, G. D. (2002). Relational frames and their ethical implications in international negotiation: An analysis based on the Oslo II negotiations. International Negotiation 7, 143–167. Donohue, W. A. and Roberto, A. J. (1993). Relational development in hostage negotiation. Human Communication Research 20, 175–198. Donohue, W. A., Druckman, D., and Tripscha, C. (2006). Forward/ backward contextual frames surrounding the Israeli–Palestinian Oslo I Accords. Paper Presented to the International Association for Conflict Management. Montreal, Canada. Donohue, W. A., Ramesh, C., and Borchgrevink, C. (1991). Crisis bargaining: Tracking relational paradox in hostage negotiation. International Journal of Conflict Management 2, 257–274. Felson, R. B. and Tedeschi, J. T. (1993). Aggression and violence: Social interactionist perspectives. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Fincham, F. D., Bradbury, T. N., and Scott, C. K. (1990). Cognition in marriage. In Fincham, F. D. and Bradbury, T. N. (eds.) The psychology of marriage: Basic issues and applications, pp 118–149. New York: Guilford. Fitzpatrick, M. A. (1988). Between husbands and wives: Communication in marriage. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Gelfand, M. J., Nishii, L. H., Holcombe, K., et al. (2001). Cultural influences on cognitive representations of conflict: Interpretations of conflict episodes in the US and Japan. Journal of Applied Psychology 86, 1059–1074. Gerrero, L. K. and La Valley, A. G. (2006). Conflict, emotion and communication. In Oetzel, J. and Ting-Toomy, S. (eds.) The Sage handbook of conflict communication, pp 69–96. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Gottfredson, M. R. and Hirschi, T. (1993). A control theory interpretation of psychological research on aggression. In Felson, R. and Tedeschi, J. (eds.) Aggression and violence: Social interactionist perspectives, pp 47–68. New York: Academic Press.

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Gottman, J. M. (1979). Marital interactions: Experimental investigations. New York: Academic Press. Gottman, J. M. (1994). What predicts divorce? The relationship between marital processes and marital outcomes. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Hample, D. and Dallinger, J. M. (1995). A Lewinian perspective on taking conflict personally: Revision, refinement, and validation of the instrument. Communication Quarterly 43, 297–319. Hauser, P. M. (1968). Application of ideal-type constructs to the metropolis in the economically less-advanced areas. In Fava, S. F. (ed.) Urbanism in world perspective, pp 93–97. New York: Crowell. Hinde, R. A. (1979). Towards understanding relationships. New York: Academic Press. Infante, D. A. and Rancer, A. S. (1982). A conceptualization and measurement of argumentativeness. Journal of Personality Assessment 46, 72–80. Jones, E. and Gallois, C. (1989). Spouses’ impressions of rules for communication in public and private marital conflicts. Journal of Marriage and the Family 51, 957–967. Kilmann, R. H. and Thomas, K. W. (1977). Developing a forced-choice measure of conflict-handling behavior: The ‘MODE’ instrument. Educational and Psychological Measurement 37, 309–325. Kramer, R. and Tyler, T. (1996). Trust in organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Lewicki, R. J. and Bunker, B. B. (1995). Trust in relationships: A model of trust development and decline. In Bunker, B. B. and Rubin, J. Z. (eds.) Conflict, cooperation and justice: A tribute volume to Morton Deutsch. San Francisco: Jossey Bass. Lewicki, R. J. and Bunker, B. B. (1996). Developing, maintaining and repairing trust in work relationships. In Kramer, R. and Tyler, T. (eds.) Trust in organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Lewicki, R. J. and Stevenson, M. (1997). Trust development in negotiation: Proposed actions and a research agenda. Journal of Business and Professional Ethics 16(1–3): 99–132. Lewicki, R. J., Stevenson, M. A., and Bunker, B. B. (1997). The three components of interpersonal trust: Instrument development and differences across relationships. Paper Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management. Boston, MA. Notarius, C. and Markman, H. (1993). We can work it out: Making sense of marital conflict. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons Pinkley, R. L. and Northcraft, G. B. (1994). Conflict frames of reference: Implications for dispute processes and outcomes. Academy of Management Journal 37, 193–205. Pruitt, D. G. and Rubin, J. Z. (1986). Social conflict. New York: McGraw-Hill. Roloff, M. E. and Miller, C. W. (2006). Social cognition approaches to understanding interpersonal conflict and communication. In Oetzel, J. and Ting-Toomy, S. (eds.) The Sage handbook of conflict communication, pp 97–128. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Schank, R. and Abelson, R. (1977). Scripts, plans, goals and understanding: An inquiry into human knowledge structures. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Sieburg, E. (1985). Family communication: An integrated systems approach. New York: Gardner Press. Sillars, A. L. (1980). The sequential and distributional structure of conflict interactions as a function of attributions concerning the locus of responsibility and stability of conflicts. In Nimmo, D. (ed.) Communication yearbook 4, pp 217–235. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction. Spitzberg, B. H., Canary, D. J., and Cupach, W. R. (1994). A competence-based approach to the study of interpersonal conflict. In Cahn, D. D. (ed.) Conflict in personal relationships, pp 183–202. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Winter, D. G. (1993). Power, affiliation, and war: Three tests of a motivational model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 65, 532–545. Witteman, H. (1988). Interpersonal problem solving: Problem conceptualization and communication use. Communication Monographs 55, 336–359. Womack, D. F. and Walsh, K. (1997). A three-dimensional model of relationship development in hostage negotiations. In Rogan, R. G., Hammer, M. R., and Van Zandt, C. R. (eds.) Dynamic processes of crisis negotiation, pp 57–76. Westport, CT: Praeger.

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Relevant Websites http://www.gmu.edu/departments/crdc/Templates/ index.html – center for World Religions, Diplomacy, and conflict Resolution. http://www.conflictresearchsociety.org.uk/index.html – Conflict Research Society.

http://www.iacm-conflict.org/ – International Association for Conflict Management. http://www.hostagenegotiation.com – International Association of Hostage Negotiators. http://www.niacr.org – National Institute for Advanced Conflict Resolution.

J Justifications for Violence Kevin Magil, University of Wolverhampton, Dudley, UK ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Ethical Theory and the Standard Justifications Arguments against Violence Universal Duties and Moral Partiality

Glossary Communitarian Ethics Moral theories that view moral values and claims as grounded in the practices, rules, associations, and ways of living of specific moral communities and associated traditions. Consequentialism Moral theories or forms of ethical reasoning in which actions or rules are thought to be right or wrong according to the value of their consequences. Deontological Ethics Moral theories or forms of ethical reasoning in which certain acts are thought to be right or wrong in themselves regardless of their consequences. Moral Subjectivism Theory that moral values and judgments are a matter of subjective preference and

Violence involves the infliction of harm or damage on persons and property, and for this reason its use calls for justification. The subject of justifications for violence in mainstream Anglo-American philosophy and political theory has conventionally focused on political violence, which usually refers to acts and strategies of violence (by political movements, or even individuals) for political ends excluding those carried out by states and including terrorism, guerrilla warfare, and assassination, as well as riot and violence in demonstrations, protests, and picket lines. Inquiry about the justifiability of state violence tends to fall under the headings of just-war theory and justifications for punishment. Whether the conventional distinction between the standing of state and nonstate violence, as subject matters, is defensible will not be addressed in this article, although it is a matter of argument in discussions of both. (Since the first edition of this volume the declaration of a war on terror by several states

Conclusion Further Reading

that moral disagreements are akin to differences of taste. Principle of Utility Utilitarian ethical principle, according to which actions, rules, and states of affairs are good to the extent that their consequences include a greater overall balance of pleasure, happiness, or wellbeing over pain or suffering. Universalist Ethics Moral theories or forms of ethical reasoning involving principles that are considered to be binding on all persons, regardless of community, national, political, family, or other associations and whatever limited moral obligations or loyalties are bound up with them.

has supplied additional reasons for doubt about that distinction, and the aim of ‘regime change’ can be evaluated according to the consequentialist justification of violence set out below.) A justification for violence will urge that some or other violent action or campaign was or is the right thing to do, or anyhow permissible. Philosophical inquiries into the justifiability of violence typically focus on what general conditions must be satisfied by any defensible moral justification for violence.

Ethical Theory and the Standard Justifications Much philosophical discussion about political violence is taken up with argument about whether and to what extent acts of violence can be justified as means to good ends. According to deontological ethics there are limits on what

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may justifiably be done in pursuit of good or worthy ends. Although many actions can be justified by their beneficial consequences, some actions are simply wrong in themselves. Immanuel Kant famously argued that it is wrong to tell a lie, even to save a life. Many deontologists would accept that bad actions can sometimes be justified in extreme or catastrophic situations – Fried suggests that killing an innocent person would be justified if it will save a whole nation – while maintaining that in normal circumstances such actions are morally prohibited regardless of their consequences. Deontologists typically take the view that, other than in circumstances of war, the only acceptable justification for violence is that of self-defense or defense of others from wrongful attack. Persons have moral rights not to be wrongfully injured or killed and, consequently, they have the right to defend themselves against wrongful physical attack. It is also sometimes argued that to violently attack someone who is not engaged in or threatening violence is akin to punishing someone who is innocent. Conversely, one who engages in wrongful violence against another may be said to have relinquished his normal rights not to be attacked. We can only be justified in using as much violence against an attacker, however, as is required to defend ourselves. Thus, according to Elizabeth Anscombe, a person could not be justified in poisoning someone they believe to be out to kill them. Defensive violence must be exactly that: if a state allows huge inequalities among its population or denies freedom to a dominion, it may justly be opposed for doing so, but if it does not order or permit violent persecution by its police or armed forces, acts of political violence carried out by or on behalf of those it oppresses cannot be considered acts of defense. For many deontologists, therefore, political violence is only likely to be justifiable where it is undertaken in defense against murderous states, police, or militia. A campaign of political violence in which activists are prepared to sacrifice their lives for national self-determination or religious expression is unlikely to be given a convincing or straightforward justification in such terms. Deontologists have also claimed that violence can only justifiably be directed against those who are directly involved in it or responsible for it. Failure to prevent murder or injury, they argue, although it may be blameworthy in some circumstances, does not make one responsible for it. If, for example, members of an ethnic group or an occupied territory are routinely tortured, beaten, and murdered by soldiers and police, other citizens may be considered blameworthy for failing to protest or put pressure on their government, but they cannot be held responsible for the murders, tortures, and beatings: they are innocent of those crimes. If they pay taxes and provide services to the army, their responsibility for death and injury is not increased by that. Bombs planted or detonated in order to

kill such citizens, and thereby to terrorize the population, could not count as a defense against the actions of the army and police. To be responsible for a person’s death requires that one has intentionally caused their death. (Not necessarily that one intended that the specific victims of one’s actions should die, as with assassination, but that the bombs were detonated, the plane was crashed, the water supply was poisoned, etc., with the specific aim of bringing about deaths.) Only those involved in carrying out murders and beatings, and their political masters, may properly be considered responsible for them and only they can be legitimate targets for defensive violence. While we may agree that there are limits to what can justifiably be done for good ends under normal circumstances, many might wonder how extreme or catastrophic circumstances need to be before political violence that is not strictly defensive can be justified. Taking Fried’s example, one can reasonably ask whether only the saving of a whole nation is enough to justify the killing of one innocent person. In addition, if there is no justification for the intentional taking of innocent lives, what should be said about acts of terror that are intended to intimidate rather than take life, but with some foreseeable risk of causing death or injury? And what of explosions and acts of sabotage aimed at causing economic and political instability with, say, only a small foreseeable risk of causing death or injury? A well-known and chilling hypothetical case in which many lives might be saved by the ending of one is described by Bernard Williams in Utilitarianism: For and against. Williams tells a story about Jim who stumbles into a South American town in which 20 people are about to be executed by the army as a warning against recent protests in the area. As an honored visitor Jim is offered the privilege of shooting one of the townspeople and, if he does so, as a mark of the occasion, the remaining 19 will be spared. Both the captives and the other townspeople implore him to accept. What ought he to do? According to deontological ethics shooting the one cannot be justified since it would involve intentional murder of an innocent person. It is true that whoever Jim chooses would be killed anyway, along with 19 of his fellows, but that would not be an intentional act of Jim’s: the foreseeable villainy of the army cannot justify him in murdering once in order to prevent it. William’s example is employed as part of a critique of the chief competitor of deontological ethics in modern moral philosophy: utilitarianism. For utilitarians the right thing to do is obvious and straightforward: the lives of the many outweigh the life of the one. According to Williams, while many of us might agree with the conclusion, we would not regard it as so obviously and straightforwardly the right thing to do as utilitarian thinking would have it. One reason why we would not, as deontologists have emphasized, is that we each have a sense of responsibility

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for our own actions. Should Jim fail to take up the army’s offer, the loss of 19 lives will be a consequence of his inaction, but their murder will not be his doing. As Williams observes, it is difficult to see how any moral outlook could get by without treating the distinction between action and inaction as morally significant, but at the same time we do hold people responsible for things they could have prevented but chose not to. As things stand, at any rate, the question of whether taking lives can be justified if doing so will save more lives is given clear, unequivocal, and opposing answers by deontological and utilitarian ethics, neither of which is easy to embrace with conviction. Consequentialist ethics, of which utilitarianism is a kind, holds that actions are right or wrong not because of their intrinsic characteristics, but because of their consequences. One should decide how to act according to whether one’s actions are likely, on balance, to cause more good than harm or more right than wrong. In Jim’s case, the consequences of his acting violently or of his refusing to do so are obvious, straightforward, and considerable. In reality any beneficial consequences of acts of political violence, particularly in relation to their aims, are often far from obvious. By contrast, the immediate consequences of violent action tend to be all too clear and weigh against their justifiability. Most consequentialists take the view that the harms caused by acts of violence are only likely to be outweighed by their helping to bring an end to substantial evil or injustice. For consequentialists a justification for political violence should satisfy the following three conditions: (1) that it aims and can realistically be expected to rectify serious and remediable wrong; (2) that it does not bring about worse consequences than would happen without it; and (3) that there are no alternative means of securing its aims that would have better consequences. Whether an act of violence satisfies the first condition would depend among other things on one’s view of what counts as a serious and remediable wrong. In the classical utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham, good is identified with happiness and evil with suffering; happiness in turn is equated with pleasure. A serious and remediable wrong, in this view, would be any state of affairs involving needless and substantial suffering. Later utilitarians have rejected Bentham’s equating of happiness with pleasure, and have variously identified it with wellbeing or the satisfaction of desires. Nevertheless, however they define good and evil, all utilitarians accept some version of the Principle of Utility, according to which the rightness or wrongness of actions, social arrangements, and rules depends on the extent to which their consequences increase good and reduce evil. How one should act is therefore decided according to what action is likely to produce the best overall balance of good over evil.

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A standard deontological criticism of utilitarianism is that it can routinely justify theft, deceit, violence, and murder, provided that the harm done is outweighed by the good they cause. A related set of criticisms, touched on in William’s example, concerns the way in which utilitarian thinking conflicts with our ordinary notions of responsibility and agency. A person’s moral liability to attack, and to other kinds of harsh treatment such as punishment, is standardly thought to follow from what s/he has done and from her/his responsibility, as an agent, for what s/he has done. The exclusive emphasis that utilitarianism places on the consequences of actions appears to conflict with this notion in two ways. In the first place, it rules out any principled distinction between a person’s responsibility for what s/he does intentionally and what are foreseeable but unintended consequences of her/his actions or of her/his failure to act. In addition, it does not allow any principled basis for differential treatment of people according to what they have done and what they are responsible for. It therefore allows, in principle, that anyone might be a legitimate target of political violence, regardless of their responsibility for whatever evil or injustice the violence is aimed at ending. Utilitarians can argue that acts of violence against ordinary civilians are unlikely to be effective in achieving their aims, but this is debatable and many would regard the effectiveness of violence in securing its ends, in any case, as an inadequate basis for determining who may justifiably be attacked (a view that may be tacitly accepted by those terrorists and their supporters who have justified targeting civilians on the grounds of their putative responsibility for the actions of their governments). Some consequentialists (including some utilitarians) have responded to these difficulties by arguing that the rightness or wrongness of an action is not determined by the consequences of the action itself, but rather according to whether it respects rules of conduct whose general observance is productive of more good than harm or more right than wrong. Such rule consequentialists therefore aim for a kind of compromise between moral concerns about consequences and deontological claims that some actions are prohibited, under normal circumstances, whatever their consequences. Although the assassination of a brutal police officer, for example, might realistically be expected to have more good consequences than bad, a rule consequentialist would argue that, in general, abiding by laws prohibiting murder has better consequences than if everyone were to decide whether or not to kill according to the likely consequences of doing so. The rule consequentialist method of determining how to act does not, however, yield a general prohibition on the use of political violence. If, for example, the laws prohibiting violence in a particular state apply in practice only to the civilian population and are not enforced

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against the police or the army, observance of the law by civilians might have dire consequences for the population. A society’s rules can be evaluated as a whole and according to context, and abiding by a law that might have beneficial consequences in a just society may be the wrong thing to do under a violent dictatorship or occupying power. One question that arises here is whether, for rule consequentialists, acts of political violence, in an unjust society, are to be assessed according to their consequences or according to general rules of conduct such as the rules of engagement in wartime. If we think of political violence as a departure from normal rules of conduct, the idea that it might be justified according to some general rule of conduct looks like a contrivance. There have been political struggles in which rules about permissible use of violence appear to have been followed, but it is implausible to think that all decisions about violence in such struggles either were or ought to have been carried out according to rules. There is no obvious contradiction, for example, in supposing that an act of violence carried out according to general rules of conduct that have consequentialist backing according to the three conditions set out above, might lack such a justification when considered according to its own specific consequences. Moreover, the good consequences of normal rules of conduct, especially laws, depend on their being generally respected. It is difficult to see how the claim could be made for rules governing the uses of political violence.

Arguments against Violence Duties to Support and to Oppose In an ideally good or just society, we may suppose, violence for political ends will not satisfy the consequentialist conditions for the justification of violence mentioned above, either because such a society, by definition, would not permit a serious and remediable wrong or because it would have effective legal and political alternatives to violence for remedying wrongs and injustices. Thus, for consequentialists, whether political violence is justified will depend to a large extent on how far short of good or just a given society’s arrangements, practices and laws fall. According to the Principle of Utility, a good society is one whose institutions, practices, and social arrangements maximize overall happiness and minimize overall suffering. Critics of utilitarianism have pointed out that a good society, understood in this way, is compatible with, and in some circumstances may positively require unfair and unequal rules and social arrangements, even slavery. In A theory of justice John Rawls argues that the regulative principles according to which the consequences of rules and social arrangements should be assessed are those that embody the idea of justice as fairness. Rawls argues,

against utilitarianism, that the right is prior to the good and cannot be reduced to or defined as that which will maximize the good. A just society, according to Rawls, must satisfy what he describes as the Principle of Liberty and the Principle of Difference. The Principle of Liberty stipulates that all members of society should have the maximum liberty consistent with equal liberty for all. The Principle of Difference calls for as much inequality as is required to make the worst-off better off than they would be in a more equal state of affairs. The Principle of Liberty takes precedence over the Principle of Difference. This has the consequence that restrictions on liberties, which could include property rights, cannot be justified in order to make the worst-off better off. For a Rawlsian consequentialist, therefore, what would qualify as serious and remediable wrong are rules, practices, and social arrangements that seriously violate the two principles. Given the ordering of the principles, it is unlikely that serious violation of the Principle of Difference alone would be sufficient to justify political violence since it is difficult to see how any act of violence could fail to infringe someone’s liberties. Thus, for a Rawlsian, political violence is only likely to be justified in states that seriously restrict freedom in a way that is not required by maximum equality of liberty for all (although, as Rawls notes, different conceptions of liberty provide considerable scope for disagreement about whether a given society satisfies the principle). Egalitarian critics of Rawls, such as Ted Honderich, have suggested that while the two regulative principles are superior to the Principle of Utility, they would allow far more inequality than could properly be called fair. Honderich also argues that given the egregious history of claims about the benefits to the poor of various inequalities, the Principle of Difference, although formally acceptable, would be a poor or ineffective regulative principle by which to judge the fairness of existing societies. Egalitarian consequentialists such as Honderich therefore argue that a just or fair society can only be one that is governed by a Principle of Equality. Certainly there are difficulties in formulating what kinds of measures are called for by such a principle and how to judge to what extent existing societies have failed to satisfy it. According to Honderich, it requires that a priority be made of ‘leveling up’ the worst-off in society. Many egalitarians would argue that existing societies fail to satisfy the principle to such an extent that the justifiability of violence aimed at rectifying this cannot be quickly dismissed. All consequentialists would agree that we have a general duty to abide by and support those institutions, practices, and arrangements that have good or just consequences, and also a duty to oppose those whose consequences are bad or unjust. If a state’s institutions, practices, and arrangements, taken collectively, have

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consequences that are decently close to good and just, we have a general duty to support it and abide by its laws. If, instead, the consequences are far from good and just, then that duty will be either lacking or reduced. Many would argue that contemporary Western societies, while certainly open to improvement, are close enough to good or just that their citizens have a duty to abide by their laws, and perhaps also to support their political institutions. Such societies would not, in that case, suffer from the kind of serious and remediable wrong that might justify political violence. Egalitarian consequentialists, as we have noted, have a less sanguine view about serious and remediable wrong in contemporary societies, including Western societies. In consequence, they are apt to be more skeptical about our supposed duties to abide by the laws and institutions of such societies. They also argue that Western societies have grave responsibilities for serious and remediable wrongs elsewhere in the world. While such wrongs might be enough to satisfy the first condition of political violence, however, the nature and sophistication of modern military and law enforcement technologies, taken together with a judgment about the lengths privileged elites will go to in order to defend their interests, has led some egalitarian consequentialists to the view that violence for egalitarian ends is unlikely to satisfy the second of the consequentialist conditions: that it should not make matters worse than they would be without it. In Hierarchic democracy and the necessity of mass civil disobedience Honderich comes to the dispiriting conclusion that attempts at large-scale egalitarian redistribution by nonviolent and constitutional means are unlikely to satisfy it either. Radical egalitarians might have no intention or desire that their actions – violent or otherwise – should provoke violence in defense of entrenched interests, but if such violence were a foreseeable consequence of their actions it would count against a consequentialist justification for them. (Similar reflections may account for the diminution of recognizably egalitarian claims and trends within contemporary political movements engaged in or associated with political violence.) Honderich has also argued, however, that if egalitarian political violence is not justified, we may consider it less worthy of blame than the intransigence of vested interests and governments that could do much to remedy inequality but that work instead to perpetuate it. Obligations to Obey Setting aside questions about whatever duties we may be said to have to abide by the laws of existing societies, it is also argued that as beneficiaries of laws, of systems of law enforcement and, not least, of the law abiding behavior of others, we incur obligations to abide by laws. The benefits of living under laws are not restricted to protection from murder and injury, but this can certainly be counted

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among the principal benefits. Socrates famously argued that one who accepts and benefits from the protection of law is clearly obliged by that to obey the laws himself, even if, as Socrates was, he has been wrongfully, but legally, condemned to death. The notion that enjoying the protection of the law or the state places us under some obligation to abide by and support them has been urged and argued for in different ways by many political thinkers. It is sometimes expressed in the idea that properly constituted states and laws have an authority that gives them, within limits, a right to our obedience or compliance. The claimed authority is also thought to give the state a right to use violence to whatever extent needed to enforce the law and to protect the country from its enemies. The lack of such authority has been claimed as part of what is meant by political violence. Political violence is unauthorized, and as such, some would argue, beyond justification. There are several questions to consider about obligations to obey the law and what moral weight they have. In the first place, if one has enjoyed or accepted the benefits that come with laws and their enforcement, does the obligation that arises from that take precedence over any other duties one might have? If one has reason to believe that others are less well protected by the law than one, does the protection one has received place an absolute limit on what steps one may take to help them? In addition, how do one’s obligations stand if one’s protectors engage in unjust violence toward others? And how do things stand if one’s protectors uphold a system that allows children needlessly to go hungry? Or if they provide support to other states that do so? The benefits one derives from laws are not, it may be thought, owed solely or as such to the state that upholds them. We may think that our obligations to obey the law are, in a sense, obligations to those others whose lawabiding behavior we benefit by. If we consider our legal obligations in this way, further questions present themselves. For example, if one has reason to believe that the most law-abiding of one’s fellow citizens are those who would have most to lose if laws were not observed, do whatever benefits one derives from their law-abiding behavior place a limit on what one may justifiably do to help others who have much less to lose? Or if there is reason to believe that those with least to lose could have more if only those with most to lose were prepared to have less, how much should one consider oneself bound or obliged by the benefits one receives from the lawabiding behavior of the latter? We might also ask: what are our obligations to law-abiding citizens who, without threat of serious legal penalty, deliberately allow and benefit from working conditions that can cause physical ruin and death to those unfortunate enough to have to work in them?

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Discussions about political obligation often assume that all are equal under the law: that all are equally protected. If, in a spirit of realism, we drop the assumption and consider the case of those who are relatively poorly served by the law, what should we take their obligations to be? Do they have obligations to obey that are weighty enough to rule out their having any justification for engaging in illegal defensive or vigilante activity? And would they be wrong to engage in political violence aimed at creating a system of law enforcement that serves them as well as it currently does others? None of the questions just considered are enough to undermine the idea that people have obligations to obey the law, or to dismiss it as ideological contrivance. They do, however, call for careful consideration, especially if one is inclined to think that our legal obligations block all possibility of justified political violence. We might also wonder whether considerations about legal obligation, or the authority of the state and law, do justice to what can be said against political violence. If, for example, we suppose that a terrorist has somehow managed not to avail himself of the benefits and protection afforded by the law, should his actions be considered less blameworthy on that account? Violence and Reason Violence, according to some thinkers, is mostly irrational. Their claim is not, and could hardly be, that there are never circumstances in which a person might have good reasons for acting violently. There are, to mention one reason, violent and murderous people in defense against whom violence is sometimes the only reasonable resort. The claim, as advanced by Karl Popper and others, is that to resort to violence as a means of settling disputes is irrational or unreasonable. Other things being equal, to settle a dispute by reasoning or arguing it through is preferable to using violence to do so. If one reasons with an opponent, one may persuade him by one’s arguments and get what one wants without injury to either. Alternatively, one may be brought to see the force of one’s position and to give up one’s claims. That one should be open to either possibility is characteristic of what Popper takes to be the attitude of reasonableness: a commitment to give-and-take discussion. This, it will be noticed, is allowed for and indeed required by the third of the consequentialist conditions for the justification of violence mentioned earlier. The point of Popper’s claims may be to emphasize that condition against those who are too ready to conclude that reasoning and discussion will be ineffective or too ready to give vent to feelings such as anger and vengefulness. Perhaps many who resorted to violence in pursuit of their political ends did give insufficient time and thought to reasoning with their opponents. It can scarcely be denied that had the outcomes of many

violent struggles and wars been decided by reasoning, millions would have had longer lives, millions now dead would still be with us, and millions would have been spared grievous injury. Ought we therefore to conclude, with Popper, that violence is the precise opposite of reason? Whether violently attacking someone is the precise opposite of reasoning with him, to do the one, undeniably, is not to do the other. Does it follow that violence, if not exactly an opposite, stands at some distance from reason or rationality? This would follow if it were a requirement of reason or rationality that we should always attempt to reason with someone with whom we are in disagreement or dispute. That it is not has been mentioned already and is insisted on by Popper himself: it may not be possible to reason with someone who would rather shoot you than reason with you. When faced with violence and intolerance, violence and intolerance can be reasonable responses and presumably what makes them so under those circumstances is that those circumstances, coupled with an assumption that we do not wish to be injured or murdered, give us reason for using violence. Violence under those circumstances, far from being the precise opposite of reason, may be rational: rational in the familiar sense of being the best means to our ends. Still, what would make violence rational, in that case, is the unreasonable violence of our opponent. The implication is that, were it not for the fact that some people behave unreasonably and intolerantly, there would never be a reason for violence. While this might not make violence exactly the opposite of reason, it does imply that the occurrence of violence always requires a lack of reason or rationality on someone’s part. The claim that violence always involves unreasonableness or irrationality on the part of at least one antagonist appears to be supported by what we have already noted about past wars and violent struggles: that if their outcomes had been decided by reasoning matters through, millions of people would have had longer or healthier lives. One objection to putting the matter like this is that the outcomes of such struggles might have gone differently had they been carried out by reasoning. The concern expressed is that what good has been achieved through violent struggle might not have been achieved, or that less might have been achieved, had matters been decided by reasoning. The ready reply is that violence has no better claim as a means to justice than reasoning: if anything, it has most likely a poorer claim (although Georges Sorel and others have denied this). Mistaking Your Opponents Intentions or Capabilities A more telling objection is that in many disputes that have been brought to a conclusion by reasoning, give-and-take discussion, negotiation, and the like, it took violence by

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party A to bring party B to the negotiating table. Let us suppose, then, that party A tries every reasonable means – petitions, lobbies, demonstrations, civil disobedience, and so forth – to get a hearing for its case before resorting to violence. If party B simply refuses to negotiate or to listen, but otherwise behaves peacefully, party A’s violence would lack the justification of defense from attack. It would not follow, without further assumptions, that it lacked any justification or that it lacked reason. Ought we to say, instead, that it is party B that is behaving unreasonably in refusing to listen or negotiate, thereby leaving party A with no alternative means of getting a serious hearing for its case other than resorting to violence? This might depend on the nature of party A’s claims. Is it reasonable to negotiate with someone whose claims are unreasonable? The obvious difficulty facing us here is that what is judged to be reasonable is often linked to prior and arguable judgments about the fairness, propriety, and reasonability of the status quo as well as the legitimacy and moral standing of constitutions, property rights, freedoms, and sovereignty. That we lack any means of resolving arguments about them that commands common agreement is a fact of social and political life. Judgments about reasonability and about what should be given a hearing, moreover, are also colored by material interests. Judgments colored in this way are often described as ‘ideological’ but such labeling does not come close to establishing truths on which all can agree. Suppose party B’s refusal to negotiate issues from a hard-headed refusal to relinquish established and valued advantages and interests: does it follow from this that its obduracy is irrational? According to Popper, when opposing interests are at stake the only alternatives are reasonable compromise or to attempt to destroy one’s opponent. But violence in pursuit of interests may be directed at less extreme ends than outright destruction of an opponent. The intent of party A’s violence, we can suppose, is to give party B a reason for ending its refusal to negotiate. If party B could have foreseen that party A would use violence successfully to force it to the negotiating table, it would have been rational, other things being equal, for party B to begin negotiating without being forced. If party B’s intelligence was that party A would not resort to violence, or that it lacked the means to use it effectively, its refusal would not have been obviously irrational. What should also be noted here is that violence need not only be a means of bringing opponents to the negotiating table, but can be a key element in negotiating. Supposing, again, that party B is committed to defending its established interests, what kind of argument would give it reasons to concede party A’s claims? It is possible to think of arguments that try to show that selfishly pursuing only one’s own interests is self-defeating or unfulfilling, and such arguments can be telling, but they typically fall short of conclusively proving the case. If

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party B is unmoved by such arguments, or by considerations of justice or sovereignty, then it may be that the only effective argument in favor of its meeting party A’s claims will be one that demonstrates that it is in its interests to do so. The threat of violence, backed up by concrete demonstrations, is clearly relevant in calculations of material interest. Just as judgments have to be made in disputes about the strength and determination of opponents, likewise judgments must be made about what reasoning and negotiation are likely to achieve. If there are reasons for thinking that one’s opponent’s willingness to negotiate is a pretense, or that negotiations are being deliberately drawn out, this can also be weighed against alternative means. An occupying power, for example, might intend to negotiate with a liberation movement only until world attention has been distracted elsewhere. And while negotiations are dragged out injustices may persist and people may starve. Such considerations show that it is far from obvious that it is always rational to reason with an opponent who is willing to come to the negotiating table. To be prepared to reason with our opponents, and to do so in a spirit of give-and-take, is doubtless a good general policy. Looking back on many wars and violent struggles we may judge that things would have gone better if the policy had been followed more often. But the judgment is based on a view of the outcomes of past struggles that was obviously unavailable to those involved. While it may be true that many violent struggles would have been better resolved by reasoning, it is, at any rate, not a necessary truth that any occurrence of violence requires irrationality or lack of reason on the part of at least one of the protagonists. It can also be added, in line with our discussion of material interests, that violence and the threat of it cannot by definition be excluded from what can count as reasoning. According to Hannah Arendt and others, even if not all violence is unreasonable, violence for revolutionary or large-scale egalitarian goals is: violence is only ever likely to succeed in achieving short-term concrete aims. Success of larger more far-reaching aims depends on many variables: entrenched interests, economics trends, balance of political forces, and so forth. The variables are not such as to allow for sound prediction. Violence that aims at largescale change cannot, therefore, be based on a wellfounded judgment that it will be successful. In that case, its use for such ends must be irrational. The argument is clearly related to the first consequentialist condition for the justification of violence: that it can realistically be expected to meet its aims. Few would take issue with the argument: the various premises have much support from human experience and social science and the conclusion, if not exactly tight, is difficult to resist. But how relevant is it? It is hard to think of real examples of political violence that did not have short-term concrete

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ends. Indeed, it is difficult to think of any long-term political campaign that would not require the adoption of short and medium-term aims and to consider what actions were required to realize them. Neither are shortterm aims always just means to the long-term end. Violence might aim at the release of a group of political prisoners or an end to their torture. Should we consider such violence to be irrational because its concrete short-term aim will also serve a less predictable longer-term aim? That would require more argument than has been given. Violence and Democracy Persuasion and give-and-take discussion have also featured in arguments that political violence is necessarily undemocratic. Democracy requires freedom to vote in accordance with our beliefs and preferences and, arguably, the opportunity to persuade others by argument as well as the opportunity to be so persuaded by the arguments of others. Since violence necessarily involves force rather than reasoned persuasion, some have argued, it is incompatible with democratic process. Violence can be thought of as democratic if it is directed against undemocratic systems, the argument continues, but only in that sense. Our duties to uphold and support democratic systems and our obligations to abide by democratic decisions, it is claimed, rule out any justification for political violence against or within democratic states. (The claim has also featured in arguments against measures to restrict various rights and freedoms that are thought to make it more difficult to apprehend or successfully convict terrorists: such restrictions, it is argued, may lead to weakening of respect for democracy and law.) It can be argued that since it is possible for democratic majorities to behave unjustly toward minorities political violence aimed at rectifying democratic injustices might, in some circumstances, be justified. Many would argue, however, that such circumstances are rare or nonexistent in contemporary Western democracies, which have effective legal and constitutional channels for pursuing minority grievances. By contrast, Honderich has argued that if we set aside ideal notions of democracy, as involving free and open debate, in which representatives vote solely according to their assessments of reasoned arguments, and look instead to the actual operation of political decision making in Western democracies, we can consider political violence as a way of bringing persuasive pressure to bear on governments and legislative assemblies that is akin to the pressures exerted by wealthy and powerful interest groups in such democracies. Some political violence may be viewed, in that case, as helping to rectify the undemocratic influence of wealthy and powerful elites, thereby helping to achieve greater democracy. If an act of

violence could properly be thought of as democratic in this way, it would not be enough to justify it, although it might well be relevant to its justifiability.

Universal Duties and Moral Partiality The deontological and consequentialist models of ethical reasoning we have considered, as well as the subsidiary arguments about political duties and obligations, reason, and democracy, are all universal in scope; which is to say, they appeal to principles for judging the rightness and wrongness of actions, which according to their supporters ought to be accepted by any person. For deontologists a person’s rights not to be violently attacked or unjustly imprisoned are not dependent on or mediated in any way by their membership of a nation or community or by that of a potential attacker. Likewise, for consequentialists, the principles according to which the consequences of institutions, rules, or actions are to be evaluated are indifferent to gender, creed, class, or association. Both kinds of moral reasoning can, within the terms set by their principles, allow some kinds of partiality toward others. Both can agree, for example, that parents have obligations to their own children that they do not have to children generally. Both can agree that to be a citizen of a country or a member of an organization entails obligations and duties to other members that do not extend to outsiders. Nevertheless, both kinds of ethical reasoning have been criticized for the ways in which their universalism has been thought to limit, unreasonably or immorally, the scope of affiliations, bonds, citizenship, and material interests. Suppose the children of a community have died or suffered severe illness as a result of advertising, misinforming parents and health workers that a baby milk formula is better for their children than mother’s milk. The manufacturers have also supplied free formula milk to maternity hospitals, causing newborn babies to become dependent on it. Community activists have explored all effective nonviolent means of putting an end to these practices. They have protested to the manufacturers, to their own government and that of the manufacturers’ country. They have, in addition, brought the matter to the attention of the international press and broadcasting media, as well as international regulatory bodies, and they have campaigned for legislative change. But the manufacturers have persisted in their practices, using inducements to secure the acquiescence of government, as well as counterpropaganda and manipulation of legal loopholes. The resources of local activists are negligible in comparison to what is available to the manufacturers. They have had some success in getting the dangers of the formula across to mothers and health workers, but this has been hampered by their limited resources, human gullibility in the face of sophisticated

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advertising, continuation of supplies of free milk to hospitals, and legal challenges from the manufacturers. Having explored all realistic nonviolent alternatives without success and with children continuing to suffer and die, what are the activists to do? While deontological ethical reasoning may recognize the immorality of the manufacturers’ behavior, it rules out any justification for violence against them. The manufacturers may be behaving in a harmful way, but they are not engaged in violent attack and do nothing to force mothers to use their product. If the activists judge that only resorting to violence against the manufacturers, their directors, employees, and collaborators is likely to bring them to mend their ways, especially if the violence intentionally causes death or injury, there can be no justification, on a strictly deontological view, for their doing so. The rights of, say, a company executive (whose own children are healthy, well-fed, and otherwise well cared for) not to be murdered or attacked must take precedence over any consideration about the certain harm that will be caused to more of the community’s children if drastic measures are not taken to stop it. Anti-universalist critics of deontological reasoning would argue that it is perverse to suggest in such a situation that concern for one’s children or the children of one’s community would be morally trumped by a duty to respect the rights of those whose behavior causes them avoidable harm. Even if we suppose that the activists decide that it would be wrong to injure or murder, many would consider it strange or contrived – absurdly legalistic, even – to imagine that the force of the moral concerns that limit what the activists feel can justifiably be done to protect their community’s children issues from a respect for the rights of members of the manufacturing company. It might be thought that the objection to deontological reasoning is not, in a strict sense, anti-universalist. Much of the force of the example derives from concerns about the well-being of children: the special duties we have to children, a universalist might argue, are duties to all children. The example reminds us, moreover, that there are other ways of causing harm than what we may call (to forestall an unpromising argument about whether the company’s actions constitute a kind of violence) open violence. In that case the implicit criticism of deontological reasoning is not directed at its universalism, but at its assumption that violence can only be justified in defense from open violence. While duties to children and defense against harm caused by means other than open violence do raise distinct problems for deontological reasoning, however, there is a further significant element in the example that concerns the special obligations we have toward our own children: obligations that are additional to any universal duties we may have to children as such. (It is also worth noting that in communities living in circumstances that make mutual interdependence and

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loyalties strong, special obligations to protect and nurture children may extend to community members other than parents and relatives in ways that would not, in the same way, be true of most parts of Europe and the United States.) Obligations to one’s own children or those of one’s community are partial in scope: they not only allow but positively require us to give partial consideration to the well-being of our own children. Such obligations may not always outweigh consideration or respect for the rights of others, but they do require what can be called a moral partiality in our actions toward our children. In contrast to deontological ethical reasoning, consequentialism might allow that acts of violence against the company could be justified, provided the consequences for overall happiness, justice, or equality are best served by it. But consequentialist universalism requires that in reasoning about the right course of action the consequences for the children should have no greater individual weight than those for company members. It is unlikely that such calculation would approximate closely to the moral reflections of the activists. A familiar consequentialist response to the likely dissonance between the activists’ moral reflections and consequentialist calculation would be that judgments made according to ordinary moral concerns about, for example, loyalty and obligation do involve weighing up of consequences and will generally approximate those that would follow from consequentialist calculation. The approximation to consequentialist calculation, it is suggested, can be thought of as an approximation to an ideal. There is certainly room for doubt about whether the claim is well founded in respect of ordinary moral reflection in general and whether it can safely be made in respect of reasoning about violence for political ends. In addition, talk of approximation to an ideal moral calculation would appear to suggest that to whatever extent the activists’ reflections depart from the model of consequentialist reasoning – for example, in showing partiality toward their children – it lacks moral authenticity. Understanding Islam Moving beyond partial obligations to one’s children, the anti-universalist argument against both deontological and consequentialist thinking can be strengthened by drawing on other obligations and duties that present difficulties for their universalism. Ties and obligations to members of one’s community, nation, religion, or class based on mutual dependency, need, or common oppression have all been cited in support of the claim that universalism not only places unrealistic requirements on moral agents, but that it is unrealistic about the nature and grounding of morality, moral claims, and moral psychology. Philosophers such as Aristotle, Hegel, and, more recently,

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communitarian theorists, have all argued that a person’s rights, duties, obligations, and moral values are always grounded in the practices, rules, associations, and ways of living of the moral community to which she belongs, whether clan, city, or state. The argument can be extended to embrace other moral communities such as religious groups. If rights, duties, and obligations are always grounded in a particular community and its way of life, they will be, to some extent, partial in their source and in their scope. Authentically moral judgments about what to do follow from one’s commitments within and to a community, rather than from dispassionate assessment of universal rights or interests. Another influential contemporary argument against both deontological and consequentialist universalism is that it is only within a community with well-established practices and traditions that we can take for granted the kind of shared ethical understanding that will allow us to agree about matters concerning well-being, justice, and right and what they permit or require us to do or prohibit us from doing. It is a feature of modern life, according to thinkers like Alasdair MacIntyre, that such agreement is increasingly stymied by the fragmentation and breakdown of community and tradition. A related attitude toward the possibility of common moral agreement can be seen in the writings of thinkers such as Marx and Fannon who see moral rules and beliefs as reflecting class and group interests. Such thinkers, while being ready at times to engage in moral condemnation of exploitation, racism, and dehumanization, are consequently skeptical about the effectiveness of appeals to justice and morality in securing social change. While there may be some agreement across classes, or between oppressors and oppressed, that poverty and squalor are evil, differences of material interest and social location (and consequent differences about moral priorities) rule out any possibility of agreement on what to do about them. For these same reasons, and for as long as existing forms of exploitation and oppression persist, no actions – violent or otherwise – taken in pursuit of political and social ends can hope to be given a justification that could, even in principle, command universal assent. At the same time Marx and Fannon, along with many who have shared their attitudes, acted and argued for action in ways that reflected clear moral commitments to those classes and peoples whose interests they championed. While both have been accused of amoralism, it is more likely that they believed that the actions and strategies they advocated had moral justifications (although Marx’s attitude to insurrectionary violence was markedly more sanguine than Fannon’s), but justifications that were partial in scope, appeal, and effectiveness. A standard objection to arguments for moral partiality is that obligations and responsibilities to community, family, and country must be limited by duties to respect

the rights or interests of human beings in general, if we are not to be left with a moral indifference to those with whom we have no ties of kinship, citizenship, or community. Rejection or downgrading of universal rights and duties would leave us with no basis for condemnation of imperialism or of xenophobic genocide. The arguments for and against anti-universalism on this point would take us beyond the subject matter of this article but it should be noted that the anti-universalist claims considered above do not entail any straightforward denial that we have duties to human beings as such (whatever the claims of anti-universalists such as Fannon and Sartre) or that universal duties are always trumped by claims of community and kinship. The case against universalist justifications or prohibitions of the use of political violence can roughly be summarized as follows: (1) that human beings have special responsibilities, obligations, and duties that are partial in scope; (2) that these moral claims arise from associations and practices of kinship, community, and citizenship, as well as common interests and mutual dependency, common endeavor, and even love; (3) that they sometimes permit us, and to some extent require us, to override or disregard what duties we may have to respect the rights or interests of others, particularly those who are our enemies, aggressors, and oppressors; and (4) that, given the grounding of moral claims mentioned in (2) there is no possibility of any justification for (or prohibition against) political actions, least of all violent actions, that can command universal moral assent.

Conclusion It has been argued that support for and opposition to campaigns of violence is necessarily rooted in ideological commitment, which is, perhaps, just a shorthand way of expressing the anti-universalist reflections already mentioned in relation to Marx and Fannon. In support of this it can be claimed that many of the arguments about political violence we have considered are, precisely because of their universality, so general and abstract as to offer no clear guidance about the justifiability of violence in particular and concrete circumstances. The point has already been made in respect of the argument about the comparative rationality of violence for short and longterm ends. And how often, after all, has political violence been undertaken in order to remedy what its agents believed to be minor wrongs and injustices? or in the conviction that their ends would be better or less harmfully served by other means or by doing nothing? It is only when we move beyond the schoolroom generalities of consequentialist treatises, it may be argued, that any real and substantive argument about the justification of violence can begin; and the real and substantive is inevitably

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bedeviled by uncertainty about alternatives and their consequences and framed by the claims of ideological commitment and moral partiality. It has also been claimed that the moral outlook of those who place constraints about universal rights and absolute wrongs in the way of what may be done to achieve greater social justice and equality is typical of those who have little to benefit from greater social justice and equality: their principles, it is suggested, are as rooted in ideology as everyone else’s. If such claims about ideology, commitment, and partiality are set against those of the standard deontological and consequentialist models of ethical reasoning, the obvious and familiar conclusion we may come to is that, as we would expect of any matter that touches on substantive concerns in morals, philosophy, or politics, political violence and what may be said in justification of it is a matter of irreconcilable disagreement and unbridgeable division. The conclusion can be resisted. In the first place, it comes close to an endorsement of the claims of one of the disagreeing parties since at least one intent of the claim that attitudes toward political violence are ideological is to say that it is a matter of practically irreconcilable disagreement. Moreover, none of the arguments and principles considered in this article could properly be thought of as issuing from ideology and nothing more. Each of the claims we have considered, about rights and bad means to good ends, consequences and alternatives, rationality, political obligation and authority, community and moral partiality, and finally, about ideology and the efficacy of moral argument, has recommendations. The recommendations can be evaluated, disputed, made more precise, and compared, which may take us beyond entrenched disagreement, assuming that is all we have in the first place. If none of us is entirely open to persuasion, there is nothing in any of the arguments we have considered that would place its adherents entirely beyond persuasion. It is unrealistic to hope that persuasion might bring all of our opponents to see matters as we do, or to entertain the idea that we, and those who think as we do, are, in principle, entirely open to persuasion. It is similarly unrealistic, and would presuppose a kind of faith in universalism, to think that we might, through argument and persuasion, come to a hitherto unelaborated position on which all might agree. But agreement on a general moral approach to political violence is, arguably, neither necessary nor sufficient for agreement about actual cases. Debate and disagreement about violent and nonviolent means is not peculiar to political theory and philosophy: it has been a feature of many modern struggles against injustice. One large recommendation of philosophical reflection about political violence is that it supposedly enables us to disengage from party and ideological commitment, as well as the details and peculiarities of particular struggles, so that through dispassionate inquiry

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we may reach agreement about the general principles according to which violence can be justified. Such a procedure is also supposed to enable us to determine what constitutes an authentic moral justification for violence, freed from the amoral, political, or merely pragmatic considerations that enter into the arguments and debates of political agents and their followers. It can be argued, however, that, far from disengagement, philosophical reflection introduces additional commitments and further possibilities for disagreement: about whether, for example, the moral status of actions or rules is to be assessed according to their consequences or whether certain actions are wrong in themselves. Moreover, despite the generality of philosophical and theoretical argument, it is often tacitly or explicitly conducted with an eye to the moral standing or legitimacy of existing states, institutions, and social arrangements and what may legitimately be done within or against them. Wherever published philosophical and theoretical reflection about political violence may stand in relation to ideology, those who engage in it are certainly, as Honderich has argued, in the business of advocacy: their arguments are intended to issue recommendations about the political ends we should seek and the means we may adopt in pursuit of them. This is not to say that philosophical and theoretical reflection about violence is a fruitless exercise: there are, after all, general issues or principles concerning political ends and the means used to achieve them that can and should be considered to some extent in abstraction from particular cases. But there are grounds for skepticism about what special authority might, on account of its generality and disengagement, be claimed for such reflection and also for wariness about being drawn into arguments about general ethical theory. It might be thought that since justifications for violence must appeal to ethical first principles, general ethical theory must have a logical or reflective priority over ethical thinking about violence. What this overlooks, however, is that the standing of any ethical theory or reasoning about first principles can be, and often is, assessed according to its implications for particular subjects such as the moral status of acts of violence and what we would otherwise be inclined to think or say about them. With this in mind let us set aside commitments and arguments about first principles and consider what scope for agreement about political violence might be gained by doing so. Say that the community activists considered earlier were reluctantly to conclude, in light of their obligations to protect the children of their community, that they have no decent alternative but to resort to violence against the representatives of the baby milk manufacturers. If one takes the view that this would be an unjustified violation of the rights of the company representatives, one might still consider that the intentions of the activists, albeit wrong or mistaken, do issue

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from genuine ethical reasoning about the issues. It would be a mistake to think that their actions and intentions would be on a par with violent robbery carried out for selfish gain and without thought to victims. Likewise, if a political movement allows the interests or rights of their own community, class, or citizens to override those of their oppressors or the citizens of a colonial occupier, their violent actions may lack the recommendation of either deontological or consequentialist reasoning, but if members of the movement act as they do in the belief that their obligations call for them to give preference to their own over others, we should view their actions differently than if they are simply indifferent to the rights, interests, or humanity of anyone else. Conversely, a member of the same group who hinders or endangers the group’s actions in order to avoid harm to an innocent member of an occupying power might be condemned by his comrades but they would be wrong to view his actions as of a piece with that of a hired informer. Where an agent’s judgment about political violence is at odds with any of the standard lines of reflection we have considered, therefore, it does not follow from this that s/he must be indifferent to the concerns or principles they contain or that her/his judgment must somehow fall short of being genuinely moral. An agent may arrive at a judgment about political violence that differs from one or more of the standard models because of a different appreciation of the morally relevant considerations; in other words, that those considerations weigh differently with her than what is required by the standard model. If this is so, then philosophers and theorists who wish to have anything to say to such an agent must engage with her assessment of the relevant considerations, including the relevant facts. The relevant facts may include those about inequality; for example, that the gap in average life expectancy between the wealthiest in the wealthiest countries and the poorest in the poorest countries comes to what, according to Honderich, can be described as a ‘species difference’, and that the shorter lives contain far less of what makes life worth living. The relevant facts would also include those about violence and its effects: facts about who or what is attacked, about the scale of injury and death, and about what is intended and what foreseen as well as facts about the violence of governments. Facts are relevant, however, not simply as objects of an agent’s thinking and judgments about means to political ends: rather her experiences of certain facts and the significance she attaches to them will affect and figure in her assessment of other relevant considerations. Whether one considers that moral rules and principles are universal and absolute or local and relative, one can accept that if someone has never owned and had never had security of property, s/he lacks a significant reason for respecting the property of others. Similarly, it may be argued, one who lives among the poorest tenth of the poorest countries

(or even one who has strong sympathies with those who do) may be thought to lack a reason for giving equal weight to the rights of the wealthiest tenth in the wealthiest countries not to be attacked or killed. As a proposal for the conduct of reflection and discussion about political violence and what may be said for or against it, some will reject this suggestion as a discreditable moral subjectivism. A person’s duties and obligations, whatever they may be and whatever their relationships to facts, are independent of her/his experiences of facts and of her/his subjective assessments of the morally relevant considerations. One can take this view, however, as well as holding to the view that only defensive violence can be justified or that morality requires that the interests of all agents who will be affected by an action must weigh equally in any justification of it, while still allowing that the bad or mistaken judgments of those who think differently may issue from recognizable moral perspectives. If we think that an agent does not give due weight to the rights or interests of all persons, or, alternatively, if we urge that s/he has given insufficient weight to her/his obligations to her/his own community, we must provide her/him with reasons for thinking differently and that will require some understanding of why s/he sees things as s/he does. It may also call for a rigorously Popperian openness to counterarguments about our own moral assessments and how they relate to our situation and experiences. To adopt the proposal might be to go too far in the direction of substantive political argument and also of moral anthropology than some philosophers believe to be proper for the discipline. Some may also be suspicious of the claim that wrong or bad moral judgments may issue from authentically moral reasoning. But those who reject the proposal and continue to confine their inquiries to the general conditions for the justification of violence ought, one might think, to have something to say about the point of the enterprise: providing the materials for well-argued endorsements or denunciations of acts of violence hardly seems enough. See also: Just-War Criteria; Law and Violence; Means and Ends; Terrorism; Violence as Solution, Culture of

Further Reading Anscombe, G. E. M. (1981). War and murder. In Ethics, Religion and Politics: The Collected Philosophical Papers of G. E. M. Anscombe 3, 51–61. Oxford: Blackwell. Arendt, H. (1970). On violence. London: Allen Lane. Edgley, R. (1974). Reason and violence: A fragment of the ideology of liberal intellectuals. In Korner, S. (ed.) Practical reason. Oxford: Blackwell. Fannon, F. (1967). The wretched of the Earth, with preface by J. P. Sartre. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Fashima, O. (1989). Frantz Fannon and the ethical justification of anti-colonial violence. Social Theory and Practice 15, 179–212.

Just-War Criteria Fried, C. (1978). Right and wrong. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. French, P. A. (1974). Morally blaming whole populations. In Held, V., Morgenbesser, S., and Nagel, T. (eds.) Philosophy, morality and international affairs. New York: Oxford University Press. Gomberg, P. (1990). Can a partisan be a moralist? American Philosophical Quarterly 27(1): 71–79. Honderich, T. (1995). Hierarchic democracy and the necessity of mass civil disobedience. London: South Place Ethical Society. Honderich, T. (2003). Terrorism for humanity: Inquiries in political philosophy (rev. edn. of Violence for equality: Inquiries in political philosophy). London: Pluto. Honderich, T. (2006). Humanity, terrorism, terrorist war: Palestine, 9/11, Iraq, 7/7. . .. London: Continuum. Khatchadourian, H. (1991). Terrorism and morality. In Almond, B. and Hill, D. (eds.) Applied philosophy: Moral and metaphysics in contemporary debate. London: Routledge. MacIntyre, A. (1981). After virtue. London: Duckworth.

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Margolis, J. (1974). War and ideology. In Held, V., Morgenbesser, S., and Nagel, T. (eds.) Philosophy, morality and international affairs. New York: Oxford University Press. Nielsen, K. (1972). On the choice between reform and revolution. In Held, V., Nielsen, K., and Parsons, C. (eds.) Philosophy and political action. New York: Oxford University Press. Popper, K. R. (1972). Violence and Utopia. In Conjectures and refutations. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Rawls, J. (1955). Two concepts of rules. Philosophical Review 64, 3–32. Rawls, J. (1973). A theory of justice. New York: Oxford University Press. Sorel, G. (1950). Reflections on violence. London: Collier Macmillan. Williams, B. and Smart, J. J. C. (1973). Utilitarianism: For and against. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.

Relevant Websites http://www.ucl.ac.uk/uctytho/ – Ted Hunderich’s website. http:/pers-www.wlv.ac.uk/fa1918/sorel.htm

Just-War Criteria Brien Hallett, University of Hawaii, Manoa, Honolulu, HI, USA ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Criteria Evaluating the Criteria

Glossary Consequentialist Ethics The view that decisions should be based primarily on the consequences of action. Deontological Ethics The view that decisions should be based primarily on principles of moral duty.

The just-war criteria organize discussions of war. They provide a language and structure for choosing the lesser of two evils. Consequently, they do not provide an external or mechanical means to calculate the justice or injustice of either side’s decision to wage war. Initially, the jus ad bellum criteria are used to organize the debate as to whether or not to begin a war. Subsequently, when the decision is for war, the jus in bello criteria are used to organize debates over appropriate diplomatic, economic, or military actions during the war. The empirical foundation of the criteria is the principle of double effect, the principle that every action produces both good and bad, intended and unintended consequences. Because of this double effect, decisions concerning which of two evils to choose should be made only after a thorough investigation of both the justification and the prudence of the

Issues Raised by the Criteria Further Reading

Jus ad bellum ‘The law or right to war’, the criteria that should be debated before deciding ‘to’ initiate a war. Jus in bello ‘The law or right in war’, the criteria that should be debated before deciding to use this or that strategy, tactic, or weapon during a war.

alternative courses of action and the means by which each alternative will be accomplished. It is the specific purpose of the criteria to ensure that this investigation is disciplined and thorough, none of the important perspectives or circumstances having been left out.

The Criteria The just-war criteria, as the three versions in Table 1 indicate, are not fixed and immutable. Through the millennia different authors have compiled different lists, shifting and changing the emphasis as their interests and circumstances demanded. For example, in his Summa Theologica, Thomas Aquinas was content with listing the three justificatory criteria of the ad bellum criteria – competent authority, just

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cause, and right intention, ignoring the prudential criteria. He also emphasized the competent authority criterion as part of the effort to minimize and control private wars, which were a great problem during the Middle Ages. In 1983, the Catholic bishops listed only two in bello criteria, adding right intention to their list a decade later, in 1993. The only settled points are (1) that the criteria, whatever their number, are founded upon the operation of the principle of double effect; and (2) that the question of war and peace divides into two distinct parts: the initial decision to begin a war, that is, the jus ad bellum criteria, and subsequent decisions on the diplomatic, economic, or military conduct of the war, that is, the jus in bello criteria. Inasmuch as the second version of the criteria in Table 1 is the most elaborate, it will be adopted for purposes of illustration. To add specificity to the discussion, the Declaration of Independence will be used to illustrate the ad bellum criteria, while the Allied carpet

bombing of World War II will be used to question the in bello criteria. Sherman’s march to the sea also raises interesting in bello questions. Two additional points of interest: Unlike the ad bellum criteria, the in bello criteria of discrimination and proportionality of means have been codified in international law. They are the principles that animate the laws and customs of war as codified in the Hague and Geneva Conventions. This neglect of the ad bellum criteria may, however, be changing with the publication of The Responsibility to Protect and A More Secure World. Second, none of the criteria invoke or rely upon any sort of religious principle. Although the criteria have been associated with the Christian Church since Augustine and Islam since the ninth century, they are based upon the entirely secular principle of double effect, as the following discussion will demonstrate. Jus ad bellum Justificatory criteria

Table 1 Three versions of the Just-war criteria Version 1: A. Just causes to resort to war. 1. To protect the innocent from unjust attack. 2. To restore rights wrongfully denied. 3. To reestablish an order necessary for a decent human existence. B. Criteria for determining a just cause: 1. Lawful authority 2. Clear declaration of causes and aims 3. Just intention 4. Last resort 5. Probability of success 6. Proportionality of ends 7. Maintenance of jus in bello a. Noncombatant immunity (Potter 1970) Version 2: I. Jus ad bellum (Right to war) A. Just cause against a real and certain danger B. Competent authority C. Comparative justice D. Right intention E. Last resort F. Probability of success G. Proportionality of ends II. Jus in bello (Right in war) A. Proportionality of means B. Discrimination, i.e., noncombatant immunity C. Right intention (United States Catholic Conference 1993) Version 3: In order to be fought justly. 1. War must be publicly declared. 2. War must be declared by a competent authority. 3. War must be fought with the right intention. 4. War must be fought for a just cause. 5. War must be fought for a proportionate reason. 6. War must be fought for a just peace. 7. War must be a last resort. (Johnson and Kelsay 1990, 58)

Just cause

The purpose of the war must be to enhance and further peace and justice by righting some grievous wrong. The traditional causes listed in the first version in Table 1 establish the general categories of legitimate purposes. Given the importance of this criterion, more than half of the Declaration of Independence is devoted to arguing the colonists’ just cause, presenting both philosophical and practical reasons. In terms of philosophy, the rebellion is justified because the Crown had frustrated the basic purpose of all government by denying the colonists their ‘inalienable rights’, and thereby had lost all legitimacy. In terms of practical politics, Jefferson listed 27 specific grievances, ranging from ‘‘He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing Importance, . . .’’ to ‘‘He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.’’ Competent (legitimate or lawful) authority

Not only must the authority be competent in the general sense of being a legitimate sovereign, it (or its ally) must also be competent in the particular sense of being the legitimate sovereign over the territory or issue under dispute in the war. For example, during the Opium Wars, Great Britain was a competent authority to wage war in the general sense of being an internationally recognized sovereign, but she was not competent in the particular sense of being the legitimate sovereign of China, and, therefore, able to legislate whether the Chinese would or would not import opium. Until the fourteenth century, this criterion was used to disallow revolutionary wars because their leaders were not sovereign authorities. Under pressure from the Counter-Reformation, John Calvin developed his Lesser

Just-War Criteria

Magistrates doctrine, which holds that duly constituted, but inferior, public authorities possess a duty to lead an oppressed people in revolt against obstinately tyrannical ‘Superior Magistrates’. In line with Calvin’s doctrine, the Declaration asserts the colonists competence to wage war in two different way: First, under natural law, it asserts in the very first sentence that, ‘‘When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, . . . .’’ Then, in the concluding paragraph, competence is based upon the rock of representative government, ‘‘We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; . . . .’’ Calvin’s Lesser Magistrate doctrine does not, however, extend to guerrilla wars or wars of national liberation, which, most frequently, are private wars led by groups with no recognized standing. Yet, if the case can be made that the revolutionary party or group does possess a publicly recognized mandate similar to that of Lesser Magistrates, as the African National Congress and Nelson Mandela could, then it would be possible to argue that that party or group possessed competent or legitimate authority to declare war against its oppressor. Right intention

Despite the fact that the war will produce unintended evil consequences, one’s own intentions must be good. This means not fighting out of a desire for revenge or to injure others, but only for a just cause, avoiding unnecessarily destructive acts or seeking unreasonable conditions such as unconditional surrender, and reconciling at the first opportunity. Implicit in a right intention is a formal, public declaration of war, as called for in two of the versions in Table 1. For, out of ‘a decent respect to the opinions of mankind’ a clear public declaration of the war’s causes and aims is required to show the rightfulness of one’s intentions. In the Declaration, the rectitude of the colonists’ intentions is not only asserted formally in the concluding paragraph (cited above) but is also demonstrated by means of the colonists’ prudence and long-suffering, ‘‘Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.’’ But prudence and

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long-suffering must eventually give way before a radical imbalance in the relative justice that separates each side’s cause. Hence, the Declaration continues, ‘‘. . . when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards of their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.’’ Prudential criteria Comparative justice

In general, the justice of one’s cause must be significantly greater than that of the adversary. This criterion forces each side to consider the position and perspective of the other side. The Declaration makes this comparison implicitly throughout, but, in the transition from the philosophical to the practical reasons for independence, it explicitly emphasizes the gross imbalance in comparative justice. While the Americans are seeking ‘‘Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness,’’ ‘‘The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.’’ Last resort

Since war is, at best, the lesser of two evils, it should be chosen only as a last resort. Thus, the intended results of the war must be judged in relation to (1) the accumulating injustice if nothing is done; (2) the delayed arrival of justice if other less decisive options are chosen; and (3) the unintended harmful consequences (both known and unknown) of the war. In the Declaration, last resort is shown not just by the ‘prudence’ shown by the Colonists, but also by the fact that: In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time. . . . We have reminded them. . . . We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them. . . .

But to no avail, ‘‘They too have been deaf to the Voice of Justice and of Consanguinity.’’ Consequently, as a last painful resort, ‘‘We must, therefore, acquiesce in the Necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of Mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace, Friends.’’

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Right intention

This criterion is primarily an injunction against lost causes. Beyond prohibiting lost causes, this criterion, when combined with right intention, suggests that one should avoid the even greater evils that will result from defeat in war. This is the only criterion that the Declaration does not address.

The aim of diplomatic, economic, or military operations must be to achieve reconciliation and peace as expeditiously as possible. Their aim cannot be vengeance or wanton destruction. Even during combat, individuals, units, and governments must keep their emotions under control. In this regard, how did the carpet bombing speed reconciliation?

Proportionality of ends

The good to be realized must be greater than the evil inflicted. In a world of limited resources and limited effects, only a relatively few actions can be justified as proportional to and compatible with the ends sought. The handling of this point in the Declaration is quite weak. The only explicit reference allows, ‘‘that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.’’ However, the entire Declaration is also suffused with a feeling that royal tyranny has become entirely unacceptable and, hence, a return to good government is well worth the evils of war.

Jus in bello Having disciplined the debate that led to a decision to wage war, new issues, questions, and dilemma arise. During the course of the war, one must ensure that the means selected, for example, the carpet bombing of World War II, do not negate the ends sought. Discrimination of means

To minimize the war’s evil consequences and maximize its good consequences, only selected diplomatic and economic sanctions are permitted. Wholesale sanctions that injure an entire population are forbidden. In the case of military operations, only military facilities and persons should be attacked, and these should be attacked with the amount of force required to achieve the objectives of the attack. In other words, the principle of noncombatant immunity must be upheld, as the Geneva Conventions demand. In this regard, did the carpet bombing of German and Japanese cities uphold the principle of noncombatant immunity within the limits of the principle of double effect? Was the bombing limited to military targets? Proportionality of means

None of the diplomatic, economic, or military acts of war may be so devastating as to render the whole war unjust by increasing the unintended evil effects to the point where they overwhelm the intended good effects. For example, was the destruction of 62 of 63 German cities of over 100 000 population and 66 Japanese cities, two by atomic bombs, disproportionate to the good produced by their destruction?

Evaluating the Criteria Four comments are in order: First, it should be clear that the criteria are designed to assist in making agonizing choices between the lesser of two evils. If any of the viable options were good, then there would be little need for such an elaborate and belabored debate. For example, when the options are between sending the military to intervene in Bosnia or standing by while the country is ethnically cleansed, the agony of the decision will force a full and detailed debate over each of the criteria before a final judgment is made. It should be equally clear that the criteria are not designed to mechanically determine which of the two evils under consideration is the ‘truly’ just option. The criteria organize and discipline the dispute; they do not settle the controversy. Each individual and nation must still come to its own best judgment. Second, because of the indeterminate and controversial character of each of the criteria individually and all of them together, consensus is seldom possible. The American Revolution is an excellent example of this. However, persuasive the reasoning of the Declarations of Independence may be, 20% of the colonialists were not persuaded and remained loyal to the British Crown. A fifth of the population opposed the war as unjust, unneeded, and waged by unlawful authorities. This would appear to be about right: In even the most just of wars, approximately 20% of the population will disagree and condemn the war as unjust. In wars where the justice of the cause is less clear than during the American Revolution, the percentage will be even higher. This is another reason a clear and public declaration by a competent authority is needed. Without such a formal declaration, how are either individuals or the international community to judge the justice of the cause, the competence of the authority, or the rightness of the intentions? Only after 4 July 1776 was it possible to make these judgments. Only after 4 July 1776 was it possible to move beyond personal opinion and begin to debate these complex judgments as a matter of public policy. The 2003 invasion of Iraq is perhaps an appositive example of how a lack of a formal, fully reasoned, public declaration of war leads to confusion over the ‘real’ cause, authority, and intention of a war. Third, as James Turner Johnson has pointed out, from the late nineteenth century through to the publication of

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The Challenge of Peace in 1983 by the US Catholic Conference of Bishops, the notion has slowly grown that the just-war criteria imply ‘a presumption against war’. The idea is that ‘a presumption against war’ must exist because war should always be a last resort and because modern war is disproportionately devastating. Accordingly, the starting point for any debate should be that (1) war is not justified in the given case, (2) alternatives ‘do’ exist, and (3) ‘the presumption against war’ can be overridden only if the strongest possible circumstances, reasons, and arguments can be adduced, as, for example, Hitler’s invasion of Poland or Serbian ethnic cleansing of Kosovars from Kosovo. While superficially plausible, ‘a presumption against’ something is only a polite way of phrasing a prejudice against that thing. Such prejudices, however, are unacceptable distortions because they prejudge. An honest effort to judge the lesser of two evils must begin with an open mind and a willingness to follow the circumstances wherever they lead. For example, surgery is always a last resort; it is always the lesser of two evils. Yet, if surgery is indicated, the surgeon is competent, and the prognosis good, then the patient should go under the knife. Entering the surgeon’s office with ‘a presumption against surgery’ is to allow one’s prejudices to endanger one’s health. Fourth, it should be clear that none of the criteria are grounded in any religious doctrine. Instead, they are all grounded in the need to sort out the consequences of the principle of double effect. When one sits down to discuss the decision to initiate a war, what else would one debate besides how right one’s own cause was and how wrong was that of the other side? What else would one debate besides the probability of success; whether the last resort had arrived, and so forth? This commonsense quality is perhaps seen most clearly in the in bello criteria. Although they are clothed in an ethical language, they wear military uniforms equally well. That is, the principle of double effect and the call for noncombatant immunity are but another way to express the Pentagon’s doctrine of minimizing ‘collateral damage’. The need to minimize the ‘collateral’ or unintended damage done by military operations arises out of two reciprocal principles of war: the principle of mass and the principle of economy of force. In order to achieve victory, one must concentrate the mass of one’s military forces at the decisive time in the decisive place. Massing forces in one place means that forces must be economized in every other place, allocating a minimum of the available forces to secondary efforts. In other words, one must make a discriminate and proportionate use of one’s forces, so as not to waste limited military resources. And, of course, the greatest waste of military resources is to use them against nonmilitary people and facilities – a commonsense military observation that returns one to the ethical call for noncombatant immunity found in the

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Geneva Conventions. Indeed, the only excuse for diverting military forces away from military objectives and against civilian people and facilities is a desire for vengeance and wanton destruction, which, not incidentally, is a violation of the in bello criterion of right intention.

Issues Raised by the Criteria The commonsense quality of the just-war criteria makes one wonder why other non-European cultures have not developed a similarly elaborate set of criteria. The response is paradoxical: On the one hand, all the major cultures of the world possess something similar to the European just-war criteria. They all recognize the principle of double effect – what the Buddhists call dependent co-arising (paticcasamuppada). Hence, they all possess codes of chivalry and other customs and traditions to ameliorate the savagery of military operations. For the same reason, the initial decision to declare war is debated in all cultures in terms of its causes, its probability of success, whether the tools of diplomacy have been exhausted, and so forth. On the other hand, only in Europe and in Islam were the criteria elaborated in such detail and so explicitly. In other cultures, they remain informal and not always explicitly stated in a formal and legalistic manner. For example, Sun-Tzu in his Art of War emphasizes that dao (moral influence) is the first factor to be considered before engaging in war, a thought that the commentator Chang Yu elaborates as, ‘‘When troops are raised to chastise transgressors, the temple council first considers the adequacy of the rulers’ benevolence. . . .’’ Next, the temple council considers the probability of success criterion, which Sun-Tzu interprets as consisting of four factors: weather, terrain, command (i.e., the abilities of the opposing generals), and doctrine (i.e., the organization and training of the opposing armies). Early on, the criteria were treated informally in Europe as well. For example, scattered passages in the Iliad articulate a rudimentary set of just causes for the war against Troy but no attempt at systematization: ‘‘to fight for Helen and her property,’’ ‘‘[to] take vengeance on the men who break their oaths,’’ ‘‘[for] injuring the host who entertained him.’’ Homer recognizes that only the most compelling circumstances can justify a resort to war. He, therefore, provides not one, but three just causes. Still, there is no effort at further elaboration or systematization. Systematization in Europe However, systematization of the criteria soon began. Aristotle, in his Rhetorica ad Alexandrum, outlines in rudimentary fashion the arguments that should be made when one wishes either to initiate or prevent war. In both cases, the justice of one’s cause and the probability of success are

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the cardinal points. Thus, Aristotle advises Alexander that, ‘‘The pretexts for making war on another state are. . . either to avenge past or present wrongs or to gain some advantage such as glory, resources, or strength, while the factors leading to success are the favor of the gods, the number of troops, an abundance of resources, the wisdom of the general, excellent allies, and superior position.’’ In the ancient world, the most sustained effort at articulating the criteria took place in early Republican Rome, where the issues of war and peace were submitted to sustained scrutiny and systematization in the collegium fetiales, the religious congregation that was responsible for sanctifying the ratification of treaties and declarations of war in accordance with the jus fetiale. The jus fetiale was a well-established tradition of law built upon the principle that, ‘‘Therefore the only justification for war is that peace and justice should afterwards prevail,’’ as Cicero tells his son in De Officiis. The jus fetiale has since been lost; we know of it only through scattered references and a long passage in Livy. Still, the knowledge that legal criteria for a just war could be and had been articulated survived the fall of Rome and became the basis of Christianity’s response to war. During the zenith of the Roman Empire, Christianity had been a marginal dissident religious sect that was often persecuted. Excluded from political power, the Church seldom took a position one way or another on political issues, in general, and on war, in particular. Whether this silence concerning war was motivated by indifference to all things secular or by religiously based pacifist principle is difficult to say. Considerable evidence exists to support both positions. But whatever her motivation while excluded from political power, as the Empire in the west slowly disintegrated under repeated barbarian invasions, the Church was forced, first, to assume greater and greater political responsibilities and, eventually, to consider the issue of war in all its practical details. In response to repeated questions as to whether a good Christian prince could wage war or a good Christian soldier could kill in war, Augustine and others seized upon Cicero and the ancients to respond, yes, thereby drawing the ancient pagan thinking on just-war into the Christian Church. However, the concern at this time was pastoral, not legal. Augustine and the Church were responding to the immediate concerns of the times and the laity. There was as yet no attempt to systematize the Church’s position on war. For example, to learn of Augustine’s attitude toward the just war, one must read a dozen or more scattered passages in his letters and books, as will be seen shortly. During the Middle Ages, however, the Church’s needs and attitude changed yet again. A unique relationship developed between the Church of Rome and the multitude of feudal principalities into which Christendom was divided. This created conditions that soon stimulated a renewed interest in systematizing the just-war criteria.

For, during this period, the Church maintained enormous moral authority but had little interest in usurping the temporal power of the feudal barons. It was, as a result, an influential but a relatively disinterested observer of the innumerable wars that these petty princes waged. Being influential, the Church’s endorsement of one side or the other in a war was of considerable political and psychological value. Being relatively disinterested, feudal barons felt safe in asking the Church to endorse their side and condemn the other. Consequently, Church authorities received a constant stream of requests from both sides for judgments as to which belligerent possessed justice on his side. As the heirs of ancient Roman administrative and legal practices and with the knowledge that the Romans had once possessed the jus fetiale, the natural response of the canon lawyers was to begin systematizing an explicit set of criteria with which they could organize their briefs and by which bishops and popes could render a decision. At first, the criteria grew like topsy, multiplying seemingly uncontrollably to cover all aspects of war. Then, as noted above, Aquinas reduced the list to the three justificatory ad bellum criteria, thereby simplifying, clarifying, and generalizing the criteria. In the seventeenth century, Hugo Grotius, relying largely upon the writings of Alberico Gentili, secularized the criteria and incorporated them into international law. In the late nineteenth and twentieth century, after further secularization and elaboration, the in bello criteria provided the intellectual foundations for a series of conventions negotiated in the Hague and at Geneva. In this manner, the just-war criteria became one of the foundations upon which the laws of war, also known as international humanitarian law, were built. More recently, during the great antinuclear protests of the 1980s, the just-war criteria entered politics in a most remarkable manner. Drawing upon the Church’s traditional just-war doctrines, first, the Catholic bishops in 1983 and, then, the United Methodist bishops in 1986, published long and thoughtful pastoral letters concerning America’s nuclear policy. The Catholic bishops concluded on the basis of a just-war analysis that a ‘nuclear war’ would be immoral and unacceptable, but found that a policy of ‘nuclear deterrence’ was ‘conditionally’ acceptable. The United Methodist bishops, however, went a step further and found that even ‘nuclear deterrence’ was immoral and unacceptable on just-war and other grounds. In response to the bishops’ just-war challenges, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, with the assistance of his aide, General Colin Powell, and Secretary of State George Shultz prepared thoughtful responses. Secretary Weinberger responded in a 28 November 1984 speech before the National Press Club and in his annual report to the Congress, while Secretary Shultz responded in a 9 December 1984 address at Yeshiva University. Both sidestepped the conclusions of the Methodist and Catholic bishops concerning nuclear policy, with which they

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strongly disagreed, but both agreed that the just-war criteria were a necessary and valuable guide to decision making. They then went on to list the five criteria that they felt should guide policy makers before committing American combat forces to action. These included the three jus ad bellum criteria of just cause – reinterpreted as ‘national interests’ – probability of success, and last resort, and the two jus in bello criteria of proportionality of means and discrimination of means. In this manner, the traditional just-war criteria were revived from within the Christian Churches, injected into the ongoing political debate, and stimulated prominent political leaders to formally introduce them into the highest policy-making levels. This was achieved, in part, by listing only the most pragmatic of criteria but, more so, by redefining ‘just cause’ in the realist or Machiavellian manner as ‘national interest’. Deciding for or against war on the basis of perceived ‘national interests’ not only removes all religion from the debate, but, many would argue, all morality as well. Be that as it may, a slimmed down version of the traditional Christian justwar criteria is now firmly established at policy-making level in the Departments of Defense and State, as was seen during the Persian Gulf War, 1990–91, where it was called the Powell Doctrine, after General Powell, then the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Defining a ‘Just’ Cause But explicit systematization is not the only or, indeed, the most important distinguishing characteristic of the European just-war criteria. More important is the contentious issue of the value that defines a ‘just’ cause. Needless to say, opinions differ. Indeed, even within the European tradition, different values are proposed. In addition to a realist or Machiavellian definition of ‘just cause’ as raison d ’e´tat or ‘national interest’, some hold that selfdefense is the defining value, while others insist that only comparative justice can define a ‘just’ cause. But, before addressing this division within the European tradition, a brief survey of other cultures will be useful. Harmony in China

The role of war in the Chinese tradition is, not to punish aggressors, but to ‘chastise transgressors’, those who have betrayed the benevolence of the emperor by disrupting the harmony of empire. The crucial question, therefore, is not the justice or injustice of the transgressors’ demands, but rather the state of the emperor’s benevolence. Having framed the moral issue in this way, two possibilities exist: If the temple council finds the emperor’s benevolence inadequate, then he, and not the rebels, must be chastised. If, however, the temple council finds the emperor’s benevolence adequate, then the dogs of war should be loosed, the transgressors chastised, and harmony restored

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to the empire. Debating the adequacy of the emperor’s benevolence is, needless to say, an exceedingly delicate task, not only politically, but logically as well; for, the mere existence of rebellious transgressors demonstrates a deficiency in the emperor’s benevolence. This inconvenient conclusion generates a perplexing dilemma: A truly benevolent emperor never needs to war, while a warring emperor is not truly benevolent. However, the temple council might resolve this dilemma, the value that defines a ‘just’ cause is not so much an European concern with either self-defense or comparative justice as an East Asian concern with harmony. With the overthrow of the Chinese Empire in 1911 and the eventual conquest of power by Mao Tse-tung and the Communist Party in 1949, ‘chastising transgressors’ was no longer the official just cause for war. Now, it was the general Marxist–Leninist goal of throwing off the capitalist oppression of workers and peasants, with a specifically Chinese emphasis on overthrowing colonialist oppression through the People’s War. And, indeed, Mao’s People’s War doctrine did inspire many revolutionary movements in Vietnam, Cuba and Latin America, Africa, and elsewhere in Asia. However, 5000 years of history are not so easily overturned. Without reviving the Confucian terminology, ‘chastising transgressors’ nonetheless would appeared to be the true justification for Chinese military operations since 1949. This is evidenced by the 1949–50 invasion of Tibet, the 1950 Chinese intervention in the Korean War, the 1962 Sino–Indian War and the border incidents following, and the continuing threat to invade the ‘renegade’ province of Taiwan. None of these military operations were People’s Wars to free colonial people; they are all operations either to recover ‘lost’ parts of the traditional Chinese empire or to ‘chastise’ those who have or would infringe on China’s traditional sphere of influence. Internally as well, the military has been employed often to ‘chastise transgressors’, most spectacularly in 1989 to quell the student protests in Tienanmen Square. With the economic transformation of China since Mao’s death, world revolution and People’s War are no longer being exported from China. Any future military operations will no doubt be justified officially as exercises of defending ‘national interests’, in the modern raison d’e´tat mode. Yet, not far below the surface rhetoric, one will find the traditional need to ‘chastise transgressors’ so as to restore the harmony of the empire. Duty in India

In India, the defining value is not harmony, but duty, seen as the submission to the inexorable working of dharma and karma. The primary problem, therefore, is learning how these forces have determined the world. Ideally, one learns of one’s duty through enlightenment, as happens in the Bhagavad Gita. The Gita is a dialogue in which

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Lord Krishna enlightens a skeptical Prince Arjuna on the karmic and dharmic forces that determine his duty, which is to fight and win a great battle fated for the morrow. In general, the need for enlightenment arises out of the workings of the principle of double effect, ‘‘Whatever austerities you undergo, / Kunti’s son, do as an offering to me. / Thus you will be released / From the bonds of action [i.e., karma], its fair and evil fruits, . . .’’ More particularly, the need arises out of Arjuna’s insistent demand to know why he should fight and shed the blood of his kinsmen? The crucial moment comes in the eleventh chapter when Lord Krishna gives the Prince ‘‘the eye of a god. / [To be]hold my mystery as the lord,’’ in order that he may achieve enlightenment. Having seen Krishna’s myriad forms, but not yet understanding their meaning, Prince Arjuna asks again, ‘‘Tell me, you of awful form, who are you? /. . ./ I wish to know you, who have been from the beginning, / For I do not know what you have set out to do.’’ To which Lord Krishna responds, ‘‘I am time, destroyer of worlds, grown old / Setting out to gather in worlds. / These warriors drawn up, facing the arrows, / Even without you, they shall cease to be. / Therefore, stand up. Seize honor. / Conquer your foes. Enjoy the rich kingdom. / They were killed by me long ago. / Be but the means, left-handed archer.’’ Neither the justice or injustice of each side’s demands nor the need to restore harmony is the primary value under discussion. Instead, it is the need to do one’s duty so that one can conform to one’s fate, to the workings of dharma and his karma. The practical problem with valuing duty over justice, of course, is that Krishna seldom provides the required enlightenment. Gandhi, a close student of the Gita, resolved this problem by arguing that knowledge of one’s fate resulted from ‘austerities’: One did one’s duty, suffered the consequences, and, from that suffering, truth emerged; one learned, post facto, how dharma and karma had shaped his fate. Life, therefore, was satyagraha, a struggle for truth. For, just as it was Prince Arjuna’s duty to fight and ‘‘Enjoy the rich kingdom,’’ it was equally the duty of his kinsmen to fight and ‘‘cease to be.’’ No one but Lord Krishna knew this before the battle; all knew it after. To be sure, Gandhi and others do not advocate blindly doing one’s duty. Every effort should be made at enlightenment. One must analyze the circumstances as best as one can. The comparative justice of each side’s cause, the probability of success, and so on, must be debated and judged. Yet, in the final analysis, the workings of dharma and karma are seen but darkly. The only certainty is that one has a duty to suffer one’s fate in a disinterested manner, especially when one is fated to ‘‘Enjoy the rich kingdom.’’ Consequently, true enlightenment comes only post facto, only after one has done one’s duty and ‘struggled for truth’.

Religion and justice in Islam

Islam distinguishes two types of war: harb and jihad. Jihad is war in defense of Islam. Harb is every other type of war. Lacking a religious motivation, harb (literally, war) is incapable of being ‘truly’ just. Its nonreligious, purely political, purposes render it suspect, even when otherwise just. Jihad (both the personal and political struggle to overcome evil) promises more than simple political gain. It promises a just and equitable polity built upon Islamic values. Peaceful proselytizing activities are of course preferred in the creation of an Islamic polity, but, under certain conditions, war may be a necessary adjunct. By the ninth century, Sunni jurists had developed criteria to define these circumstances: A jihad must meet the ad bellum criteria of a just cause, right intention, competent authority, probability of success, aim for peace, and, before the combat begins, an invitation to accept Islamic rule must be issued. The jihad must also be conducted in accordance with Islamic values, which means the in bello criteria of discrimination in the use of military forces and preserving noncombatant immunity. The Shiite jurists generally accepted these same criteria, disputing with the Sunni jurists only the identity of the authority competent to declare jihad. The formal similarity with the European criteria is not remarkable. However, the Islamic criteria always remained religious at heart. They were never secularized to the same degree as the European criteria. Thus, the final invitation to accept Islamic rule is not the same as the European last resort criterion, and the just cause is often a simple refusal to accept the invitation to accept Islamic rule. Nor would ‘national interests’ ever be acceptable as just cause. For, the Islamic values that jihad is supposed to defend and extend are, ‘‘. . . the values associated with pure monotheism; to command good, forbid evil, and bring about justice in the earth.’’ Thus, it would appear that, should the Islamic criteria ever undergo secularization, the values that define a ‘just’ cause in Islam are not far distant from those that define a ‘just’ cause in the secularized European tradition. Unresolved values in Europe

As already noted, the values that define a ‘just’ cause in the European tradition are not settled. Ignoring the provincial interpretation of ‘just’ as ‘national interests’, international law holds that self-defense constitutes a ‘just’ cause. A countercurrent denies this and insists that comparative justice alone can constitute a ‘just’ cause. The countercurrent traces its origins from Roman law as filtered through Cicero to Augustine to parts of Aquinas. The international law current draws upon the natural law tradition and stretches from Aristotle to other parts of Aquinas to Thomas Hobbes to Grotius from whence it entered international law, where this right is enshrined in many documents, most prominently in Article 51 of the

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United Nations Charter, ‘‘Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense . . . .’’ Self-defense

Although denying a right of self-defense violates all of our intuitions, asserting such a right is not without problems. To begin with, the international law right is based upon an analogous individual right: Since each individual is said to possess ‘a right of self-defense’, then, by analogy, so do nation-states. But drawing analogies from individual persons to nation-states is extremely treacherous; nationstates are not simply an individual writ large. More problematic is the fact that the assertion of a personal right of self-defense is based upon an instinct, the instinct for self-preservation. But can an instinct form the grounds for a right? Do we possess a right to free speech because we have an instinct to gossip? or because participation in politics is impossible unless each participant is able to speak his mind freely? More than an instinct is needed to ground ‘a right of self-defense’? Diplomatically, the assertion of a right of self-defense shunts debate into a discussion of ‘aggression’. For, if the exercise of this right justifies a resort to war, it can be activated only by an act of ‘aggression’. Unfortunately though, ‘aggression’ cannot be defined mechanically as ‘‘The first use of armed force by a State . . .’’ as the 1974 United Nations Resolution 3314 defining aggression notes. In the absence of a mechanical definition, ‘‘. . . whether an act of aggression has been committed must be considered in the light of all the circumstances of each particular case . . .,’’ as the preamble of the same United Nations Resolution also sates. In other words, whenever ‘all of the circumstances of a particular case’ lead the Security Council to believe that the side that struck first in a war was justified in striking first, then the ‘aggressor’ is not an ‘aggressor’. Hence, it is the comparative justice of each side, and not ‘aggression’ per se, that really determines the case. Legally, the assertion of a right to self-defense creates an extremely ambiguous situation. For, as soon as one nation exercises this right by responding to an attack, the attacking nation is no longer an aggressor, since she is now exercising her own right of self-defense against attack. To avoid this dilemma, criminal law has long since held that ‘‘There can be no self-defense against self-defense.’’ The point, of course, is that the party exercising its right of self-defense also claims that the other party was unjustified in attacking in the first place. Again, it is comparative justice, not an instinct for self-preservation, that is really at issue. Morally, the assertion of a right to self-defense largely annuls the proportionality and discrimination criteria. The point of calling for discrimination of means and due proportionality of both ends and means is to constrain

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the destruction caused by military operations. In minor wars in which the existence of the state is not in question, no one objects to such constraint. However, all constraint is lost in what Michael Walzer in his very influential 1977 book, Just and Unjust Wars, calls ‘supreme emergencies;’ when the very existence of the state itself is in jeopardy. Walzer and others argue that the consequences of the destruction of the state are so enormous that comparative justice is no longer a valid concern. Instead, the state’s right of self-preservation overrides all constraints. In ‘supreme emergencies;’ the end of preserving the state justifies whatever means are available, including possibly nuclear means. Opponents of this consequentialist perspective propose instead a deontological perspective. First, they deny that the continued existence of the nation-state is of absolute value. History demonstrates that states come and go too frequently to sustain such a claim. The French, for example, are on their fifth republic. Second, they point out that, if the survival of nation-state ‘does’ represent an absolute value such that a ‘supreme emergency’ frees the state from all moral constraints in a war, then what is the point of the criteria? In sum, the deontological perspective argues that Walzer and the consequentialists cannot have it both ways. They cannot argue for the constraining influence of the just-war criteria in minor wars, but deny that same influence in ‘supreme emergencies’. Comparative justice, not an instinct for selfpreservation, is, once again, the underlying concern. Comparative justice

Interestingly, self-defense does not loom large in the traditional arguments on defining ‘just’ cause. Cicero, for example, was dogmatic about the matter. Making a fourpart argument, he asserted, first, that peace and justice were the only justification for war; second, that, ‘‘. . . justice, above all, [is] the basis of which alone men are called ‘good’, . . . [and] no one can be just who fears death or pain or exile or poverty, or who values their opposites above equity;’’ moreover, third, ‘‘. . . that if anything is morally right, it is expedient, and if anything is not morally right, it is not expedient;’’ from which he concluded, contra Walzer, that ‘‘. . . there are some acts either so repulsive or so wicked, that a wise man would not commit them, even to save his country.’’ Aquinas was less dogmatic, but more ambiguous and more discriminating. He was ambiguous because he allowed that, ‘‘. . . the controlled use of counter-violence constitutes legitimate self-defense.’’ He was more discriminating because he understood that the crucial case is not that of ‘counter-violence’ but the imposition of the death penalty. Self-defense is usually argued by asking, ‘‘What would you do if a gunman attacked you or your family?’’ To which the expected response is ‘‘I would defend myself and my family.’’ This case is, then,

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presented as a clear example of the instinct for selfpreservation, from which it is then assumed that a person must possess a right of self-defense. But the crucial case is not a direct attack upon the self, which must be presumed to be also an unjust attack and, hence, governed by the comparative justice criterion. The decisive case is the imposition of the death penalty by a lawful authority. When Aquinas takes this case up, he, first, acknowledges the instinctual basis of a right of self-defense, ‘‘A person condemned to death would seem to be entitled to defend himself, if he has a chance to do so. For whatever is prompted by nature would seem to be legitimate, as being in accordance with the natural law.’’ He, then, replies that, ‘‘A man is condemned to death in two ways. First, justly. And in such a case he is not entitled to defend himself, . . . . A man may, however, also be condemned unjustly. Sentence in such a case is like the violence of brigands, . . . . It follows that one is in such a case entitled to resist evil sovereigns in the same way as one is entitled to resist brigands, . . . .’’ Once again, the comparative justice of one’s cause determines one’s right of self-defense, not the simple instinct for self-preservation. Unlike Aquinas, Augustine was unambiguous. He denied any ‘right of self-defense’, ‘‘In regards to killing men so as not to be killed by them, this view does not please me, . . . .’’ Augustine of course recognized a natural instinct for selfpreservation, ‘‘That he [any man] loves his body and wishes to have it safe and whole is equally obvious.’’ But that was precisely the problem. To defend oneself was only to demonstrate concupiscence, an inordinate desire for the things of this world, in general, and an inordinate love of self, in particular. Instead of this instinctual egotism, one should look to higher things, ‘‘. . . you should love yourself not on your own account but on account of Him who is most justly the object of your love, . . . .’’ Augustine, however, was not so otherworldly that he counseled turning the other cheek whenever attacked. Comparative justice, not selfdefense, was his principle, ‘‘War and conquest are a sad necessity in the eyes of men of principle, yet it would be still more unfortunate if wrong doers should dominate just men.’’ But, if ‘wrong doers’ should not be allowed to dominate ‘just men’ then there is little practical difference between defining ‘just’ cause in terms of self-defense or in terms of comparative justice. In most cases, the decision will be the same, because the attacker will also be a ‘wrong doer’. Yet, in a small number of the cases, the attacker will not be a ‘wrong doer’, and the decision will be different. In these few case, in these ‘supreme emergencies’, by valuing comparative justice over the survival of the nation-state, one would act like Cicero’s ‘‘wise man,’’ who would do no injustice even to save his country, and not like the Nazi SS, who would do any injustice to save their country, believing as they did that ‘‘Unsere Ehre Heisst Treue,’’ ‘‘Our Honor Is Named Loyalty.’’

It would appear, therefore, that, while serviceable, the international-law principle of self-defense is not the most solid value with which to define ‘just’ cause. Defining ‘just’ cause in terms of comparative justice would appear more solid. However, comparative justice is not without its difficulties, too. For, in any war, both sides will loudly proclaim the justice of their cause. More perplexing, in most wars, both claims will sound persuasive. Were this not the case, there would never be an occasion for war. Inasmuch as both sides too easily persuade themselves that ‘their’ cause is ‘just’, it creates a situation that appears identical to the working of dharma and karma: In defense of its interpretation of the comparative justice criterion, each side possesses a duty to suffer their fates, to wage the war and, thereby, to learn the truth post facto. The difference between the Hindu and the countercurrent in the European tradition is that the Hindu speak of enlightenment and a ‘struggle for truth’, while the Europeans speak, as the Athenian ambassadors did at Melos, of might deciding right. In summary then, while the just-war criteria of today had their roots in ancient Greece and Rome and flourished and developed in the medieval Christian church before being taken over by modern-day international law and policy makers, these European criteria, nonetheless, have parallels in other cultures. This is the case because all cultures acknowledge the operation of the principle of double effect. As a result, all cultures possess a more or less formal and systematic way to debate and decide whether a war is ‘just’ and how to minimize its many unintended evil effects. Where the cultures part ways is in their degree of systematization and secularization, on the one hand, and in the value that the ‘just’ cause should embody, on the other hand. In China, the debate is conducted in terms of restoring harmony; in India, in terms of accomplishing one’s duty; in Islam, in terms of fostering religion; in modern international law, in terms of selfdefense and preserving the sovereignty of the nationstate, while in Augustinian thought, the debate is conducted in terms of comparative justice. See also: Declarations of War; Guerrilla Warfare; Justifications for Violence; Militarism; Terrorism; World War II

Further Reading Evans, G. and Sahnoun, M. (2001). The responsibility to protect. Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS), Established by the Government of Canada in September 2000, http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/iciss-ciise/report2en.asp (accessed on Nov 2007). Johnson, J. T. (1981). Just war tradition and the restraint of war: A moral and historical inquiry. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Johnson, J. T. (2005). Just war, as it was and is. First Things 149, 14–24.

Juvenile Crime Johnson, J. T. and Kelsay, J. (eds.) (1990). Cross, crescent, and sword: The justification and limitation of war in western and Islamic tradition. New York: Greenwood Press. Kelsay, J. (1993). Islam and war: A study in comparative ethics. Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press. Miller, R. (ed.) (1991). Interpretations of conflict: Ethics, pacifism, and the just-war tradition. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Nardin, T. (ed.) (1996). The ethics of war and peace. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Novak, D. (1992). Non-Jews in a Jewish polity: Subject or sovereign? Jewish social ethics. New York: Oxford University Press. Potter, R. B., Jr. (1970). The moral logic of war. McCormick Quarterly 23, 203–233. (Reprinted in Beitz, C. R. and Herman, T. (eds.) (1973) Peace and war. San Francisco, CA: W. H. Freeman.)

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Tzu, S. (1963). The art of war (trans. Griffith, S. B). Oxford: Clarendon Press. The United States Catholic Conference (1993). The harvest of justice is sown in peace. Origins 23(26). United Methodist Council of Bishops (1986). In defense of creation: The nuclear crisis and a just peace. Nashville, TN: Graded Press. United Nations (2004). A more secure world: Our shared responsibility. Report of the Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change, http://iis-db.stanford.edu/pubs/20806/ A_More_Secure_World_.pdf or http://www.un.org/secureworld/ (acessed on Nov 2007). Walzer, M. (1977). Just and unjust wars: A moral argument with historical illustrations. New York: Basic Books.

Juvenile Crime Simon I Singer, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction Correlates Explanations

Glossary Delinquent A juvenile who commits an offense in violation of the legal norms of society. The official status of delinquent is defined by the juvenile court. However, criminologists often define delinquents based on their self-reported offenses. Juvenile Court A legal setting where juveniles may be adjudicated as Children in Need of Supervision (CHINS) or delinquent. In many states, the juvenile court may also transfer or waive a juvenile to criminal court where they can be charged as a juvenile offender. Juvenile Crime An act that is in violation of the legal norms of society for which a juvenile may be brought into the criminal court. It is broadly associated with delinquency and includes a wide range of behaviors that are in violation of the criminal law. Juvenile crime has

Introduction The official definition of juvenile crime is rooted in legal rules for classifying juveniles as delinquents, status offenders, or juvenile offenders. The exact legal definition of a juvenile crime depends on the current state of juvenile justice. There is variation not only in the legal statutes between counties and states within a nation, but also considerable variation between modern-day nation-states in

Reactions Conclusion Further Reading

come to mean more than just delinquency because a segment of juveniles are now eligible for waiver to criminal court. These juveniles have been considered as criminally responsible for their offenses, and may be viewed as having committed acts of crime. Juvenile Offender A juvenile who commits an offense for which he or she is criminally responsible. This may take place by means of waiver from juvenile court or by considering the juvenile criminally responsible for certain categories of felony offenses. Status Offender A juvenile who commits an act that is considered illegal because of the juvenile’s age. A juvenile who fails to attend school or who runs away may be adjudicated as a status offender. In several states, status offenders are defined as CHINS.

the definition of juvenile crime. The one certain definition of juvenile crime is that there is a lack of consistency in its age and offense-specific characteristics. In general, juvenile crime may be considered offenses in violation of the legal norms of society for which a juvenile may be brought into the criminal court. It is different from status offenses and acts of delinquency. A juvenile charged with a crime may be prosecuted in criminal court instead of juvenile court. But a juvenile charged with a status offense can never be

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prosecuted in criminal court because it is not an offense for which a person may be considered criminally responsible. Today definitions of juvenile crime are likely to vary by the type and kind of legal setting that is deemed most appropriate for the control of delinquency. Juvenile drug courts have emerged along with juvenile teen or peer courts recently. These newly created legal settings provide officials with a diversity of legal avenues for defining juveniles as either delinquents or offenders. These settings make it possible to define juvenile crime in a variety of ways that take into account the seriousness of the offense and the juvenile’s past history of offending. If it is the juvenile’s first offense and not particularly a serious one, it is unlikely that the act will be defined as a crime. Instead, the juvenile is most likely to receive a form of diversion or a second chance in the view of officials. The form of diversion in the official definition of juvenile crime can vary not only between states but within states. In more affluent areas, the juvenile justice system may have more resources to divert delinquents.

Correlates Our knowledge of the correlates of juvenile crime stems from official and unofficial sources of delinquency and crime data. Self-report data are obtained from random samples of the juvenile population who are asked in surveys to report the incidence and prevalence of their involvement in delinquency and crime. These surveys are generally specific to particular times and places. When they are administered over extended periods of time, they reveal that a large part of the population of juveniles have committed an act for which they could be prosecuted in juvenile court and even in criminal court. Moreover, these surveys reveal that the vast majority of juveniles only occasionally commit these offenses, and they desist once they reach adulthood from pursuing further delinquent or criminal activity. Official sources of data may include arrest, court, and residential placement data. Each set of data has its own set of advantages and disadvantages for telling us about the correlates of juvenile crime. However, in looking at the official statistics on juvenile crime, it appears that juvenile crime is more prevalent in urban than in suburban areas. This may be related to states of affluence among adolescents as defined by the affluence of their families and communities. In more affluent communities, there are more resources or programs to prevent youth from being arrested and charged with a crime. Similarly, affluent parents have more resources to obtain private rather than public assistance in dealing with their troubled children. The difference between urban and suburban juvenile crime rates may reflect the overrepresentation of Black juveniles in impoverished inner cities, and their

higher rate of violence. According to official statistics, Black juveniles are more often arrested for violence than White juveniles. These data tend to reproduce racial variation in adult arrest rates for violence. An additional source of variation in rates of juvenile crime is gender. Boys are more likely to commit acts of juvenile crime than girls. Although the delinquencies and crimes of girls appear to be increasing over time, they still are not reported at levels that are comparable to that of boys. This is not the case for all offenses. Certain status offenses like running away are more likely to be committed by girls. The levels of substance abuse also appear to be comparable for girls as well as boys in self-report surveys. Officials may be more inclined to divert girls from the juvenile court, because they may see girls as more amenable to treatment. Finally, the group context of crime is consistently different for juveniles than for adults. Juveniles are more likely to commit their offenses in groups. Although adults also commit their offenses with co-offenders, it is not as frequent an event. The majority of juvenile acts of crime take place in the presence of others. This has led officials to suggest that there may be mitigating circumstances that are related to the dynamics of the group. Criminal responsibility for a juvenile crime may take into account the role that the juvenile played in a group offense. The reason that peers are considered an important element of juvenile crime is the amount of time that adolescents tend to spend with each other as they move from childhood into adulthood. The likelihood that juveniles will commit their offenses with others is often contingent on the characteristics of an offense and the extent to which juveniles are embedded in a stable adolescent group.

Explanations As noted, the correlates of juvenile crime are directly linked to age. The UCR data and other research tracking the delinquent or arrest behavior of populations of juveniles over time show that young people commit a disproportionate amount of crime. Rising and declining rates of involvement in crime can be attributed to both social structure and process. Another way to think about structure and process is in terms of macro- and microlevel effects in the generation of delinquent and nondelinquent behaviors. Structural theories suggest that the location of delinquents and juvenile crime are patterned by conditions in society independent of individual behaviors. According to a structural perspective, it makes a difference whether a person resides in a tightly knit community where neighbors are neighborly and where there are extended-family relationships to support and to control the raising of youth. In the sociological image of a well-organized community, informal

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forms of social control are more likely to dominate with less need for juvenile justice. In a community with fewer calls to the police, there are fewer identifiable incidents of delinquency and consequently fewer delinquents. The macro-level focus of structural theories of juvenile crime is different from a micro-level focus in which the juvenile and the process in which juveniles adapt to crime are considered. Biography becomes important in a micro-level analysis. The juvenile’s personal biography – his or her biological, psychological, and social development – present a particular set of attributes that are considered important in distinguishing juveniles who commit crime from those who do not. Early theories of juvenile crime stress biological and personality differences. These fall into the biological school of thought in which delinquents arise like criminals from an inherited predisposition to commit crime. Some scholars have posited a genetic link that produces a personality resistant to authority. Body type is further related in some studies, which, not surprisingly, find that delinquents are more muscular than nondelinquents. It is difficult to separate the biological from the social. No studies of identical twins show a 100% concordance in criminal behavior, suggesting that genetic structure is not the sole cause of crime. But genetic structure can be expected to interact with social processes, such as the kind of frustration that a learning-disabled child experiences in school. That frustration reflects personal as well as social difficulties. It involves an educational tracking system that segregates and classifies juveniles into learning-disabled or slower tracks of students. Psychological assessments of a juvenile’s well-being also reflect a modern-day image of what characterizes a normal juvenile. It involves a system of classifying and a vision of what is normal in terms of the juvenile population. Psychologists and others in the helping professions are in the business of normalizing the delinquent population. Standards are maintained as to where juveniles should be, not only educationally but also emotionally. The diverse ways in which juveniles are classified as delinquents or offenders in modern-day societies reflect more than heredity or personality disturbances. It includes the affluence of their families or places where they reside. As previously mentioned, the kind of family and neighborhood where youths are raised may determine the way personal disorders are treated from childhood through adolescence. Affluent parents have more in the way of resources to confront childhood conduct and attention-deficit disorders. They can afford appropriate treatments, and may be more alert to these behaviors as a possible determinant of delinquency and crime. When schools are unable to provide their children with an appropriate environment to learn, affluent parents are in the fortunate position to seek alternative

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school settings that might involve petitioning of school boards or seeking a private school. An ecological approach to explaining juvenile crime would not only emphasize the affluence of parents, but the affluence of a neighborhood, city, and society. In impoverished neighborhoods, visible signs of disorder and danger suggest the absence of community and similarly the lack of social control. These may lead to suggestions that there are serious cracks in the way that the community is organized. Wilson and Kelling have advocated a theory of broken windows as a metaphor to thinking about how the police control of public disorder in neighborhoods is critical to the prevention of serious crime. We can also suggest similar theories that would include acts of delinquency. The term ‘social disorganization’ has also been used to describe the lack of informal sources of control or collective efficacy in impoverished inner cities where rates of crime appear particularly high. There is a sense of disorder in such communities as exemplified by high rates of juvenile crime. But it is misleading to assume that because of high rates of juvenile crime there is no social order. There is a social order that is differentially organized with the consequence of producing behavior that is sometimes in violation of legal norms. The differential social organization of juvenile crime is captured in the sociological vision of learning delinquency through Edwin Sutherland’s differential association theory. Sutherland’s theory is sensitive to the social context in which the learning of delinquency takes place. He proposed that within intimate social groups definitions favorable to violation of the law are learned. Definitions favorable to violating the law exceed those that are unfavorable through the intensity, frequency, and duration of the learning process within intimate primary groups. Moreover, the learning of techniques and rationalizations for committing acts of juvenile crime are the same as the learning of noncriminal behavior. Sutherland’s theory ignored the initial motivation to commit an act of delinquency. It is assumed to be there and transmitted from one generation to the next. The initial source of juvenile delinquency is social disorganization or conflict between values and norms that are favorable to the law and those that are unfavorable. These differential definitions are rooted in cultures and the conflict that often emerges when varying cultures come into contact with each other. Theories of culture and subculture are more specific to the conflicting characteristics of juvenile crime. Modernday societies are not homogeneous ones. There is a division that divides the young from the old, the employer from the employee, and the black from the white. This division makes it possible for a variety of cultures or subcultures to coexist in ways that allow for unique

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behaviors to develop. Much of the social grouping that takes place may be a reaction to other groups within society. There are several ways to interpret the meaning of the cultures and the subcultures that are related to juvenile crime. One perspective that comes from a structured view of norms and values relates delinquency to a delinquent subculture. In such a subculture, a normative order emerges that dictates the conditions for delinquency and crime. The normative order might be a reaction to middle-class values as lower-class juveniles might first experience them in school. The status frustration that lower-class boys may experience in school provides the impetus to gravitate to others through delinquent forms of behavior as a reaction to a common problem. Albert Cohen’s theory of delinquent boys is just the first of several subcultural perspectives on delinquency and juvenile crime. The delinquent subcultural view differs from that which sees youth culture as a part of a subculture of delinquency. In a subculture of delinquency as opposed to a delinquent subculture, according to David Matza, the impetus for delinquent activities is the same as it is for dominant cultural activities. There are acts that are common to adolescents, but it is more appropriate to think about a subculture of adolescence as one that is conducive toward delinquent conduct. In a subculture of adolescence, adult values are turned around to justify certain adolescent forms of behavior. What kind of values? First there is the value placed on drinking and having a good time in adult society that persists in adolescent youth cultures. It is difficult for youth in a subculture of adolescence to understand why drinking is illegal for them when it is not for adults. The social extension of childhood late into adolescence stresses that teenagers are different from adults, producing a normative order that does not always match natural biological rhythms. There are other values besides that involving status offense behavior that becomes important in the subculture of delinquency view of juvenile crime. The stress on deviant values and norms suggests that risk-taking behavior is confined to delinquents. It ignores the fact that competition is an important part of contemporary Western economies. The competitive nature of sports and business encourages risk-taking activity as a dominant cultural value. It becomes misplaced when it is seen as a part of the ethos of impoverished delinquent youth. For Matza the convergence of adolescent and adult cultures in contemporary society creates conditions of deviance that Matza has described as a consequence of ‘‘subterranean convergence.’’ Youth are linked to ‘‘the past through local legacies and to the wider social structure by a range of support.’’ The sources of juvenile crime then reside not just in the individual delinquent, but are alive in the broader adult social world.

In contrast to the normative and subterranean view of subcultures, juvenile crime may be explained by the changing structure of families. The structure of singleparent households produces one less adult to watch over the behavior of adolescents. But the impact of physical control, monitoring, or direct supervision may not be as important as psychological forms of attachment or relational controls. These attachments may be just as strong in traditional and nontraditional households. Nontraditional family structures are becoming more typical as modern developed societies recognize the rights of single parents and gay parents to raise their children on their own. Similarly, higher divorce rates are producing stepparent relationships that are more typical than they were in the past. Based on the previously mentioned decline in rates of crime, there is no reason to suspect that the increase in nontraditional family households has increased the risks of delinquency. One important integrative approach to thinking about delinquency is presented in the work of John Hagan in his combination of macro- and micro-level indicators of delinquent behavior and official decision making. John Hagan and associates suggest that power as a macrolevel variable is reproduced to produce micro-level effects in the form of social control that is not evenly distributed between girls and boys. The uneven distribution is attributed to conditions of class and patriarchy. Essentially, the theory states that conditions of dominance and control in the household organize delinquent conduct by gender. But unlike more traditional formulations of criminological theory that rely either on a macro- or micro-level analysis, power-control theory integrates social structure and social process. Class categories are critical to explaining parental control and the suppression of delinquent behavior. However, these class categories are based on the relative parental positions of dominance in the workplace rather than measures of social prestige and status. Furthermore, the authority parents have in their positions of work is assumed to translate into conditions of dominance and control over children in the household. In traditional patriarchal households where husbands are employed in positions of authority and wives are without employment, husbands are more likely to exercise control over their wives. The greater control that husbands enjoy over their wives is socially reproduced because of the differential involvement of mothers and fathers with their children. The critical link between class and social control within the family is the parental reproduction of their own power relationships through the control of their children. Power-control theory further postulates an ‘instrument– object relationship’ in which mothers and fathers are the instruments of control in the family and sons and daughters are the objects of control. In patriarchal households

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mothers are more often the instrument for maintaining control because they are largely responsible for the dayto-day care of their children. However, in such households mothers are more able to control their daughters than their sons because mothers keep their daughters closer to home. Hagan argues that mothers in traditional households reproduce daughters who are more focused around domestic labor and consumption in contrast to sons who are prepared for work outside the household. Thus, power-control theory asserts that daughters are subject to more control than are sons and sons are freer to deviate in households where fathers are in positions of authority and mothers are without authority. Traditional households produce boys who are freer than girls to deviate because they are subject to fewer controls. However, control is also linked to another major component of the power-control thesis – risk-taking. In anticipation of holding positions of authority in the workplace, sons in traditional households are socialized to take risks while daughters are more often taught to avoid risks. This acceptance of risk-taking is reproduced among sons in the form of risky behavior such as delinquency. A power-control perspective to delinquency is one way to explain gender differences. There are other perspectives that relate more specifically to gender differences in the socialization of girls and boys. But those gender differences are not confined to the manner in which children are raised. Moreover, a significant part of adolescent involvement or socialization takes place in schools. It is the formal structure of compulsory school education in modern-day societies that needs to be taken into account in a full explanation of juvenile crime. That structure is not based on a single schoolhouse image of education but rather on a complex one that marginalizes large segments of juveniles through the tracking that occurs in the modern world of education with its honor, academic, general, vocational, learning disabled, and mentally retarded categories. So too is the legal as well as the criminological interpretation of juvenile crime a product of a diverse set of labels. In the world of law, there are the official labels in terms of persons in need of supervision (PINS), delinquent, restrictive delinquent, juvenile offender, and youthful offender categories. In the world of criminological terms, there are the common delinquent, the onetime, recidivist, chronic offenders, and super-predatory juveniles. All these terms are used to make a case about the varying levels in which juvenile crime is perceived in its public and official forms of seriousness.

Reactions Few juveniles who commit serious acts of juvenile crime have not had some prior contact with the juvenile justice system. The consequences of that contact vary

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considerably. It may begin with a status offense, continue with a trivial act of delinquency, and then graduate to a more serious act of violence. As previously mentioned, the response of officials to a first time nonserious offense usually involves diversion. Only after repeated failure to conform to the demands of diversion or probation will last-resort sanctions be invoked, such as out-of-home residential placement or incarceration. Part of the justification that delinquents themselves draw on in relating the risks of punishment are the official reactions to their past behaviors. Moreover, future offenses may be justified by past offenses. In the mind of juveniles, the probability of not getting caught for the past offense improves the odds of not being caught for the next offense. This is unrealistic and can lead to a sense of injustice as juveniles may perceive of their arrest, conviction, and subsequent incarceration as unfair based on prior warnings and less severe sanctions. This is just one possible source of injustice; there are others to consider that may be related to race and family situation. The sense of injustice may be a way of resisting a delinquent label. The juvenile may admit to having committed an offense but it is usually not the extent of severity that officials attribute to the juvenile’s behavior and status as a delinquent or an offender. The delinquent label has repercussions that go beyond the juvenile’s initial status. It may be used as a justification for transferring the juvenile to criminal court. It may also be used as a reason for family, school, and community members to withdraw from the youth. This was not the initial intent of a juvenile court which was to save the juvenile from a criminal label. For juveniles brought into the adult criminal process, their labeling is particularly serious. Their conviction in criminal court can not only produce a long-term adultlike sentence but also a public criminal record that makes it more difficult to return to school and to obtain employment. For juveniles who are not set in their ways merely by being in that stage of development that is called adolescence the second chance of juvenile justice is eliminated by their prosecution in criminal court. A significant part of juvenile justice relies on the contemporary juvenile court. Today’s juvenile court differs from a more traditional one that first emerged in the United States at the turn of the century and emphasized a nonadversarial, treatment-oriented setting. Instead, the contemporary US juvenile court is a criminalized juvenile court with a much more diverse, complex set of legal avenues. Diversion from and to the contemporary American juvenile court has created unique ways in which juvenile crime is identified. For serious incidents of juvenile crime, diversion to criminal court emerges through a process known as waiver. The transfer of juveniles to criminal court has always been a last-resort policy, the capital form of punishment to exist in juvenile

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court for dealing with juvenile crime. But it has taken on a new form in the shape of juvenile justice policies that have increased the ability of prosecutors to directly charge a juvenile in criminal court. The proportion of juvenile crimes that are adjudicated through the criminal justice process has increased over time leading scholars to wonder about the future of juvenile justice. There are several processes that seem to be at work in the reaction to juvenile crime. First, there is a desire to make the juvenile court procedurally a system of justice that is fair to the juvenile and more treatmentoriented in dealing with the problems of youth. Fairness is produced by requiring juvenile courts to provide adolescents with adequate legal representation. This was not always the case. It has become more so today because of legal rules that wish to provide juveniles with more of the procedural forms of justice that are provided to adults. The treatment-oriented mission of the juvenile court is maintained by mandating a separate legal process. In the vast majority of states, the juvenile court is still a confidential legal process and the juvenile’s record in juvenile court is not part of the public record. Also there are more treatment options in juvenile court and residential facilities have lower staff–inmate population ratios than would be the case in adult prisons. Still scholars question the point that the juvenile justice system is the most effective place for dealing with serious juvenile crime. International comparisons are always difficult. But we can suggest that the get-tough legislation for juveniles mentioned in the form of criminalization has had an impact not only in the United States but also in England. Bottoms and Dignan report based on their review of European youth offender prison population data that ‘‘the Scottish and English percentages were six times as large as those recorded by countries such as Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Spain, and Sweden’’. Clearly based on the authors review of European decision making, the punishment of juveniles for their offenses depends on place as well as time.

Conclusion There are many ways to measure and classify juvenile crime and delinquents. Too often a minor act of delinquency progresses into behavior that can lead to a major act of crime and to criminal court. The actions of juveniles and the reactions of adults, parents, and school and juvenile justice officials reproduce another set of actions that may further perpetuate conflict within households, schools, neighborhoods, and the broader society. How societies are able to raise their youth to take on broader adult responsibilities without committing acts of juvenile crime has always been of utmost public concern.

What is different today in contrast to previous times is how juveniles are increasingly subject to a diverse set of social and legal labels. Many of the legal and social labels that are assigned to youths fall into the category of mental disorders. This can be attributed not only to the wealth of knowledge that society has accumulated about delinquents, but also the experts and specialized professionals that emerged to measure and diagnosis conduct disorders. Many of these disorders are related to delinquency. While treatment is advocated for many, there are some disturbing trends. Acts of violence committed by juveniles are no longer considered in the category of delinquency as they once were with the emerging strength and allencompassing power of the juvenile court. Editorial writers, politicians, and other legal officials along with general public opinion have redefined the delinquent as a juvenile offender as another way to confront juvenile violence. But it is important to bear in mind that the legal process is not the only way that juvenile crime is being confronted. There are other avenues that have developed in our increasing complex systems of juvenile and criminal justice. These include extending the network of governmental programs of control into families and schools so that parents and teachers act as better parents and teachers. Parent effectiveness training and teacher inservice training for preventing and controlling violence are now part of the continuing effort to reduce juvenile crime. It requires not only intimate knowledge of the personal histories of participants but also an awareness of the broader structures involved in the actions and reactions producing juvenile crime. See also: Children, Impact of Television on; Crime and Punishment, Changing Attitudes Toward; Criminal Behavior, Theories of; Death Penalty, Overview; Family Structure and Family Violence; Gangs; Minorities as Perpetrators and Victims of Crime; Peaceful Societies; Punishment of Criminals; Social Control and Violence; Urban Violence, Youth; Violence to Children, Definition and Prevention of

Further Reading Bottom, A. and Dignan, J. (2004). Youth justice in Great Britain. In Tonry, M. and Doob, A. N. (eds.) Crime and justice, vol. 31: Youth crime and youth justice: Comparative and cross-national perspectives, pp. 21–183. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Farrington, P. G. and Farrington, D. (2003). Developmental and life-course criminology: Key theoretical and empirical issues. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Feld, B. C. (1999). Bad Kids: Race and the transformation of juvenile court. New York: Oxford University Press. Greenwood, P. W. (2006). Delinquency prevention as crime-control policy. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.

Juvenile Crime Hagan, J. (1989). Structural criminology. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Hagan, J. and McCarthy, B. (1997). Mean streets: Youth crime and homelessness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Haynie, D. L. (2001). Delinquent peers revisited: Does network structure matter? American Journal of Sociology 106, 1013–1057. Jeffrey, B. and Roman, J. (2004). Juvenile drug courts and teen substance abuse. Washington, DC: The Urban Institute Press. Mark, W. (2002). Companions in crime: The social aspects of criminal conduct. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McCarthy, B., Hagan, J., and Cohen, L. E. (1998). Uncertainty, cooperation, and crime: Understanding the decision to co-offend. Social Forces 77, 155–176. Matza, D. (1964). Delinquency and drift. New York: John Wiley. Newman, K. S. (2004). Rampage: The social roots of school shootings: Why violence erupts in close-knit communiites- and what can be done to stop it. New York: Basic Books.

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Rosenheim, M. K., Franklin, E. Z., David, S. T., and Bernardine, D. (2002). A century of juvenile justice. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Sampson, R. J., Stephen, R. W., and Earls, F. (1997). Neighborhoods and violent crime: A multilevel study of collective efficacy. Science 277, 918–924. Simons, R. L., Simons, L. G., and Wallace, L. E. (2004). Families, delinquency and crime: Linking society’s most basic institution to antisocial behavior. Los Angeles: Roxbury Publishing Company. Singer, S. I. (1996). Recriminalizing delinquency: Violent juvenile crime and juvenile justice reform. New York: Cambridge University Press. Singer, S. I. (1998). Youth policy and juvenile justice systems in the criminal courts. Tanenhaus, D. S. (2004). Juvenile justice in the making. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wilson, J. Q. and Kelling, G. L. (1982). Broken windows. Atlantic Monthly 249, 29–38.

L Language of War and Peace, The William C Gay, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC, USA ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction Language, Perception, and Behavior Language, Violence, and Nonviolence

Glossary Linguistic Alienation A situation in which individuals cannot understand a discourse in their own language because of the use of highly technical vocabularies. Linguistic Violence A situation in which individuals are hurt or harmed by words.

Introduction Language plays an important role in relation to war and peace. Language, which is rarely neutral, shapes perception and behavior. Language can be used to demean differences and inflict violence or to affirm diversity and achieve recognition. The language of war usually functions to mask the reality of the violence that is occurring. Official discourse about war makes extensive use of euphemisms and misrepresentation. By imposing itself as legitimate, it coops efforts by critics of war. The language of peace, like the condition of peace, can be negative or positive. A language of negative peace perpetuates injustice by only establishing a verbal declaration of an end to war and hostilities. A language of positive peace fosters open and inclusive communication that affirms diversity.

Language, Perception, and Behavior Various uses of language precede and support the pursuit of war and the quest for peace. Military preparations for war and political negotiations for peace involve fairly

The Language of War The Language of Peace Further Reading

Negative Peace The temporary absence of active war or the lull between wars. Positive Peace The negation of war and the presence of justice. Warist Discourse Language that takes for granted that wars are inevitable, justifiable, and winnable.

obvious institutional structures. Discourse about war and peace also involves institutional structures, since language itself is a social institution. Whether we know the official language of the nation in which we live or a dialect relegated to low social esteem, whether we know only one or many languages, in whatever language we speak and write, we are faced with its lexicon and grammatical structure which have embedded within them a wide range of terms that express not only arbitrary systems of classification but also actual relations of power. If knowledge is power, language too is power; those who control the language of war and peace exercise an enormous influence on how we perceive war and peace and what behaviors we accept in relation to war and peace.

The Institutional Character of War and Discourse about War Individuals who serve as warriors and soldiers have social roles that are structured by the military institutions of societies. The overt violent acts committed by these individuals when they act as a social group following official orders are sanctioned by the state as legitimate even though the acts committed by these individuals are

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similar to types of physical violence that are prohibited by the state and for which individuals who commit them are subject to punishment. In order to mark the institutional character of military behavior, most societies use distinctive words to designate the violent acts of warriors and soldiers. The act that is designated as ‘murder’ when performed by an individual may be redesignated ‘justified use of force’ when carried out by law enforcement or military personnel. This power of redesignation, which allows for legitimation or condemnation of various actions, manifests how political uses of language precede and support the pursuit of war; the same is true for the political uses of language in the quest for peace. From primitive war among archaic societies to the world wars of the twentieth century, political and military leaders have introduced and reinforced linguistic usages that give legitimacy to the social roles and military actions of warriors and soldiers. Since the rise of the modern nation-state, almost all societies have coupled the aim of maintaining national sovereignty with the capacity to wage war. Not surprisingly, then, discourse about war is much more deeply ensconced in the languages of the world than is discourse about peace. ‘Warist discourse’ refers to the resulting language that takes for granted that wars are inevitable, justifiable, and winnable. One of the most elaborate justifications for war arose during the medieval period and continues to this day, namely, the theory of just war that was given classic articulation by St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas. How the Institution of Language Shapes Perception and Behavior In order to better understand the effects of the ways we talk and write about war and peace, one needs to recognize that language, as Ferdinand de Saussure established, is one of the most conservative social institutions. As such, language shapes both perception and behavior, influencing our thought and action in three important ways. First, at any given time the words in the lexicon of a language limit one another. Every lexicon is finite and changes over time. Linguists have shown that the meaning of individual words is a function of the differences among them during each phase in the history of the lexicon. Terms designating ethnicity, race, gender, and sexual orientation are especially revealing in this regard. Consider the difference in the meaning within the United States of using the term ‘Negro’ in the 1950s, 1970s, and 1990s to designate the race of one component of the population. After Martin Luther King, Jr. and others succeeded in having ‘Negro’ accepted as the polite form of address, the term took on a different meaning in the 1970s, by which time the addition of ‘black’ was firmly established in the lexicon as the preferred designation and use of ‘Negro’ became a signal of conformity to an earlier

social norm. The term ‘Negro’ took on an even more telling connotation once ‘African-American’ came into general usage in the 1990s and now one of the few remaining socially acceptable uses of the term ‘Negro’ is its satirical employment by African-American comedians such as Eddie Murphy. Languages vary in the number of terms available to communicate about a specific topic, and the available terms vary in how positively and negatively charged they are. While the English language currently includes ‘fag’, ‘homosexual’, and ‘gay’ as terms which designate the sexual orientation of some men, these terms are on a continuum of rather negative, to more neutral, to fairly positive. For this reason, when analyzing discourse about war and peace, the words selected and the words not selected from the lexicon are rather important. Think, for example, of the difference between referring to armed troops as ‘freedom fighters’ and as ‘guerrilla terrorists’. Second, because the vocabulary of a language provides charged terms, it serves as a means of interpretation. Individuals think about their world in the terms provided by their language. As a result of socialization individuals have a predisposition to select those terms which coincide with the existing values in their societies. For example, throughout the Cold War, many Americans regarded their government as the ‘champion of freedom’ and the Soviet government as ‘an evil empire’. Since the lexicon of a language also makes available further terminological options, individuals are also able to intentionally select words that are relatively more or less offensive. Hence, while the lexicon of a people has built into it a perspective on the world, it facilitates not only the official perspective but also alternative ones. These alternatives can include the potential for the positive renaming of a disenfranchised social group and the negative redescription of governmental accounts of military campaigns. Although many people refer to individuals who use a wheelchair as ‘handicapped’, these individuals may prefer to refer to themselves and to have others refer to them also as ‘physically challenged’. While the government may refer to a military campaign as a ‘just war’, citizens can counter that it is ‘just another war’. Third, the linguistic perspective of an individual’s thought shapes behavior. In other words, language gives structure to consciousness, which guides action. Since changed behavior is so closely connected with the way language shapes consciousness, the ‘‘right of bestowing names,’’ as Friedrich Nietzsche saw, is a fundamental expression of political power. In the twentieth century, French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu has elaborated theoretically and empirically on the extent of the symbolic power that language can provide. Some social groups accrue enormous linguistic capital which they generally use to advance their interests to the detriment of the social masses. Almost all of us are familiar with physicians

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and lawyers who rely on their technical vocabularies and seek to have their patients and clients simply defer to their authority. Similarly, many governmental and military officials use forms of strategic discourse that most citizens do not understand and to which they acquiesce, thereby enabling those with a monopoly of the instruments of force to go unchallenged in their explanations for their actions.

Language, Violence, and Nonviolence Debate continues about whether all terms in a language are ideologically charged or whether some terms avoid bias. Even if some uses of language are neutral, many are charged. Whenever more than one term is available, a difference in connotation is generally present even when the denotation is the same. Is the individual working in a field a ‘wetback’, an ‘illegal immigrant’, or a ‘migratory laborer’? In principle, individuals can select any among the available terms. However, linguistic freedom and linguistic creativity can be used to impose restrictions on social groups and distort their perceptions, just as much as it can be used to empower social groups and enrich their understanding. In practice, word choices are largely shaped by customary social usage. Beyond establishing an official language, most nations reinforce politically preferred choices through institutions of socialization such as schools and the media. What makes some nations ‘rogue states’ and some leaders ‘dangerous villains’? At this point, the prospect for linguistic violence arises and takes on a clearly institutional character. ‘Linguistic violence’ is the situation in which individuals are hurt or harmed by words. Linguistic Violence Negatively, language can be used to demean differences among social groups and to inflict violence against them. Frequently, we think more about the ways one individual insults another than about how the lexicon itself reflects institutional structuring of social roles. As noted earlier, a distinction is made between personal overt violence, such as murder, and institutional overt violence, such as war. Likewise, as Newton Garver has noted, a distinction can be made between personal covert violence, such as a verbal insult, and institutional covert violence, such as the socially sanctioned use of demeaning terms to refer to specific social groups. Personal covert violence occurs when we try to dismiss opponents by calling them ‘morons’. Institutional covert violence is practiced when members of the middle or upper class dismiss the poor by calling them ‘lazy’. Not only do governments refer to their adversaries as a ‘peril’, they also demean the politically less powerful within the society. (Those less

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powerful in society are not always less numerous, as is typically the case with women.) Within moral philosophy Joel Feinberg has distinguished hurt and harm, and Stephanie Ross and others have applied this distinction to language. Sometimes, when we are conscious of the negative effects of terms, words hurt us. Such hurt is equally real in individual verbal insults and institutionally sanctioned demeaning terminology. It usually hurts a child when someone yells, ‘You’re ugly!’ And it often hurts women when they are called ‘chicks’, ‘babes’, or ‘foxes’. Language that hurts us is termed ‘offensive’. On other occasions, when we are not conscious of the negative effects, words can still harm us. Such harm also occurs on both individual and institutional levels. We may not see the harm when someone calls adult females ‘girls’, rather than ‘women’ unless we hear them refer to adult males of the same age as ‘men’ and not ‘boys’. Inhabitants of Africa may accept their nations as ‘underdeveloped’ and ‘less civilized’ until they learn about the imposition of colonial rule and Eurocentric values. Language that harms us is termed ‘oppressive’. This distinction between offensive and oppressive language is found on all levels of the continuum of linguistic violence that includes subtle, abusive, and grievous forms. Subtle forms range from children’s jokes to official languages. Even in the innocent manifestations of a child’s attempt to make fun of adult authority figures, children’s jokes involve issues of power. At other times, the linguistic violence of children’s jokes is hardly subtle and contributes to prejudicial attitudes that subsequently can be directed against an ‘enemy’. Various questions and answers can be altered in order to make fun of almost any racial, ethnic, religious, or national group. For example, a child may ask, ‘‘How do you break a _ _ _ _ ‘s neck?’’ The answer, regardless of the group cited (such as Pole or Turk), is, ‘‘Shut the toilet seat.’’ Such humor contributes to later acceptance of physical violence against these types of persons. Within a particular country, the linguistic violence of an official language is generally more subtle to those who have mastered it than to those who have not. Internationally, official languages are another unfortunate legacy of colonialism, namely, alien languages along with alien governments were imposed onto indigenous peoples. The pains of colonization and the subsequent strife associated with independence are reflected in such classic works as Tunisian Albert Memmi’s The colonizer and the colonized and Algerian Frantz Fanon’s The wretched of the Earth and in numerous lesser-known literary works such as Nigerian Kole Omotoso’s Just before dawn. Abusive forms are especially conspicuous in racist, sexist, heterosexist, and classist discourse. Abusive forms rely on offensive terms and frequently aim to hurt the individuals at whom they are directed. Both the practitioners and victims are more likely to be aware of the

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degrading intent of these forms of communication. Generally, when a heterosexual man calls a lesbian a ‘dyke’ both individuals know that the man aims to hurt the woman’s feelings. Moreover, many of these abusive terms recur within warist discourse in demeaning references to the enemy or even members of one’s own military who are judged negatively. Vietnamese have been referred to as ‘gooks’. Soldiers exhibiting fear are often called ‘sissies’ or ‘girls’. Of course, just as many speakers of an official language do not see how it is oppressive, many individuals who employ and some who hear and read racist, sexist, and heterosexist language are unaware of its oppressive nature. With the distinction between oppressive and offensive, one can demonstrate how a form of discourse may be oppressive even though not all individuals experience it as offensive. Grievous forms are found in many expressions of warist discourse, including nuclear discourse, totalitarian language, and genocidal language. In nuclear discourse, ‘collateral damage’ refers to the thousands or even millions of civilians who would be the victims of nuclear strikes against military targets. Nazis used ‘special treatment’ instead of ‘execution’, while in Bosnia ‘ethnic cleansing’ referred to genocidal practices. Grievous forms often have the intent to silence or even eliminate an entire social group. Unfortunately, warist discourse represents one of the most globally intractable practices of linguistic violence. Warist discourse in its multifarious and nefarious manifestations leads to the killing of large numbers of people by organized groups, such as the state, subnational political organizations, and religious, racial, and ethnic groups. Linguistic Nonviolence Alternatively, whether we are conscious of their effects, terms can comfort and advantage us. Positively, language can comfort us when used to affirm diversity and achieve recognition. During the civil rights struggle, the phrase ‘black is beautiful’ expressed a growing sense of pride and self-affirmation among African-Americans. Some feminists responded to the infrequent citation of the accomplishments of women in our history textbooks by seeking to write ‘herstory’. Positive terms can advantage a social group even if its members do not always recognize that such terms function in this manner. As should be obvious, ‘linguistic nonviolence’ is the antonym to ‘linguistic violence’ as ‘peace’ is the antonym to ‘war’. Many times the first step in reducing linguistic violence is to simply refrain from the use of offensive and oppressive terms. However, linguistic nonviolence requires the availability of terms that affirm diversity. Moreover, these terms need to be ones that are understood by most citizens. A nuclear war could kill millions or even billions of people. However, critics of nuclear war

can make their message rather obscure when they refer to ‘omnicide’ (the killing of all sentient life). ‘Linguistic alienation’, as Ferruccio Rossi-Landi has shown, refers to the situation in which individuals cannot understand a discourse in their own language because of the use of highly technical terms. Those seeking to change official designations run up against the danger that they will establish themselves as a specially trained elite who can lead the people. Vanguard parties can create linguistic alienation between themselves and the movements they seek to direct. For this reason, the practice of linguistic nonviolence requires the development of a broadly understood language of inclusion.

The Language of War The language of war, which frequently has truth as its first casualty, is an example of linguistic violence that functions to mask the reality of the violence that is occurring. Whenever truth is masked or distorted, communication is being used for manipulation. Such linguistic manipulation is episodic in many areas of social life, but it is constitutive of warist discourse. In The art of war, written in China over 2000 years ago and perhaps the oldest strategic text on war, Sun Tzu says: ‘‘All warfare is based on deception.’’ In History of the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), Thucydides wrote the first extensive historical account of war. He may also be the first to observe how war negatively affects language and degrades human behavior. He states: ‘‘Reckless audacity came to be considered the courage of a loyal supporter.’’ Likewise, ‘‘moderation’’ became a ‘‘cloak for unmanliness,’’ ‘‘plotting’’ became ‘‘justifiable means of self-defense,’’ and ‘‘blood became a weaker tie than party.’’ In the twentieth century, the title of Phillip Knightley’s book on war correspondents, The first casualty, is based on US Senator Hiram Johnson’s 1917 statement, ‘‘the first casualty when war comes is truth.’’ The Use of Euphemisms for War Linguistic manipulation, like physical coercion, does violence. Nevertheless, most people who are subjected to physical coercion are conscious of the violence being done to them. In the case of linguistic manipulation, the harm done can escape those subjected to it unless they can find an independent basis for exposing the distortions to which they have been subjected. Often, persons who learn that they have been the victims of linguistic manipulation feel a sense of violation. They feel that someone has deceived them into adopting false beliefs. On the basis of these false beliefs, these victims typically have communicated and acted in ways that they subsequently regret.

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Some linguistic manipulation in warist discourse is unintentional and involves self-deception on the part of governmental and military officials. As occurs in many fields where individuals have to order or perform very unpleasant tasks, the use of euphemisms is prevalent. Official discourse about war makes extensive use of euphemisms. A linguistic alternative to the horrors of war is created in order to think, speak, and write about these events in an abstract or indirect way since it would otherwise be difficult to visualize graphically or justify logically what is actually taking place. Likewise, when the public hears and reads these euphemisms, they often do not realize what is really occurring. Warist discourse, in an important dimension of its linguistic manipulation, actually presents itself as a language of peace. ‘Pax Romano’ (Peace of Rome) stood for the military suppression of armed conflict throughout the Roman Empire. The medieval Truce of God (1041) limited warfare to specific times. The term ‘Peacekeeper’ refers to the MX missile, a nuclear weapon designed to contribute to a first-strike capability. The phrase ‘peace through strength’ really promotes a military buildup. While the totalitarian government in 1984 uses the slogan ‘Peace is War’, modern nations prefer to omit reference to war whenever possible. Then, when war occurs, the claim is sometimes made that it is ‘the war to end all wars’. So far, each such claim has turned out to be false. Not surprisingly, the rhetoric about war is divided between not only the former East–West Cold War but also the continuing North–South conflict. While the North defended its ‘right’ to ‘protect’ its colonies, the colonized responded with arguments for the legitimacy of ‘wars of liberation’. Whether wars of liberation bring about an end to war, and there is scant evidence that they do, they are still wars and involve small-scale to largescale violence. Nevertheless, some supporters of wars of liberation prefer to forge an alternative language that refuses to designate their movements as violent since they are in response to practices of oppression. In his classic Pedagogy of the oppressed, Brazilian Paulo Freire contends violence has never been initiated by the oppressed and designates as ‘‘a gesture of love’’ the admittedly violent response of rebellion by the oppressed against the initial violence of oppressors. Such reversals in language are not confined to the distinction between colonial oppression and wars of liberation; it occurs within both types. Even within the latter, as Norwegian feminist Birgit Brock-Utne has shown, the language used to recruit women into wars of liberation is different from the reality of the roles assigned to these women as is illustrated in studies on such conflicts in Lebanon, Cuba, Zimbabwe, and the Philippines. Scholars who have analyzed discourse about war, such as Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, and Haig Bosmajian, contend that language is corrupted in ways that make the

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cruelty, inhumanity, and horror of war seem justifiable. Language becomes a tool employed by political and military officials to make people accept what they would ordinarily repudiate if the true character were known. The language of war hinders civilians from recognizing that human beings are being mutilated, tortured, forcibly removed from their villages and hamlets, wounded, and killed. An aggressive attack by a squadron of airplanes that ordinarily would be called an ‘air raid’ is euphemistically referred to as a ‘routine limited duration protective reaction’. Defoliation of an entire forest is spoken of as a ‘resource control program’. ‘Pacification’ is used to label actions that involve entering a village, machine-gunning domesticated animals, setting huts on fire, rounding up all the men and shooting those who resist, and prodding and otherwise harming the elderly, women, and children. The human face of war is thus replaced by benign abstractions. At other times, the level of abstraction is so high that citizens do not even understand what officials are saying. In these cases, they suffer a type of linguistic alienation. What do officials mean when they refer to ‘the counterforce first-strike capability of a MIRVed ICBM facilitated by its low CEP’? Just as many people simply accept the advice of medical and legal professionals when they do not understand the technical jargon employed, even so many citizens are unable to challenge the military policies of leaders who rely on the technical vocabulary of modern warfare with its high incidence of acronyms and euphemisms. Wars are complex phenomena but they are often presented in very simplistic – even sloganistic – terms. One reason for conveying war by means of caricatures relates to the need by government officials to communicate with the masses in a manner that is succinct and persuasive. During the first Persian Gulf War, as George Lakoff and others have observed, the use of the ‘fairy tale’ motif was especially common. (This type of description is used for many wars.) At the time of Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm, the public was served up with a variety of metaphors that wove a classic fairy tale. In a land far, far away there lived an evil villain (Saddam Hussein) who had violated (invaded) an innocent victim (Kuwait) but a hero (the United States, along with its allies) would save the day by rescuing the victim and vanquishing the villain and restoring peace, justice, and tranquility. In terms of the metaphors used, the story is straightforward. A villain is vicious and lacks morality and rationality, while a hero is courageous and possesses both morality and rationality. Given this antithetical characterization, the public transfers to its leaders the view that heroes are not able to negotiate with villains; instead, they must defeat the ‘evil ones’. The public was familiar with the fairy-tale components of the alarm that

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was sounded; so, not much inclination was present to check the details. Of course, Kuwait was hardly an innocent victim given its practice at the time of lateral drilling into Iraqi oil fields and its long-standing oppression of women, and after the first Persian Gulf War the government of Kuwait did not exactly become a model democracy but continued as an oppressive monarchy. Metaphors dispense with such details in the way they limit and simplify our perceptions. We recognize that in wars large numbers of people are killed. The research of scholars like Lakoff also brings to our attention the ways in which metaphors kill or, more precisely, when backed up by the weapons of war, metaphors kill and often on a very large scale. Without critical analyses, many people do not realize that they are relying on an unconscious system of metaphors in thinking about international affairs. In addition to the fairy-tale metaphor, many more metaphors are used to describe war, such as the state-as-house metaphor and the state-asperson metaphor. The state-as-house metaphor leads to further metaphors connected with protecting our home. After 9/11, to protect the ‘home’ that is the United States, the US government declared the necessity of establishing an Office of Homeland Security. A house is also a container. During the Cold War, the US government tried to prevent harm to the US homeland by developing a strategic doctrine of Containment of the Soviet Union and its allies. This metaphor of state-as-house was used differently in the 1980s when some strategists feared newer Soviet weapons capabilities. They declared that a ‘window of vulnerability’ existed. What do you do in a house when you have an open window that makes the residents of the house vulnerable? You close the window. These metaphors simultaneously obscure our noticing some features of the situation while exaggerating other aspects. Such features are well illustrated in the state-asperson metaphor. The citizens of any nation live in the same ‘house’, and the ‘head of the household’ runs this ‘house’. While such metaphors provide a way of seeing how authority and rule are structured in a society, they obscure the ways in which citizens of most countries are far more diverse than members of most households and the ways in which the head of state is assisted by a vast set of offices and personnel and the ways in which the head of state possesses far more power and capacity to exercise force than the head of a household. Beyond the need to expose how current metaphors distort our language and communication is the need to provide new and more enlightening metaphors designed to reduce the distortions of the language of war. For example, when governmental officials declare that we should be alarmed about a ‘window of vulnerability’, one can counter with another metaphor that reveals what the official metaphor obscures, namely, we are deceiving ourselves in being concerned about an ‘open

window’ when we live a in ‘roofless house’. No nation has yet been able to develop a defensive system that adequately undercuts the reality of mutual assured destruction (MAD); all nations are vulnerable. Belief in ‘invulnerability’ is a myth. No ‘house’ can be made completely safe. While many nations are capable of inflicting great harm on their adversaries, they cannot fully prevent harm, even great harm, from being inflicted on their own ‘household’. The Use of Propaganda in War Linguistic misrepresentation is not always unintentional. Propaganda and brainwashing seek to manipulate the minds and behaviors of the citizenry. In times of war, each of the nations involved presents its adversary as an evil enemy and itself as the embodiment of good. All parties employ linguistic misrepresentations of themselves and their adversaries. Nevertheless, an ally in one war may be the enemy in the next, while the enemy in one war may become an economic partner in the postwar global market. For this reason, in The republic, Plato cautioned over 2000 years ago that we should be careful about calling another people an ‘enemy’, since wars do not last forever and eventually they may again become our friends. Failure to recognize that the designation of a nation as one’s ‘enemy’ is transitory leads to the need for a kind of Orwellian ‘doublethink’ that allows one to ‘forget’ that current allies were former enemies and vice versa. Orwell has observed that political speech and writing often intentionally defend the indefensible. He gives several examples. In order to defend British rule in India, Soviet purges, and the United States’s atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, officials resorted to bizarre arguments that contradicted the purported aims and values of their governments. These intentional uses of euphemisms, question-begging terminology, vagueness, and outright falsity demonstrate that when Orwell presented Newspeak in his novel 1984, he was not referring to a merely fictive possibility. More recent efforts in the treatment of the language of war and peace that make useful contributions include works by Paul Chilton and George Lakoff, Noam Chomsky, Jean Baudrillard, J. Fisher Solomon, Christopher Norris, Haig Bosmajian, Carol Cohn, Robert Holmes, Trudy Govier, William Gay, John Wesley Young, Slavoj Zizek, Christina Scha¨ffner and Anita Wender, Teun Van Dijk, Philip Tayler, and Steven Pooler. Chilton, Lakoff, and Chomsky have provided widely disseminated and discussed critiques of the language of war. Baudrillard, on the other hand, has used his version of postmodernism to deny that the first Gulf War took place (in the sense conveyed by the media), while Norris has pointed out the dangers of such excesses in postmodernism for attaining a needed level of critical assessment of military operations that did in fact take

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place. In a similar vein, J. Fisher Solomon has criticized Jacques Derrida’s argument that current weapons of mass destruction undercut viewing the arms race in real-world, practical terms. Solomon rejects Derrida’s characterization of nuclear war as ‘‘fabulous’’ and ‘‘fictive’’ in ways similar to Norris’s critique of Baudrilliard’s claim that the Gulf War did not take place. Norris, in fact, sees as related and equally suspect various aspects of the postmodernism and neopragmatism of Stanley Fish, Richard Rorty, and Francis Fukuyma. In this regard, he sees Fukuyma’s characterization of the first Gulf War as a ‘‘wretched anachronism’’ as an unwillingness to let facts get in the way of his thesis of the end of history. Bosmajian provided one of the early, broad surveys of the language of oppression, showing similarities in racist language (against Native Americans, African-Americans, and Jews) and sexist language to the language of war. Holmes and Govier have analyzed the use of the term ‘terrorism’ and related terms; while the work of Holmes precedes the events of 9/11 and the work of Govier follows these events, their careful reflections on the language used in discussing terrorism are remarkably similar. Cohn and Gay have given particular attention to nuclear discourse, while Young and Zizek have focused more generally on totalitarian discourse. Scha¨ffner and Wender have looked broadly at the relation between language and peace, while Van Dijk has given much focused consideration to elitist discourse and Taylor has done likewise with media communication. Steven Pooler clears some of the clutter when he explains how phrases such as ‘the war on terror’ sneak into a highly charged political position. He uses ‘Unspeak’ for discourse that tries to say something without saying it thereby avoiding getting into an argument and needing to justify this position. In so doing, Unspeak silences opposing points of view by presenting itself at the outset as the only way of looking at a problem. Poole dismantles propaganda that has been used to support the ‘war on terror’ and the war in Iraq. He aims to expose how politicians manipulate language to justify their actions and to urge the media to reject such discourse by refusing to parrot the loaded talking points of politicians. In some cases, linguistic misrepresentation stretches all the way to the ‘figurative lie’. This term, coined by Berel Lang, refers to descriptions of war that actually contradict the realities of war, as occurs in the extremes of genocidal and nuclear discourse. The Nazis used syntax, grammar, and literary figures of speech as instruments for political ends, namely, genocide. This instrumental approach to language detaches language from history and moral judgment, converting it into a mere technique in the assertion of political power. Endlosung (Final Solution) both disguises and reveals (at least to the people in the know) the plan of murder. The term reveals that there is a problem that must be solved and in a conclusive manner. Endlosung conceals that the action denoted will be the

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annihilation of all Jews and other ‘culture destroyers’, including homosexuals and Gypsies, rather than actions like their deportation or resettlement. While it is possible to speak of a concrete event as the ‘final solution’ to a problem, it is contradictory and duplicitous to designate the concrete action of murdering millions of individuals abstractly as a ‘final solution’. The language of genocide simultaneously promulgates and hides the intentional willing of evil. Thus, the language of genocide functions as an instrument of domination and as a mechanism of deceit: the language of genocide facilitates large-scale killing, yet denies the social reality of its intent and consequence. Nuclear discourse, by personifying weapons while dehumanizing people, provides another illustration of the figurative lie. The names given to the first nuclear bombs, Little Boy and Fat Man, convey that these vehicles of destruction are living persons and males. In fact, before the first atomic device was detonated in the Trinity test at Alamogordo, New Mexico, its inventors said they hoped the ‘baby’ would be a boy. By implication, as Carol Cohn has observed, if the bomb had been a dud it would have been termed a ‘girl’. Later, the expression ‘losing her virginity’ was used to refer to India’s entry into the nuclear club, while ‘being deflowered’ is used to refer to any country that enters this elite club. Such warist discourse banters in public a figurative lie that simultaneously substitutes birth for death and degrades women. Imposition of Warist Discourse as Legitimate Finally, governmental and military officials are able to impose their form of discourse as the legitimate one and, thereby, co-opt efforts by critics of war. Nations typically cultivate among citizens a belief in their legitimacy. In times of ‘national emergency’, open opposition to the ‘official version’ of events is often forbidden and may be severely punished. Citizens who question the ‘official version’ are labeled ‘traitors’ and ‘fellow travelers’ with the enemy of the state. One common fallacy is termed ‘special pleading’. This fallacy occurs when similar objects or actions are categorized in negative terms when describing one’s opponent and in positive terms when one provides self-descriptions. At the time of the first Persian Gulf War, the United States employed terms like ‘murder’, ‘theft’, and ‘rape’ to portray Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, but did not use words like ‘murder’, ‘assault’, and ‘arson’ to characterize the US military intervention. Government officials accuse terrorist groups of developing and even using weapons of mass destruction, and some regard the attacks of 11 September as ones involving such weapons. In this context, what may need examination is not so much what is said as what is not said. In this regard, one needs to consider past, current, and future

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military actions by the United States and other countries in relation to the same definition of what constitutes a weapon of mass destruction. Fundamentally, weapons of mass destruction are instruments of terror. As moral philosophers have noted (Robert Holmes, in particular), both subnational groups and governments can resort to the use of weapons of terror. Clearly, wars generally kill far more people than do what are generally termed terrorist attacks. Principles of just war forbid the intentional killing of noncombatants. Nevertheless, especially since the obliteration bombing (strategic bombing) in Europe and against Japan at the close of World War II, cities and their civilian populations have become targets. So, one of the important ethical lessons about weapons of mass destruction is that they can be (and have been) used by individuals and by governments. In this regard, the difference is not so much of kind as it is of degree. The end is the same in the terrorist acts of individuals and governments; the goal is to cause fear among civilians by doing violence to them or threatening them with violence. Given the range of linguistic use, the term ‘weapons of mass destruction’ needs some special analysis. When we refer to weapons of mass destruction, we are drawing on a condemnatory connotation. Moreover, the prospect for and reality of special pleading in using this term needs to be highlighted. For example, the United States presented its use of nuclear weapons in World War II as a means to end the war and save lives, yet the United States condemns as weapons of mass destruction ones with far less destructive capability when they are being developed by ‘rogue’ states or terrorist groups that are perceived as a military threat. While searching in Iraq for what the US government proclaimed as ‘the most dangerous weapons’, namely, weapons of mass destruction, the United States regarded its own vast nuclear arsenal as a ‘deterrent force’. In another of his examples of lexicalization as a common form of ideological expression, Van Dijk has noted how the weapons of the enemy are typically described as ‘catastrophic and cruel’, while one’s own weapons are viewed as having a ‘peaceful’ nature. Perhaps, the time has come to realize that most violence, terrorism, and war needs to be condemned regardless of whether we term the instruments of violence, terrorism, and war as weapons of mass destruction. Even when people think about terrorism, they generally fail to recognize that this term has two major forms. ‘Enforcement terror’ is a reign of terror committed by an incumbent power (e.g., the balance of terror during the Cold War), while ‘agitational terror’ is a siege of terror committed by an insurgent power (e.g., purportedly al Qaida in relation to the attacks of 11 September). Most citizens and political analysts focus on insurgent over incumbent terrorism. In part, institutionalized forms have less news value and are more dangerous and difficult

to report. Moreover, states seem more predictable and rational, while members of insurgent groups appear to be more irrational and to act in a more random manner. All this fits nicely with a villain view of evil. Since the attacks of 11 September 2001, most Americans now support increased surveillance of individuals who are Arab or Muslim already in or trying to enter the United States. The media aided government in fostering this reaction by quickly simplifying the attacks onto an individual villain – Osama bin Laden. The United States, which used to charge the Soviets with the cult of personality, has long tended to have a villain of the decade. Previous villains include Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Castro, Ho Chi Min, Qaddafi, and Khomeini. Such a villain view of threats to security forgets that evil is far too extensive to be personified in one person, let alone the fact that discourse about ‘good versus evil’ is more characteristic of Manichaeanism than the Judeo–Christian–Islamic traditions. Manichaeanism makes an individual or group all good or all evil, whereas the Judeo–Christian–Islamic traditions view all persons as at least occasionally falling short or sinning as well as being able to act righteously. The fallaciousness of the popular response should be obvious to anyone who has studied Critical Thinking. Stereotyping Arabs and Muslims as terrorists is an unfortunate, but far too common, ‘hasty generalization’. Worse still is the willingness to subject such individuals to a type of ‘ethnic profiling’ that makes ‘racial profiling’, by comparison, almost seem less unacceptable than it is. To those too quick to point a finger of blame, Robert Holmes observes that any people who are sufficiently desperate are capable of engaging in terrorism, and, likewise, any government that is sufficiently unscrupulous is also capable of engaging in terrorism. Not so surprisingly, the fairly-tale approach to justifying military intervention was used again for the second Persian Gulf War, and also not so surprisingly, at least initially, its use largely worked in the United States despite shifting contentions on the danger and minimal international support for a largely US invasion. Nevertheless, almost immediately, several scholars undertook critical discourse analyses. Consider the following examples. The ‘coalition of the willing’ referred almost exclusively to US and British military forces. The ‘shock and awe’ campaign referred to large-scale bombing of densely populated cities. The claims by US governmental officials that ‘the ground war is over’ and ‘hostilities have come to an end’ reveal that the official ‘announcing’ of the end of a war and the terminating of lethal battles are quite distinct. In what is supposedly postwar Iraq, the meaning of Operation Enduring Freedom seems rather far removed from typical associations of freedom with at least tranquility if not also justice. At the extreme, officials use warist discourse as an authoritarian instrument. When Quincy Wright referred

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to the totalitarianization of war in the twentieth century, he was thinking more about how most sectors of civil society, along with military units, are recruited into supporting military efforts. The twentieth century made equally clear how governments and subnational groups have turned to ‘totalitarian language’ as well in their efforts to ‘win’ the hearts and minds of the masses in support of their political agendas. In these endeavors they have relied extensively on the instruments of mass communication as well as research in psychology to significantly increase the degree of control that can be exercised over the mind by verbal means. Nevertheless, as John Wesley Young has shown, the language of totalitarianism practiced in the twentieth century has had only limited success in achieving the goal of thought control. This failure of the attempt at linguistic control by totalitarian regimes provides significant evidence that the quest for linguistic emancipation, including a language of peace that gives expression to the deepest desires of humanity, is not quixotic. Endeavors to establish a legitimate discourse about war, to propound an acceptable theory of war, have been ongoing in global civilizations. From Sun Tzu’s The art of war in ancient China to Carl von Klausewitz’s On war in nineteenth-century Europe, the policy debate has not been on whether war is moral or whether it should be waged, but on how to wage war effectively. Since the advent of nuclear weapons strategists have pulled back from the concept of ‘total war’ in favor of the concept of ‘limited war’, but they have not yet called for an ‘end to war’. The Hague Conferences, the Geneva Conventions, the League of Nations, and now the United Nations put forth principles that seek, though often ineffectively, to limit war and to put moral constraints on the conduct of war. However, official attempts at the abolition of war, such as the Kellog–Briand Pact, have allowed for some exceptions, such as in response to ‘wars of aggression’ or to intervene in ‘certain regions of the world, the welfare and integrity of which constitute a special and vital interest for our peace and safety’.

The Language of Peace The language of peace is an important component in the pursuit of peace and justice. The language of peace can be an example of linguistic nonviolence and can contribute to forging an understood language of inclusion. However, just because the language of war is not being used, a genuine language of peace is not necessarily present. The language of peace, like the condition of peace, can be negative or positive. ‘Negative peace’ refers to the temporary absence of actual war or the lull between

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wars, while ‘positive peace’ refers to the negation of war and the presence of justice. The Language of Negative Peace The language of negative peace can actually perpetuate injustice. A government and its media may cease referring to a particular nation as ‘the enemy’ or ‘the devil’, but public and private attitudes may continue to foster the same, though now unspoken, prejudice. When prejudices remain unspoken, at least in public forums, their detection and eradication are made even more difficult. Of course, just as legal or social sanctions against hate speech may be needed to stop linguistic attacks in the public arena, even so, in order to stop current armed conflict, there may be a need not only for an official peace treaty but also a cessation in hostile name-calling directed against an adversary of the state. However, even if a language of negative peace is necessary, it is not sufficient. Arms may have been laid down, but they can readily be taken up again when the next military stage in a struggle begins. Likewise, those who bite their tongues to comply with the demands of political correctness are often ready to lash out vitriolic epithets when these constraints are removed. Thus, in the language of negative peace, the absence of verbal assaults about ‘the enemy’ merely marks a lull in reliance on warist discourse. Even when the language of peace is used it is usually the language of negative peace. Anita Wenden has illustrated this point in her analysis of the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize. Between 1901 and 1993, 63 of 90 of the prizes (70%) went to endeavors for negative peace. Consider just a few of the recipients of Nobel Peace Prize who, at times, advanced at most negative peace. In 1973 the prize went to Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho. In 1978 the prize went to Anwar al-Sadat and Menachem Begin. In 1994 the prize went to Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres, and Yitzhak Rabin. While each of these individuals in their later years did seek to advance peace processes that sought an end to armed conflict (the lull between wars of negative peace), several, at least earlier in their careers, were involved with planning and waging wars and supporting and even conducting terrorist acts. Wenden notes that only with the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Amnesty International in 1977 did the Nobel committee recognize efforts for peace that aimed at more than the mere absence of war. Immanuel Kant had a similar distinction in mind when he contrasted a ‘treaty of peace’ with a ‘league of peace’. Kant was concerned with the conditions that make peace possible. He did not want genuine peace to be confused with a mere ‘suspension of hostilities’. The latter is the pseudo-peace of a ‘treaty of peace’ (pactum pacis) which merely ends a particular war and not the state of war. Genuine peace, for Kant, must be founded and is

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impossible if war can be waged without the consent of citizens. Kant presumed that, for this end, republican states are preferred. He termed a genuine peace, one that negates war, a ‘league of peace’ (foedus pacificwn). Even if genuine peace is unlikely, Kant stresses the importance of its possibility; otherwise, if we knew we absolutely could not achieve it, any duty to try to advance genuine peace would be eliminated. From the perspective of Mohandas Gandhi, much discourse about peace, as well as the rhetoric supporting wars of liberation, places a primacy on ends over means. When the end is primary, nonviolence may be practiced only so long as it is effective. For Gandhi and the satyagrahi (someone committed to the pursuit of truth and the practice of nonviolence) the primary commitment is to the means. The commitment to nonviolence requires that the achievement of political goals be secondary. These goals must be foregone or at least postponed when they cannot be achieved nonviolently. The nature of the language of negative peace becomes especially clear when, within social movements facing frustration in the pursuit of their political goals, a division occurs between those ready to abandon nonviolence and those resolute in their commitment to it. The resolute commitment to nonviolence was clear in the teachings and practices of Martin Luther King, Jr. and his followers and in the recent courageous behavior of other practitioners of nonviolent civil disobedience, including Vaclav Havel in Eastern Europe, Mubarak Awad in the Middle East, Nelson Mandela in South Africa, and thousands of ordinary citizens in the Baltic republics, China, Czechoslovakia, Poland, the West Bank, and the Ukraine. The Language of Positive Peace The language of positive peace facilitates and reflects the move from a lull in the occurrence of violence to its negation. The establishment of a language of positive peace requires a transformation of cultures oriented to war. The discourse of positive peace, to be successful, must include a genuine affirmation of diversity both domestically and internationally. The effort to establish the language of positive peace requires the creation of a critical vernacular, a language of empowerment that is inclusive of and understood by the vast array of citizens. The effort to eliminate linguistic alienation and linguistic violence is part of a larger struggle to reduce what Norwegian Johan Galtung calls ‘‘cultural violence.’’ For Galtung, ‘cultural violence’ occurs when aspects of culture such as religion, ideology, language, art, and science are used to justify or legitimize direct or structural violence. The critique of the language of war and the promotion of the language of positive peace are simultaneous contributions to the quest for societies in which human emancipation, dignity, and respect are not

restricted on the basis of irrelevant factors like gender, race, or sexual orientation. Why is it that in some regional newspapers in which we still sometimes find references to a ‘black gunman’ or a ‘black rapist’ we do not find references to a ‘Caucasian gunman’ or a ‘white rapist’? Why do we, however, sometimes hear about a ‘lady doctor’ or a ‘female pilot’? And why is the union of same-sex partners often termed a ‘gay marriage’ or a ‘lesbian commitment ceremony’? We can begin to see the harm being done when we reflect on the fact that, in relation to use of adjectives, reference to a person being ‘white’ is sometimes omitted, while reference to a person being ‘female’ or ‘gay’ is sometimes included. Regardless of race, a rapist is a rapist; regardless of gender, a physician is a physician. Despite continuing legal and official restrictions based on orientation, a marriage is a marriage. Similarly, as long as nation-states persist in legitimating some forms of military combat, we will continue, in these cases, to hear a military campaign referred to as a ‘just war’, but regardless of any rationales, a war is a war. Legally and officially, social discrimination based on race and gender is prohibited, and a similar shift is beginning to occur in relation to sexual orientation. But a ban on the use of military force is a long way off. Regardless of the stage of social progress on these issues, there is an ongoing need to expose all forms of discriminatory language that legitimates harm. Among recent works, Trudy Govier has written an especially important book analyzing discourse connected to terrorism in the post-9/11 environment. Each chapter of her book, A delicate balance: What philosophy can tell us about terrorism, provides critical discourse analysis on a central term. She covers topics such as ‘vulnerability’, ‘victims’, ‘evil’, ‘revenge’, ‘courage’, ‘vindication’, and ‘hope’. Consider a few examples of the type of critical discourse analysis that she provides. In treating ‘victims’, she is careful to distinguish the sympathy victims deserve from presuming that victims have special moral insight. In analyzing ‘hope’, she is careful to note that, rather than being based on certainty or even confidence, ‘hope’ is based on positive possibilities. She ends by noting, ‘‘Living as political beings requires the hope that better things may come.’’ Various activities promote the pursuit of respect, cooperation, and understanding needed for positive peace. These activities go beyond the mere removal from discourse of adjectives that convey biases based on race, gender, and sexual orientation. Beyond meetings among political leaders of various nations, these activities include cultural and educational exchanges, trade agreements, and travel exchanges. We can come to regard races, sexes, and cultures as making up the harmonies and melodies that together create the song of humanity. Just as creative and appreciated cooks use a wide variety of herbs and spices to keep their dishes from being bland, so too can we move from an image of a culture with

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diverse components as a melting pot to one of a stew which is well seasoned with a variety of herbs and spices. Or, to employ another nonviolent metaphor, the garden of humanity will best flourish when composed of multiple plots with the varieties of life co-mingling and coinhabiting. Despite the primacy of the history of warfare in textbook histories of civilizations, the desire for peace and even elaborate discourses on plans for peace have been made persistently and eloquently throughout human history. In his study of primitive war, Harry Turney-High found that from a psychological perspective peace is the normal situation even among warlike peoples. In his study of the idea of peace in classical antiquity, Gerardo Zampaglione found that from the Pre-Socratic philosophers through Roman and Hellenistic writers to medieval Christian theologians, the quest for peace has been at the center of many artistic and literary movements. Of course, this influence had very little ‘policy sway’ in the decision making of those who exercise political power. Some interesting recent developments in peace activism, including contributions to the language of positive peace, have occurred in Asia, Latin America, and elsewhere. Since 1963 the ‘engaged Buddhism’ of Thich Quang Due has spawned socially and politically engaged versions of Buddhism in India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tibet, Taiwan, Vietnam, and Japan. Central figures and movements include Thich Nhat Hanh in Vietnam, Buddhadasa Bhikkhu and Sulak Sivaraksa in Thailand, A. T. Ariyaratne and the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement in Sri Lanka, and Daisaku Ikeda and the Soka Gakkai Movement in Japan. These movements also include two Nobel Peace laureates, Tenzin Gyatso in 1989 (the fourteenth Dalai Lama) and Aung San Suu Kyi in 1991 (the Burmese opposition leader). As Christopher Queen and Sallie King have noted, these movements have reinterpreted or augmented traditional Buddhist discourse in order to emphasize their common practice of nonviolence and quest for global peace. Likewise, though not as nonviolent in principle or in practice, liberation theology has had a major impact in Latin America, spawning socially and politically engaged movements among Roman Catholics. Beginning in 1973 with Gustavo Gutierrea, a Peruvian Roman Catholic priest, the leading exponents of this Movement include Leonardo Boff in Brazil and Juan Luis Segundo in Uruguay. More recently, Emmanuel Martey has applied some of these principles to African theology. Further examples can be found in the ways other religious and philosophical traditions in many parts of the world have also reinterpreted or augmented their traditional forms of discourse in order to emphasize pursuing, in this world, goals of peace and justice. Several attempts have even been made to spread the use of nonviolent discourse throughout the culture. The Quakers’ Alternatives to Violence project teaches

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linguistic tactics that facilitate the nonviolent resolution of conflict. Following initial endeavors at teaching these skills to prisoners, this project has been extended to other areas. Related practices are found in peer mediation and approaches to therapy that instruct participants in nonviolent conflict strategies. Within educational institutions, increased attention is being given to Gandhism in order to convey nonviolent tactics as alternatives to reliance on the language and techniques of the military and to multiculturalism as a means of promoting an appreciation of diversity that diminishes the language and practice of bigotry and ethnocentrism. At the international level, UNESCO’s Culture of Peace project seeks to compile information on peaceful cultures. Even though most of these cultures are preindustrial, their practices illustrate conditions that promote peaceful conflict resolution. This project, which initially assisted war-torn countries in the effort to rebuild (or build) a civic culture, can now be applied even more broadly. The diversity of movements for positive peace that have forged new styles of nonviolent communication and sociopolitical engagement is so great in fact that some system of classification is needed. Zampaglione divides the movements he surveys in the ancient world into four forms of pacifism: mystical (Leo Tolstoy, Romain Rolland), philosophical (St. Augustine, Abbe de SaintPierre, Kant, Bertrand Russell, and John Dewey), sociological (Auguste Comte, Henri Saint-Simon, and Charles Fourier), and political (Bohemian King George of Podebrad, Maximilien de Bethume due de Sully). Duane Cady distinguishes deontological pacifism that is based on a commitment to principles, such as the rejection of violence, from consequentialist pacifism that is based on an assessment of the results of actions, such as the destruction of war. Deontological pacifism ranges from the absolute form, in which individuals refuse to resort to any use of violence, to cases in which nonlethal force and even lethal violence may be used by individuals who accept personal responsibility for their actions. Consequentialist pacifism ranges from cases in which our knowledge is simply too limited to judge whether resorting to arms is justified to cases based on our knowledge that the technology of war make the results too grim and on the simple pragmatic conclusion that wars generally do more harm than good. On some occasions, those seeking a language of positive peace fall silent at least briefly, especially after the occurrence of war. Kant suggests that after any war a day of atonement is appropriate in which the ‘victors’ ask for forgiveness for the ‘great sin’ of the human race, namely, the failure to establish a genuine and lasting peace. Immediately following the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Albert Camus advised that this event called for much reflection and ‘‘a good deal of silence.’’ At other times, advocates of positive peace are compelled to break

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the silence in order to respond to injustice. Often silence is violence; frequently, unless we break the silence, we are being complicitous to the violence of the situation, whether of physical or linguistic violence. The silence surrounding child abuse, partner abuse, social discrimination, prisoner torture, and international injustice is all too pervasive. However, in breaking the silence, our aim should be to avoid counter-violence, in its physical forms and in its verbal forms. Genuine peacemaking and efforts to forge an understood language of inclusion occur between silence and violence. The challenge is finding effective, nonviolent means of breaking the silence and giving voice to the interests of the oppressed. In this regard, while adhering to principles of nonviolence, as Gene Sharp has noted, various levels of protest, noncooperation, and even intervention can be pursued. In these ways, the language of positive peace has a variety of correlative nonviolent actions by means of which to continue politics by the same means – by more intensive means of diplomacy rather than turning to war, which von Klausewitz defined as the pursuit of ‘‘politics by other means.’’ A couple of recent works advance the language of positive peace in important ways. Ellen Gorsevski contends that nonviolent rhetoric has been largely overlooked but can support conflict transformation of contemporary political communication. She analyzes, for example, the pragmatic nonviolence of Macedonian President Kiro Gligorov and the visual rhetoric of Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. Gorsevski also addresses how conflicts can be understood, prevented, managed, or reduced through the use of peace-minded rhetorical techniques. In another recent work, Marshall Rosenberg, an American psychologist, introduced the distinction between the Giraf-language and its opposite the Wolf-language. This distinction has some parallels to what Carol Gilligan calls an ethics of care that is oriented to relations and an ethics of justice that is oriented to procedures. The Giraf-language is used when one wishes to listen to feelings and values that the other is trying to express. The goal is to make contact with the other and reach a solution on a common basis. The language of peace is similar to the Giraf-language, while the language of war is similar to the Wolf-language. Because those who use the Wolf-language criticize, blame, and scold the other and insist on proving their position to be right the outcome may be conflict resolution through violence or war rather than through mediation and diplomacy. Rosenberg also has established the Center for Nonviolent Communication in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His book of the same title explores the fundamental aspects of human needs, desires, judgment, and empathy and explains why techniques of nonviolent communication work. He argues that the key technique is the use of empathy, because when those in conflict with you

feel that you understand them and are trying to feel what they feel, they are more likely to speak honestly with you to resolve conflict. These techniques are important contributions to the language of positive peace. Another way to begin forging a language of positive peace is through the use of peace poetry. The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation has a website with a variety of peace poems that begin the articulation of a language of positive peace. They also have the Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Award. This annual award encourages poets to explore and illuminate positive visions of peace. In addition, the World Peace Society maintains a database on peace poetry. The language of positive peace is democratic rather than authoritarian, analogical rather than monological, receptive rather than aggressive, meditative rather than calculative. The language of positive peace is not passive in the sense of avoiding engagement; it is pacific in the sense of seeking to actively build lasting peace and justice. The language of positive peace, a genuinely pacific discourse, provides a way of perceiving and communicating that frees us to the diversity and open-endedness of life rather than the sameness and finality of death. The language of positive peace can provide the communicative means to overcome linguistic violence and linguistic alienation. Pacific discourse, in providing an alternative to the language of war and even to the language of negative peace, is a voice of hope and empowerment. See also: Just-War Criteria; Peace Culture; Peace, Definitions and Concepts of; Reason and Violence

Further Reading Baudrillard, J. (1995). The Gulf War did not take place (trans. Patton, P.). Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Baudrillard, J. (2002). The spirit of terrorism. London: Verso. Bolinger, D. (1980). Language – The loaded weapon: The use and abuse of language today. New York: Longman. Bosmajian, H. A. (1983). The language of oppression. Lanham, MD: University Press of American. Bourdieu, P. (1991). Language and symbolic power (Thompson, J. B. (ed.) trans. Raymond, G. and Adamson, M.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Cady, D. L. (1989). From warism to pacifism: A moral continuum. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Chilton, P. (ed.) (1985). Language and the nuclear arms race: Nukespeak today. Dover, NH: Francis Pinter. Cohn, C. (1989). Sex and death in the rational world of defense intellectuals. In Russell, D. (ed.) Exposing nuclear phallacies, pp 127–159. New York: Pergamon. Eriksen, T. H. (1992). Linguistic hegemony and minority resistance. Journal of Peace Research 3(3): 313–332. Gates, H. L. (1994). Speaking of race, speaking of sex: Hate speech, civil rights, and civil liberties. New York: University Press. Gay, W. C. (1987). Nuclear discourse and linguistic alienation. Journal of Social Philosophy 18(2): 42–49. Gay, W. C. (1991). Star wars and the language of defense. In Cady, D. L. and Werner, R. (eds.) Just war, nonviolence and nuclear deterrence: Philosophers on war and peace, pp 245–264. Wakefield, NH: Longwood Academic.

Law and Violence Gay, W. C. (1997). Nonsexist public discourse and negative peace: The injustice of merely formal transformation. The Acorn: Journal of the Gandhi-King Society 9(1): 45–53. Gay, W. C. (1998). Exposing and overcoming linguistic alienation and linguistic violence. Philosophy and Social Criticism 24(2–3): 137–156. Gay, W. C. (1999). Linguistic violence. In Curtin, D. and Litke, R. (eds.) Institutional violence, pp 13–34. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Gay, W. C. (1999). The practice of linguistic nonviolence. Peace Review 10(4): 545–547. Gay, W. C. (2004). Public policy discourse on peace. In Potter, N. N. (ed.) Putting peace into practice: Evaluating policy on local and global levels, pp 5–17. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Gay, W. C. (2007). Supplanting linguistic violence. In O’Toole, L. L., Schiffman, J. R., and Kiter Edwards, M. L. (eds.) Gender violence: Interdisciplinary perspectives, pp 435–442. New York: New York University Press. Gilligan, C. (1982). In a different voice: Psychological theory and women’s development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Gorsevski, E. W. (2004). Peaceful persuasion: The geopolitics of nonviolent rhetoric. New York: SUNY. Govier, T. (2002). A delicate balance: What philosophy can tell us about terrorism. Boulder, CO: Westview. Holmes, R. (1989). Terrorism and violence. In Kunkel, J. C. and Klein, K. H. (eds.) Issues in war and peace: Philosophical inquiries, pp. 115–127. Wolfeboro, NH: Longwood Academic. Kant, I. (1983). Perpetual peace and other essays (trans. Humphrey, T.). Indianapolis, IN: Hackett. Lakoff, G. (1991). Metaphor and war: The metaphor system used to justify war in the gulf. Peace Research 23: 25–32.

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Lang, B. (1988). Language and genocide. In Rosenberg, A. and Myers, G. E. (eds.) Echoes from the holocaust: Philosophical reflections on a dark time, pp 341–361. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Poole, S. (2006). Unspeak: How words become weapons, how weapons become a message, and how that message becomes reality. New York: Grove Press. Queen, C. S. and King, S. B. (eds.) (1996). Engaged Buddhism: Buddhist liberation movements in Asia. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Rosenberg, M. B. (2003). Nonviolent communication: A language of life. Encinitas, CA: PuddleDancer Press. Scha¨ffner, C. and Wenden, L. (eds.) (1995). Language and peace. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing. Tzu, S. (1963). The art of war (trans. Samuel, B. G.). London: Oxford University Press. Young, J. W. (1991). Totalitarian language: Orwell’s newspeak and its Nazi and communist antecedents. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia. Zampaglione, G. (1973). The idea of peace in antiquity (trans. Dunn, R.). University of Notre Dame Press.

Relevant Websites http://www.wagingpeace.org – Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Award and Peace Poems, at Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. http://worldpeace.org.au – World Peace Society.

Law and Violence G D Curry, University of Missouri – St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, USA ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Violence and the Emergence and Development of Communities, States, and Law Dialectical Nature of Law as a Manifestation and Antithesis of Violence

Glossary Law A formal system of rules for behavior and governance that sustains a particular social order. The concept of law as is used here refers primarily to legal systems that follow the Eurocentric model – in the

Violence and the Emergence and Development of Communities, States, and Law Law and Violence from the Classical Period to the Middle Ages Legal traditions in the West and in Western civilization in general are not hesitant to claim the democratic legacy of the Greek city-states. It is no irony that the beginning of

Selected Developments in Law as a Response to Violence The Possibility of a Future for Law without Violence Further Reading

language of Max Weber, grounded on rational and traditional authority. Violence The exertion of force by an individual, group, or organized aggregate to injure or abuse other individuals or groups.

Greek history and literature is the Iliad, an account of war. Bernard Knox, in his introduction to that work, observed that from their appearance as organized communities until the loss of their political independence, the Greek city-states were ‘uninterruptedly’ at war. Knox quotes from Homer and Plato to illustrate the point. In Homer’s words, the Greeks are ‘‘the men whom Zeus decrees, from youth to old age, must wind down our brutal wars to the bitter end until we drop and die,

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down to the last man.’’ From Plato’s Laws, ‘‘Peace is just a name. The truth is that every city state is, by natural law, engaged in a perpetual undeclared war with every other city state.’’ It is important to remember that the fate of the citizen of Athens is most often associated with logic and reason. The trial of Socrates was formal and dignified, but the aging philosopher was put to death at its end. The concluding centuries of the classical Mediterranean world were similarly marked by the bond between law and violence. Roman legions and Praetorian guards played an essential role in producing the order that was Roman law. The collapse of Roman law brought the comparative chaos of the Dark Ages. Philosophically, the medieval social order was based on loyalty to the blood of royal families or the symbolic blood of Jesus in the two major divisions of the Christian Church. Medieval lords ruled by force and in turn the Church maintained its institutional integrity by manipulating the loyalties of these lords and the levels of violence committed by them. The royal families that provided the symbolic imagery from which modern states emerged accentuated blood as their source of legitimacy. In the social orders created by them, jurisprudence and governance was marked by bloody demonstrations of state power.

Violence Producing Law: The Case of Revolutions The revolutions in law that brought law closer to a system based on equality and consistency come into being through a series of organized violent confrontations between the ruler and the ruled. Two examples are presented. The separation of the 13 North American colonies from the British Empire was marked by the second-longest war in US history. From Lexington to Yorktown, confrontations between the new nation’s armed forces and militias were sufficiently fierce to produce 4435 battlefield deaths for the insurgents. The 1789 revolution in France moved from a relatively nonviolent transition in governmental structure to the period, between April 1793 and July 1794, that bears the designation of the Reign of Terror. The increase in violence was facilitated by external pressure in the form of military action from the antirevolutionary regimes in Britain, Austria, and Spain. During the Reign of Terror, 2639 persons were guillotined in Paris. In all, over 40 000 deaths of civilians were attributed to the revolutionary legal processes in operation during the Reign of Terror. Out of the violence associated with the American and French Revolutions grew the ideal of the citizen soldier in which the franchise for full legal participation was associated with military service. The traditions of national birth through revolution have become sanctified in Western-style republics.

Law and Violence in the Preservation of Stability In the case of revolutions, violence serves as a tool of legal change. The more conventional and frequent role of violence is in the preservation of an existing social order. According to Morris Janowitz, there are two processes at work to insure social control in Western industrial states – mass persuasion and social coercion. For social coercion to operate, an apparatus capable of bringing violence to bear on individual citizens must exist. The most obvious manifestation of such an institutional apparatus is the criminal justice system. The concept of deterrence as a means of diminishing the likelihood of criminal behavior requires that ultimately institutions capable of utilizing legitimate violence be maintained by the state at its various levels of organization. Cases in which applications of violence have been used to maintain aspects of the social order from which legitimacy is subsequently drawn illustrate well the dilemma of violence as applied by law. Here three such cases are examined. Race and law in US history

Legal structures associated with race characterized North American contact between European settlers and indigenous peoples well before the first delivery of African slaves to the Jamestown colony in 1619. Spanish explorers took violent measures to extract wealth from the lands that they conquered in the Caribbean and Latin America. The enslavement and ritualized robbery of native peoples was carried out with the full might of law and superior weaponry at their foundation. Kirkpatrick Sales described how Tainos were physically mutilated when they failed to provide the taxes of gold levied on them as the successors to Columbus’ crews imposed their legal order on the island of Hispaniola. The five centuries that have followed have brought a lessening of intensity of the brutality, but not in the ultimate life outcomes for the native peoples of what became the United States. As late as the first half of the nineteenth century, Eastern tribes such as the Cherokee were forcibly relocated from ancestral lands by the evolving institutions of democratic government. Those remaining in the states of original settlement were required to serve a period of indentured servitude to white masters from birth until adulthood. The last of the native nations to hold on to some level of independence in the West were ultimately forced to surrender any semblance of that independence as their traditional law was made subordinate to the expanding influences of US federal and state laws. Every effort of organized resistance was met with greater levels of violent force from these ‘more modern’ legal orders. The slaughter (1890) and resistance (1973) at Wounded Knee are among the best-known examples. Less well-known is the more formal mass hanging of 38 Santee Sioux in Mankato,

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Minnesota in 1862. Originally 303 Sioux had been sentenced to hang but President Lincoln commuted the sentences of all but the 38. Still, this violent application of the law marked the largest mass execution in US history. Just as US law from its first emergence has incorporated differential treatment of Native Americans based on race, so has the status of natives of Africa been a formalized legal issue throughout US history. When the first slaves brought to an English colony in North America were sold by Dutch merchants on the docks at Jamestown, they were initially treated similar to European indentured servants. By 1670, colonial laws that established the continuation of slave status throughout the life-term and the inheritance of slave status by the children of slaves had transformed African slavery into the ‘peculiar institution’ that was to endure until the American Civil War or War between the States. It is estimated that 600 000–650 000 Africans were forcibly and brutally transported to the English colonies in North America. Slavery as a legal institution was legally reified in the US Constitution in 1980 and 8 of the first 12 presidents of the United States owned slaves. In the Northern states, the abolition of slavery was a peaceful legislative process that began in the revolutionary period and was complete by 1830. In the South, abolitionary efforts were for the most part illegal. The flight of slaves and the activities of abolitionists in the Southern states were violently repressed by the institutions of social coercion established by the individual states. One of the most highly publicized efforts to effect a violent end to slavery was John Brown’s raid on the federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry in 1859. This illegal violent attempt to insight a slave rebellion was repressed by legal violent action by US Marines. Taken alive, Brown was tried and executed. Ultimately, the abolition of slavery would come about through a presidential proclamation in 1863 – a proclamation that was enforced by the federal government in the most costly, in terms of human life, violent legal action in US history. Approximately 180 000 African-American soldiers served in the federal army during the American Civil War. The end of the slavery was by no means the end of illegal and legal violence against Americans of African ancestry. The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution granted political rights to all male citizens including African-Americans. The former states of the Confederacy were required to ratify this amendment before they were readmitted to the Union. Still, the newly won freedom of African-Americans in the Southern states suffered dramatic setbacks. Chief among the illegal acts of violence against African-Americans were riots and lynching. Bloody riots against African-Americans erupted in Louisiana and Memphis in 1866. In 1876 and 1877, similar organized mass killings of African-American citizens occurred in South Carolina. Race riots were not just a Southern

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phenomenon. One occurred in Springfield, Illinois, in 1908, and one in Chicago in 1919. In the public mind, lynching generally connotes hanging, but lynchings of African-Americans have involved a wide range of public, illegal executions that have included mutilations and burning alive as well as hanging. Between 1884 and 1900, white mobs lynched over 2000 African-Americans in the South. Another figure of over 10 000 lynchings between 1865 and 1900 was offered by Ida B. Wells, a major antilynching activist. Between 1900 and 1920, white mobs lynched another 2000. As late as the turn of the century, a US Senator from South Carolina described lynching of African-Americans by outraged whites as an inevitable occurrence and a kind of natural law. With the end of Southern reconstruction, legislation recapitulated the illegal violence inflicted on AfricanAmericans. In 1888, Mississippi enacted laws formalizing the practice of segregation that would endure until the Civil Rights movements of the 1950s and 1960s. The government of the state of Mississippi went a step further in 1890, ratifying a new state constitution that stripped African-American citizens of the state of the rights guaranteed them by the Fourteenth Amendment. By 1918, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Virginia had followed suit. In the economic sector, sharecropping became the replacement to slavery. Involuntary labor enforced through the incarceration of troublesome or uncooperative African-Americans provided an incentive to strengthen the institutions charged with social coercion at the local and state levels. Among statistics that emphasize the discriminatory application of legal violence against African-Americans, one example is the fact that of the 455 men executed for rape between 1930 and 1967, 405 of them were of African ancestry. Just as the disenfranchisement of African-Americans after the end of the Civil War featured both illegal and legal components, so did the movement to gain the full rights of citizenship. The illegal (in Southern states) element was represented by the great mass movement that involved nonviolent protests, boycotts, and sit-ins. At the same time that African-American men and women were struggling in the streets, action was also taking place in the legal system, principally in the Supreme Court. Some of the legal successes came comparatively early in the twentieth century. Guinn v the U.S. (1915) declared unconstitutional ‘grandfather clauses’ that allowed illiterate whites to vote while denying that right to illiterate blacks. Buchanan v Warley (1917) declared unconstitutional laws requiring African-Americans and whites to live in specific sections of cities. Finally, the successes of Brown v Board of Education (1954), which outlawed legal segregation of schools, and Gayle v Browder, which overturned the principle of ‘separate but equal’, paved the way for the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

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Gender and law in US history

In the same year, 1619, and on the same docks (at Jamestown) from which the first African slaves were auctioned, 90 women were distributed to male colonists willing to pay the price of their passage plus a respectable profit to the Virginia Company. Historians now confirm that most of these women had been tricked or outright kidnapped. Others were shipped directly from prison. Marriage in that time was not totally unlike slavery. Women who struck their husbands in any way were sentenced to public beatings or time in the pillories. Men who killed their wives were subject at most (but unusually) to hanging. For a woman to kill her husband, however, was equivalent to killing a king, a crime against the deity. Several of the American colonies followed the English law that mandated a woman convicted of killing her husband to be burned at the stake. At the nation’s founding, the separate states denied women the right to own property and the right to vote. The women’s rights movement in the United States had early roots in the movement to abolish slavery. Women were very active in the movement. According to Angela Davis, women’s participation in the abolitionist movement stemmed from a belief that their ultimate freedom was contingent on freedom for African-Americans. Just prior to the Civil War, a majority of the members of abolitionist groups were women. In 1848, approximately 200 women convened the Seneca Falls Convention in New York. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lu-cretia Mott, and other women leaders attending Seneca Falls produced a Declaration of Sentiments that proclaimed the equality of women with men. Like the quest for rights for AfricanAmericans, the struggle for women’s suffrage was a long, protracted struggle involving illegal and legal efforts. In 1872, Susan B. Anthony was arrested for illegally casting a ballot in the presidential election. Unlike the public illegal violent response to the African-American civil rights struggle, the violent response to women seeking their rights was a more private affair sustained by the general legal disregard for domestic violence and rape. It was not until 1920 that the Nineteenth amendment guaranteed women the right to vote. Still, an effort to pass an Equal Rights Amendment making discrimination against women illegal failed to gain legal passage by the required number of states in 1982. Law and social class in US history

Though de-emphasized in the legitimating documentation of the US government, class differences have been a source of legal conflict since colonial times. In the seventeenth century, the distinction between social classes was especially distinct as a result of reliance on indentured servitude as a major source of labor in the colonies. In the Southern states, indentured servants made up a majority of the population. With the establishment of the republic,

many of the states limited the right to vote to white males over the age of 21 who owned property or paid annual taxes that exceeded a specifically set limit. While most such property barriers to voting had disappeared for white males by the end of the Civil War, conflict between social classes was most clearly evidenced in the efforts of labor to organize. Strikes by bakers in New York and shoemakers in Philadelphia occurred in colonial times, but development of a more widespread labor movement required the development of advanced industrialism. The mining industry was the setting of some of the most violent clashes between labor and management with the available legal institutions of social coercion inevitably siding with the latter. During and just after the Civil War, a secret organization of IrishAmerican coal miners began to grow in strength in Pennsylvania. Known as the Molly MacGuires, the miners were as adept at sabotage and other forms of violence as they were at organizing strikes. Infiltrated by a Pinkerton detective agency agent-provocateur, major leaders of the organization were arrested in 1876, tried, and executed. In 1912, an extended strike of miners in Paint Creek and Cabin Creek, West Virginia, resulted in a year-long series of violent incidents. As a result, martial law was declared and scores of miners were imprisoned. By 1920, the United Mine Workers of America had grown to approximately 50 000 members and West Virginia was once again the site of a bloody confrontation between workers and government. The center of the strike was Mingo County, also called Bloody Mingo. Martial law was declared. Not all legal institutions were committed against the miners. The constable and the mayor of the town of Matewan in Mingo County chose to give their support to the miners who had elected them. Eventually both were gunned down. In August of 1921, thousands of coal miners from neighboring towns and states attempted to march to join the Mingo miners. The federal government committed over 3000 armed troops to fortify Blair Mountain in Logan County, West Virginia, in order to block the advance of the miners. The battle, which extended for days, saw the federal forces using such weaponry as machine guns and bomber planes against the miners. Experiencing heavy casualties, the miners were thoroughly crushed. Court action against leaders and the union made the victory for the mine owners and the government complete. The mines were not the only settings for violent confrontations between workers and the law. Federal army soldiers were used to suppress a strike by Pullman car workers in 1894. International Workers of the World (Wobblies), attempting to organize workers in Everett, Washington, were fired upon by county law enforcement resulting in several dead and approximately 50 wounded. In 1919, a strike by Boston police officers was suppressed by a major commitment of state troops. A confrontation across class lines that did not directly involve labor occurred in

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1932 when 20 000 World-War-I veterans marched on Washington to demand a bonus promised them at the end of the war. When 400 of the veterans refused to depart from Washington, President Hoover ordered federal troops under the command of General Douglas MacArthur to attack the so-called Bonus Army. With a combined use of tanks, cavalry, and infantry and the use of tear gas, the troops were able to route the bonus marchers.

Dialectical Nature of Law as a Manifestation and Antithesis of Violence Recorded history has often overemphasized the role of organized violence in social change. Still, violence and the development and maintenance of law are fundamentally intertwined as social phenomena. A major function of law is the control or elimination of violence. At numerous points in history, law has reduced violence between individuals and even between societies. It is also true, however, that law has been established, maintained, and changed through violence. In order to understand what on the surface appears to be contradictory conditions of phenomena, a dialectical approach is useful. An essential element of a dialectical approach is using seemingly contradictory propositions to produce an understanding of an underlying reality. Intellectually, such an approach can be traced directly to Fredrich Hegel and indirectly to Plato. Incidentally, both these thinkers wrote about the nature and development of law. The dialectical approach had been implemented by scholars as distinctive as Georg Simmel, to explain in idealistic terms the relationship between the individual and society, and Karl Marx, to explain the contradiction between material production and the reduction of human freedom. The relationship between law and violence is one that especially lends itself to a dialectical interpretation. A driving motivation (at least in terms of hindsight) for the emergence and support of law is the desire for a social order free from violence. A major mechanism for achieving and maintaining a system of law is violence. This dialectical relationship between law and violence has its historical basis in Eurocentric systems of law and selected nonEurocentric social systems. Law as Peacekeeping The tradition of the legal system as a mechanism for dispute resolution is exemplified by the all-powerful (sometimes all-wise). The Biblical Solomon was prototypical. When the conflicting parties did not share a consensus with the ruler, the ruler’s supreme power facilitated a resumption of the smooth operating of the social order. In ancient Greece, the collectivity or polis assumed

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the role of the all-knowing, all-powerful mechanism of dispute resolution. In contemporary society, peaceful dispute resolution constitutes the bulk of legal activity. Courts at numerous levels resolve disputes between individuals, corporate actors, and units of government. Only rarely are the individuals and corporate entities involved in such resolutions made aware of the institutions of social coercion that ensure the peaceful surface appearances. In exceptional situations, though, the law steps into a violent dispute as a neutral third party that must make its access to greater violence clear to both parties. At the micro-level, police officers and security guards break up fights between individuals. In Appalachian history, external forces stepped in to resolve the feud between the Hatfields and McCoys. (The neutral intervention model for this example is weakened by revisionist historians who stress the rising hegemony of coal and railroad interests as being intolerant of the semi-feudal conflicts of the region’s inhabitants.) Perhaps, a better instance of this kind of neutral intercession was in the gang wars of prohibition. Since the opposing forces were both in violation of the law and a threat to the safety of those innocently exposed to the line of fire, the government could display a dispassionate ruthlessness in its application of violence and legal statute to bring the conflict to an end. A similar ruthless response to contemporary youth gang violence has been advocated by a number of policymakers. War as Law Keeping and Making The perspective of law as a peacekeeping enterprise is only one step away from the quite antithetical conception of war as a means of establishing or preserving law, or more ironically, the perception of war as a mechanism for achieving peaceful legal consensus. From such a perspective, the American Revolution and the War of 1812 were institutional mechanisms for effecting agreement between the United States and England on issues of the limits of taxation and the legal boundaries of sovereignty. The Civil War could likewise be interpreted as the method by which a universal understanding could be reached between the states about the appropriate balance of powers needed to make a collective, collaborative legal system possible in the centuries to follow. Given these kinds of interpretations of historical conflicts, perhaps it is not surprising that since the end of World War II, US armed forces have been almost routinely committed to resolve conflicts in other national settings. The success of the Korean War, and the Vietnam War are still the subject of contention between left and right ideologues. On the other hand, the first Gulf War incursion into Kuwait to restore that nation’s sovereignty, the humanitarian mission to Somalia, the efforts to stabilize the former political components of Yugoslavia are less subject to widespread doubt.

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The Violence of Punishment and Corrections The transition of correctional institutions in Western societies from public demonstrations of individual pain and suffering to institutionally private processes of transformation was documented by Michel Foucault. Foucault began his Discipline and punish by comparing two pieces of evidence. In the first, the public torture–execution of a perpetrator of regicide was recounted in startlingly gruesome detail. The second was simply a schedule of activities for an inmate of a facility for delinquent juveniles. The execution described a very precise ritual for reshaping and destroying the physical body of the offender. The tightly restricted schedule of the juvenile facility was a mechanism for reshaping and destroying the personality and self of the offender. As Foucault noted, the nature of punishment passed from touching the body to touching the soul. Research on prisons has repeatedly demonstrated that the pains of imprisonment for prisoners manifest a far greater psychological impact than a physical one. At the maximum-security level, this control reflects what Jeremy Bentham labeled a panopticon. A panopticon is a physically and socially constructed space designed to maximize the surveillance of its subjects. At the maximum security level, the role of violence in maintaining this system of surveillance and control is extremely visible in the form of gun towers, barbed wire, and armed guards. As the prison system passes through the stages between maximum security and minimum security, the evidence of physical force becomes less and less visible, but for inmates of minimum security facilities and even parolees and probationers the threat of forced movement into the next higher level of security is a continuous condition of existence.

The Special Case of the Death Penalty The ultimate manifestation of the violent dimension of the US legal system is the death penalty. Legalized killing as it is carried out under the contemporary form of the death penalty is a methodical, systematic process carried out against an individual who has already been incapacitated by the correctional system. With the exception of the 1960s, public opinion polls since the 1930s have indicated that a majority of Americans favor the death penalty for at least some crimes. Throughout this time, substantial proportions of the populace have opposed the death penalty in all instances. In 1972, the US Supreme Court ruled in Furman v Georgia that the death penalty as it had hitherto been practiced in all of the states utilizing the penalty was arbitrary and discriminatory. The death penalty was, therefore, unconstitutional by being in violation of the Eight Amendment’s restriction against ‘‘cruel and unusual punishment.’’ The absence of the death

penalty was short-lived with a majority of the justices in 1976 approving revised death penalty statutes that used ‘guided discretion’ for juries and judges. Since 1977, the number of persons awaiting execution has steadily risen, passing the 2000-mark in 1990. In the late 1990s, the number of people on death row was at its highest in US history.

Selected Developments in Law as a Response to Violence Hate Crime Reduction through Law Hate crimes are defined as actions that are intended to harm or intimidate a person because of her or his race, sexual orientation, religion, or other group identification. In hate crimes, individual victims of an offense are not the only victims of that offense. All members of their group are indirect victims of the act. As a result of the unusually unrestrained violence of many hate crimes there has been a concerted effort in recent decades to develop effective legal responses to hate crime. In 1989, the US Congress passed the Hate Crime Statistics Act. By 1992, 27 states and the District of Columbia had passed laws designed to provide enhanced punishments for hate crimes. Under the Hate Crime Statistics Act, the FBI produced a report in 1991 tabulating 4558 hate crimes nationwide. There have been two definitional problems identified with hate crime legislation. The first is the difficulty in establishing motive. That is, is it possible for a crime to fit the functional definition of a hate crime and not involve ‘hate’ by the perpetrator? The second problem is that it is similarly possible for a hate offense technically to not be a crime. This is the case of with some hate graffiti, shouted epithets, and the wearing of ‘hate’ symbols such as swastikas. The ambiguity of hate crime definition has led the FBI to use the term ‘bias’ crimes in some of its publications. A national study conducted in 1994 found that only six state statistical agencies were maintaining the kinds of statistics required by the Hate Crime Statistics Act. The study found such widespread differences in definition, statutes, and reporting procedures as to make available tabulations of hate crime statistics at the state level uninformative and misleading. Gun Control The Second Amendment to the Constitution guarantees the right to bear arms. Polls have indicated that 49% of US households own firearms for an estimated total of 200 million guns. At the same time, the United States leads all industrial nations in homicides and other violent crime rates. Of homicides, 60% involve the use of firearms. A National Institute of Justice study conducted in 1995 revealed that one in five juvenile arrestees reported

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carrying a handgun all or most of the time. Half of the male juvenile arrestees related that they had been shot at, at least once. Legal efforts to control the availability of firearms have included licensing, purchasing restrictions, and sentence enhancements for crimes committed with a firearm. Research on the effectiveness of gun control laws at reducing violent crime has produced conflicting findings. Political forces constitute the greatest barriers to gun control laws. Opposition has pursued two strategies. The more straightforward approach is very simple. The Second Amendment renders any effort to limit the availability of firearms unconstitutional. The second approach is based on logical constructions that a priori expose alleged internal contradictions of any gun control law. Among such arguments is the suggestion that the possession of firearms by law-biding citizens serves as a deterrent to criminal activity. Any gun control law that reduces the level of such ownership would thereby increase criminal behavior. Such political opposition makes any effective legal solution to the gun and violence dilemma unlikely in the near future. Domestic Violence and the Law The magnitude of the problem of domestic violence in the US is unknown. In recent decades compilations of statistics based on phone calls to the police and social service agencies and complaints in family courts have indicated that the problem of abuse of female partners is widespread with estimates of the number of victims in the hundreds of thousands. The most prevalent reaction to the problem has been the shelter movement. In most instances, shelters have been community-based and organized by women themselves. As shelters have become more established, their staff has discovered that cooperation and assistance from local law enforcement greatly facilitates their effectiveness. Until recently police officers have been reluctant to intervene in domestic violence issues. When intervention was attempted, strategies were left up to the discretion of the officer resulting in an inconsistent diversity of techniques. In a classic experiment, the Police Foundation and the Minneapolis Police Department attempted in a systematic fashion to examine the impact of three different strategies for domestic violence intervention – arrest, separation, and verbal advice. Outcome was measured through in-depth follow-up interviews with victims. The conclusion of this study was that arrest was the most effective of the three strategies. Attempts to replicate the findings of the Minneapolis study in other cities were, however, disappointing. In one such experiment in Omaha, the researchers found that arrest was no more likely to reduce abuse than other strategies.

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A very different kind of legal response to domestic violence has been the use of the ‘battered wife defense’ in instances where wives have killed abusive husbands. The battered wife defense is based on traditional selfdefense law and argues that the offender would have herself eventually suffered serious harm or death had she not killed her assailant. Several successful applications of the defense have received national attention over the past two decades. While some have hailed the battered wife defense as a valuable innovation in protecting women from domestic abuse, others have minimized its significance. A major problem is the deviation from basic principles of self-defense. Self-defense laws were developed to protect offenders whose killings were absolutely unavoidable. In most cases in which the battered wife defense is raised, a case can be made by the prosecution that the danger to the offender was imminent but not immediate. Some contemporary research has suggested that domestic abuse and battered wives’ violent response to it are decreasing as a result of liberalized divorce laws. Legal Responses to Gang Violence In the last decade, the public and policymakers have become increasingly concerned with a perceived rising tide of gang-related violence. From an almost complete absence of interest in gangs in the early 1980s, the end of that decade witnessed what has been called an explosion of gang activity. In 1995, the National Youth Gang Center (NYGC) reported 664 904 gang members in 23 338 gangs in almost 1500 jurisdictions. A comparison of NYGC data with previous findings suggested that between 1994 and 1995, gang problems were newly emerging in cities with populations between 25 000 and 150 000 at the rate of three per week. Strategic responses to gangs have been classified into four major categories: suppression, social intervention, community mobilization, and opportunities provision. A 1988 study of gang programs across the nation conducted by Irving A. Spergel found that while suppression was the most commonly applied strategy in communities, program staff members believed that community mobilization and opportunities provision were the strategies that were most effective. The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention supported Spergel in developing the Comprehensive Community Response to Gangs Program. This comprehensive response is more commonly called the Spergel model. Currently the Spergel model is being applied in five cities nationwide with an evaluation design in place to measure each application’s effectiveness. From the earliest studies on gangs, researchers have suggested that the emergence and development of gang problems are as much influenced by community responses as the obverse. Researchers in Ohio and

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Milwaukee noted that the official denial of gang problems can result in hastily conceived and overly punitive responses when the denial strategy inevitably fails. Incarceration can actually strengthen gangs by allowing gangs to develop greater cohesion in correctional settings. Even certain kinds of counseling programs have been found to bolster gang cohesion. By 1993, a national study revealed that 13 states had developed state laws in response to gang problems. Other such laws were under development. The laws range from enhanced sentences for participation in gang-related crime to state-mandated ‘days of prayer against gang violence’. To date, there is no research to substantiate the effectiveness of any of these legal efforts to reduce gang violence.

The Possibility of a Future for Law without Violence The relationship between law and violence is a long and tightly interwoven one. Violence has played fundamental and symbolic functions in the development of contemporary law. Violence has been employed to establish new laws and social orders as well as preserve existing laws and social orders. All governmental units based on laws maintain some level of official apparatus for applying social coercion. None of a list of contemporary efforts to eliminate or reduce specific kinds of violence can be regarded as especially successful. Given these conditions, can there be any hope of developing a social order in which violence does not play a major role in defining the social fabric? Morris Janowitz identified mechanisms for maintaining social control at the macrosocial level – mass persuasion and social coercion.

There may indeed be some tendency for a greater role to be played by mass persuasion with a corresponding decrease in the role of social coercion. A third kind of social control identified by Janowitz may offer greater promise for law without violence. That is self-control as the major mechanism for social control. For self-control to become the only building block required for maintaining a nonviolent and functioning social order, individuals must be integrated into a pattern of what Robert Bursik has labeled systemic social control. This requires an integration of individuals into strong communities and the integration of strong communities into more encompassing collectivities. This also necessitates informed, empowered citizens with a concern for the collective good and the opportunities to actualize their own human potential.

See also: Crime and Punishment, Changing Attitudes Toward; Death Penalty, Overview; Gangs; Hate Crimes; Legal Theories and Remedies; Punishment of Criminals; Social Control and Violence; Social Equality and Inequality; Torture (State)

Further Reading Costanzo, M. and Oskamp, S. (1994). Violence and the law. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Davis, A. Y. (1981). Women, race, and class. New York: Random House. Foucault, M. (1979). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. New York: Vintage. Janowitz, M. (1978). The last half-century: Societal change and politics in America. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Sales, K. (1990). The conquest of paradise: Christopher Columbus and the Columbian legacy. New York: Knopf.

Legal Theories and Remedies Peter Weiss, Center for Constitutional Rights, New York, NY, USA Published by Elsevier Inc.

Early History of the Laws of War The Modern Laws of War Remedies

Glossary Ius ad Bellum Literally, law about war; the legal basis for commencing a war Ius in Bello Literally, law in war; the acceptable methods of fighting; also called humanitarian law

The Obligation to Resolve Disputes Peacefully Conclusion Further Reading

Necessity The principle that actions against an enemy should not exceed what is reasonably considered necessary to gain victory in the conflict; for example, it is a matter of debate whether the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki violated the principle of necessity.

Legal Theories and Remedies

Proportionality The principle that reprisals against an enemy should be in proportion to the original offense; for example, to execute 100 prisoners of war because one prisoner had killed a guard would violate the principle of proportionality.

There are many similarities between the legal approaches to violence in civil society and war. In both, aggression is condemned, self-defense is condoned; force proportionate to a legitimate objective is permitted, excessive force is not; the lawful use of force is authorized, ‘‘taking the law into one’s own hands’’ is frowned upon. The main difference between the law of interpersonal violence and the law of armed conflict is that, while there are rules governing both, the former, by and large, is enforceable through domestic courts, while machinery for the enforcement of the latter is imperfect, allowing violators to escape punishment more often than not. This is not to say, however, that the laws governing the use of force in armed conflict serve no purpose. Nuremberg, the trial of Lieutenant Calley for the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War, the International Tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, and the International Criminal Court (ICC) are evidence to the contrary. This article will not deal with domestic crime, but will be limited to a discussion of that branch of international law known as ‘the laws of war’.

Early History of the Laws of War Efforts to regulate both the lawfulness of commencing hostilities (ius ad bellum) and the manner in which war, once commenced, could be fought (ius in bello, or humanitarian law) are as old as war itself. Leon Friedman (1972) reports that ‘‘as early as the Egyptian and Sumerian wars of the second millennium BC, there were rules defining the circumstances under which war might be initiated’’ and that ‘‘among the Hittites of the fourteenth century BC, a formal exchange of letters and demands generally preceded hostilities.’’ As to the actual conduct of hostilities, Sun Tzu, in The Art of War, wrote in fourth century BC that it was forbidden to injure an enemy already wounded and that ‘‘all soldiers taken must be cared for with magnanimity and sincerity so that they may be used by us.’’ This is one of the earliest examples of a rule of warfare based on pragmatism as much as morality, a recurrent theme in the history of warfare. Similar limitations and principles of moderation in warfare are found among the ancient Hindus, Babylonians,

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Total War Warfare conducted with the aim of largescale destruction of the enemy civilization rather than simply effecting the surrender of the opposing armed forces.

Greeks, Romans, Christian Church Fathers, and scholastics. They deal with prohibitions against using concealed or poisoned weapons; protecting the wounded, neutrals, the unarmed, and prisoners; and respecting religious sites. Keegan (1993) tells us that the purpose of weapons among the Aztecs was not to kill, but only to wound. The purpose of war, according to St. Augustine, was to lead those whom Christian soldiers attacked ‘‘back to the advantages of peace.’’ Neither total war aimed at the destruction rather than the conquest of or defense against an enemy nor no-holds-barred warfare were sanctioned in principle during these millennia of armed conflict. The practice, of course, was often quite different, as is still the case today.

The Modern Laws of War Until the seventeenth century, the rules governing the inception and conduct of war were rarely based on treaties or conventions creating mutually binding obligations between political communities. This is not surprising if one considers that the modern system of sovereign states traces its origin to a series of treaties enacted in 1648, putting an end to the Thirty Years’ War and known collectively as the Treaty of Westphalia. However, these ancient regulations did make up a body of what international lawyers now call customary law, consisting as they did of internal edicts; the practice of states or the fiefdoms that preceded them; and the writings of theologians, philosophers, and jurists. The most famous and influential of these was De jure belli ac pacis (The Law of War and Peace), published in 1624 by the Dutch diplomat and jurist Hugo Grotius, now generally regarded as the father of the modern law of war and, indeed, of modern international law. (The original text was reproduced by the Carnegie Institution of Washington in 1913 followed by the publication a three-volume translation by the Carenegie Endowent in 1925.) Ius ad Bellum Until modern times, the law concerning the inception of war consisted mainly of various rules concerning the formalities of declaring war and of the theory, developed by the Romans and elaborated on by subsequent Christian

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theologians, which held that ‘‘just wars’’ were permitted and ‘‘unjust wars’’ prohibited. Just wars were not only those waged in defense against an aggressor, but also those waged aggressively in accordance with natural or divine law. Needless to say, those intent on waging aggressive war were usually adept at squeezing their baser motives into a legal framework. The Hague Peace Conferences

It was not until the very end of the nineteenth century that the first attempt was made to enlist law in the search for perpetual peace. In 1899 Czar Nicholas II of Russia, then aged 30, convened, in The Hague, an International Peace Conference ‘‘with the object of ensuring to all peoples the benefit of a real and lasting peace.’’ Neither this conference nor the second one, held in 1907, also in The Hague, achieved this objective. They did, however, lead to the creation of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, the international institution devoted to the peaceful settlement of international disputes. They also produced the Hague Conventions on the Laws and Customs of War. Thus, the project of permanent peace accomplished only the next best thing, which was to make war less painful. The Covenant of the League of Nations

The next stab at ridding the world of war was taken in 1920 by the adoption of the Covenant of the League of Nations. Conventional wisdom has it that, because of its failure to attract the membership of the United States and to stop Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia in 1935, not to mention World War II, the League was a colossal failure. Largely forgotten are its successes in peacefully settling a number of disputes that could have erupted into war, including those between Sweden and Finland in 1921 and between Greece and Bulgaria in 1925. The Covenant itself contains many good and noble provisions, some of which foreshadow the UN Charter. The first objective stated in its preamble is ‘‘the acceptance of obligations not to resort to war.’’ Thus, ‘‘the Members of the League recognise that the maintenance of peace requires the reduction of national armaments to the lowest point consistent with national safety and the enforcement by common action of international obligations’’ and ‘‘agree that the manufacture by private enterprise of munitions and implements of war is open to grave objections.’’ Any war or threat of war is declared to be a matter of concern to the whole League and mandates the League to ‘‘take any action that may be deemed wise and effectual to safeguard the peace of nations,’’ while resort to war by any Member shall be deemed to be an act of war against all other Members and triggers – or is supposed to trigger – economic and financial sanctions against the warring Member. Several

articles deal with arbitral and judicial procedures designed to supplant war with peaceful settlement, but the use of armed forces ‘‘to protect the covenants of the League’’ is also envisaged. The Kellogg–Briand Pact

One final attempt to lay to rest ‘‘the dogs of war’’ was made during the period between the two great wars. A General Treaty for the Renunciation of War, known popularly as the Kellogg–Briand Pact, was negotiated in Paris in 1928. It stated: 1. The High Contracting Parties solemnly declare in the names of their respective peoples that they condemn recourse to war for the solution of international controversies, and renounce it as an instrument of national policy in their relations with one another. 2. The High Contracting Parties agree that the settlement or solution of disputes or conflicts of whatever origin they may be, which shall arise among them, shall never be sought except by pacific means.

Today, hundreds of wars later, the Kellogg–Briand Pact is still in force for the vast majority of states that were in existence in 1928, including the United States. Obviously, it is more honored in the breach than in the observance. Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter

The UN Charter, enacted for the purpose of saving ‘‘succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our life-time has brought untold sorrow to mankind’’ retraces the first article of the Kellogg–Briand Pact in its Article 2(4), which provides that: All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat and use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.

It also retraces the second article of the Kellogg– Briand Pact in its Article 2(3), which reads: All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.

The gaping loophole of Article 51

Why, then, has the world witnessed another 150 or so wars in the half-century following the signing of the Charter in San Francisco in 1945? One could give a cynical answer to this question in the words of Dean Swift: ‘‘Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let hornets and wasps through.’’ The mechanisms by which the hornets and wasps of this world have

Legal Theories and Remedies

escaped the prohibition of the use of force, that is, the making of war, in Article 2(4) of the Charter, are to be found in Article 51, which has turned out to be a gaping loophole. In its terms, the Article is quite straightforward and extremely restrictive: Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.

But in practice, those capable of taking their countries to war have overridden the narrowness of the self-defense exception. They have either ignored Article 2(4) altogether, as in Senator Moynihan’s pithy phrase, ‘‘in the annals of forgetfulness there is nothing quite to compare with the fading from the American mind of the idea of the law of nations.’’ Or they have performed intellectual acrobatics on the concepts of ‘‘self-defense,’’ particularly ‘‘collective self-defense,’’ and ‘‘armed attack.’’ (Thomas Franck and Louis Henkin have discussed in detail the relevance of Article 2(4) in international relations.) The somewhat tortured legal justifications for US military interventions in Vietnam, Panama, Grenada, and Iraq II are cases in point. The preventive/preemptive war theory

Another hole was carved out of Article 2(4) of the UN Charter by the justification of the invasion of Iraq by the ‘‘Coalition of the Willing’’ in 2003. Saddam Hussein, so the theory went, had chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and was in the process of acquiring nuclear ones. Therefore he had to be preemptively removed from power and the weapons had to be preemptively destroyed before they could be used against the United States or its allies. (Never mind that the WMD scare eventually turned out to be completely unfounded.) In fact, there is some room in international law for preemptive, as opposed to preventive, war. The former would be justified in a situation of imminent armed attack, as, for instance, a nuclear-armed bomber taking off for a city in another country but having not yet entered that country’s airspace, or a large body of troops massing on the border of another country, accompanied by an ultimatum with a 24-hour deadline. Such situations would be so close to satisfying the armed-attack requirement of Article 51 that it would be unreasonable to insist on waiting until the armed attack has actually occurred. They would also satisfy the classic definition of justifiable self-defense in international law, based on The Caroline Incident between the United States and the United Kingdom in 1841, which requires the necessity of selfdefense to be ‘‘instant, overwhelming and leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation.’’ But

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there is every difference in the world between the use of armed force to preempt or counter an imminent attack and the invasion or aerial attack on another country, based on speculation about what that country might do several years or decades down the road. The former would be preemptive and justified, the latter would be preventive and illegal. And calling a preventive war preemptive, as was done in the case of Iraq and may be done in the case of Iran, changes nothing. Wordplay does not justify aggression. Other theories of intervention

The world community’s concern with human rights has led to a view disputed among international lawyers justifying the use of force against regimes engaged in gross violations of the human rights of their own citizens. Also referred to as ‘‘humanitarian intervention,’’ this view received a strong endorsement from the prestigious independent International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty which, in 2001, released its report entitled ‘The responsibility to protect’. Other theories of intervention are based on the alleged rights of one country to protect its citizens in another country, to restore the legitimacy of overthrown governments, and to assist other governments in domestic conflicts by invitation. All of these have been invoked at one time or another, but they have not gained acceptance from a majority of the international law community. Nor should they, despite the moral and realistic factors which support them to some extent, for to accept them would undermine the basic purpose of Article 2(4), which is to outlaw the use of force by one state against another except in the clearest and most limited circumstance of genuine self-defense. (Lori Fisler Damrosch and David J. Scheffer have discussed in detail the various theories of intervention.) Chapter VII of the UN Charter

Under Chapter VII of the Charter, the Security Council, having determined the existence ‘‘of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression’’ (Article 39), a definition clearly going beyond the confines of Article 2(4), and having found that measures short of the use of force, including sanctions, would be or have proved to be inadequate to remedy the situation, ‘‘may take such action by air, sea, or land forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security.’’ This provision has been invoked in situations like the first Gulf War and Bosnia, in which all the permanent members of the Security Council supported military action under the UN umbrella. By the same token, any permanent member is in a position to veto such action. For this reason, Chapter VII has been criticized as providing a cover for the use of force by ‘‘the Big Five,’’ while leaving the rest of the world at risk from the same Big Five.

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Ius in Bello The modern law of war governing the conduct – as distinguished from the commencement – of hostilities may be said to have begun with the Declaration Respecting Maritime Law signed in Paris in 1856 at the conclusion of the Crimean War. It provided, inter alia, that ‘‘privateering is, and remains, abolished’’ and laid down the important principle that ‘‘blockades, in order to be binding, must be effective, that is to say, maintained by a force sufficient really, to prevent access to the coast of the enemy.’’ The first detailed, comprehensive codification of the laws of war was issued by President Lincoln in 1863, in the midst of the Civil War. Entitled Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field, it was principally the work of Francis Lieber, a German– American historian and philosopher. The Lieber Code, as it came to be known, was the source and inspiration for most of the important subsequent enactments relating to the laws of war, both domestic and international. The very opposite of the old Roman saw inter armas silent leges (‘‘in war laws are silent’’), its 157 articles cover almost everything contained in subsequent codifications and treaties, down to this day. Some examples: Military necessity does not admit of cruelty . . . of maiming or wounding except in fight, nor of torture to extort confessions. It does not admit of the use of poison... nor of the wanton devastation of a district . . . . [It] does not include any act of hostility which makes the return to peace unnecessarily difficult (Art. XVI). Commanders, whenever admissible, inform the enemy of their intention to bombard a place, so that the noncombatants, and especially the women and children, may be removed before the bombardment commences (Art. XIX). . . . [A]s civilization has advanced . . . so has . . . the distinction between the private individual belonging to a hostile country and the hostile country itself, with its men in arms . . . [T]he unarmed citizen is to be spared in person, property and honor as much as the exigencies of war will permit (Art. XXII). Retaliation will. . .never be resorted to as a measure of mere revenge, but only as a means of protective retribution . . . cautiously and unavoidably (Art. XVIII). The United States acknowledge and protect, in hostile countries occupied by them, religion and morality; strict private property; the person of the inhabitants, especially those of women; and the sacredness of domestic relations. Offenses to the contrary shall be rigorously punished (Art. XXXVII) . . . . Unnecessary or revengeful destruction of life is not lawful (Art. LXVIII).

And, in a curious anticipation of General Powell’s doctrine of brief wars won by overwhelming force, . . . The ultimate object of all modern war is a renewed state of peace. The more vigorously wars are pursued, the better it is for humanity. Sharp wars are brief (Art. XXIX).

Ever since the enactment of the Lieber Code, military lawyers have advised US field commanders on the legality of their actual or proposed actions under national and international law, but their advice has not always been heeded. Members of the US armed forces have been prosecuted for violations of humanitarian law, as in the famous trial of Lieutenant Calley for the massacre of more than a hundred civilians in the Vietnamese village of My Lai in 1968. In 1868, 5 years after the adoption of the Lieber Code, 16 European nations and Persia signed the Declaration of St. Petersburg. It was ‘‘to reconcile the necessities of war with the laws of humanity’’ and declared that ‘‘the progress of civilization should have the effect of alleviating, as much as possible, the calamities of war’’ (Friedman, 1972). It was also the first instrument in modern times to prohibit a specific weapon, that is, ‘‘any projectile of less weight than four hundred grammes, which is explosive, or is charged with fulminating or inflammable substances’’ on the ground that the employment of such a weapon would uselessly ‘‘aggravate the suffering of disabled men’’ and would therefore be ‘‘contrary to the laws of humanity’’ (Schindler and Toman, 1988). It is noteworthy that although the proscribed weapon, a bullet exploding on impact with the human body, had been developed by Russia, it was the Russian government who initiated the Declaration of St. Petersburg so that no state, including Russia itself, would be allowed to use it. Still on the initiative of Czar Nicholas II of Russia, as noted earlier, the First Hague Peace Conference was convened in 1899 ‘‘with the object of seeking the most effective means of ensuring to all peoples the benefits of a real and lasting peace and, above all, of limiting the progressive development of existing armaments’’ (Schindler and Toman, 1988). This primary goal was not achieved, but the conference did produce the seminal set of documents on the modern law of warfare; the grandmother of all subsequent documents of this type. It comprised the following: a Convention for the Peaceful Adjustment of International Differences, a Convention Regarding the Laws and Customs of War on Land, a similar convention for maritime warfare and three Declarations prohibiting, respectively, ‘‘the launching of projectiles and explosives from balloons or by other similar methods’’ (Schindler and Toman, 1988), the use of projectiles intended to diffuse asphyxiating or deleterious gases and the use of expanding (commonly known as ‘‘dumdum’’) bullets. The two warfare conventions raised to the international level many of the detailed prescriptions contained in the Lieber Code. The section on ‘‘Hostilities’’ of the land warfare convention begins with an all-important article that confronts the conventional wisdom that ‘‘the laws of war’’ is an oxymoron, since ‘‘all’s fair in love and

Legal Theories and Remedies

war.’’ Article XXII reads: ‘‘The right of belligerents to adopt means of injuring the enemy is not unlimited’’ and Article XXIII puts flesh on the bones of this all-important principle by providing that ‘‘it is especially prohibited to employ poison or poisoned arms, to kill or wound treacherously individuals belonging to the hostile nation or army, to kill or wound an enemy who . . . has surrendered, to declare that no quarter will be given, and to employ arms, projectiles, or material of a nature to cause superfluous injury’’ (Schindler and Toman, 1988). Another memorable and extremely significant contribution to the law of war made by the first Hague Peace Conference was the so-called Martens Clause, named after its author Frederic de Martens, then the legal advisor to the Russian Department of Foreign Affairs. By the time they adjourned, the representatives of the 26 participating governments, including the United States, were well aware that, while they had reached agreement on a substantial portion of the body of humanitarian law, it had not been possible ‘‘to agree forthwith on provisions embracing all the circumstances which occur in practice.’’ They therefore inserted the following language, drafted by de Martens, in the preamble to the land warfare convention: Until a more complete code of the laws of war is issued, the High Contracting Parties think it right to declare that in cases not included in the Regulations adopted by them, populations and belligerents remain under the protection and empire of the principles of international law, as they result from the usages established between civilized nations, from the laws of humanity, and the requirements of the public conscience.

Despite the touching and somewhat naive faith that de Martens exhibited in the possibility of future agreement on the precise content of ‘‘the laws of humanity and the requirements of the public conscience,’’ his vision has played a major role in debates concerning the legality of weapons and tactics not covered by specific regulations throughout the ensuing century, as, for instance, with respect to the legality of nuclear weapons. Vague though it may be, the Martens Clause continues to be recognized – at least in principle – by military commanders throughout the world and their legal advisers continue to struggle with it in assessing the legality or illegality of new weapons and tactics. A recent example of recourse to the Martens Clause is the fact that, in connection with the nuclear weapons case decided by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 1996, nongovernmental organizations filed with the Court a ‘‘Declaration of Conscience’’ bearing hundreds of thousands of signatures from around the world, objecting to nuclear weapons as inhuman and in violation of the requirements of the public conscience.

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An attempt to fill in the gaps left by the First Hague Conference was made by the Second Hague Peace Conference in 1907. It confirmed, with slight modifications, the texts adopted in 1899 and added a great deal more, including conventions on the opening of hostilities, the rights and duties of neutrals, the status of enemy merchant ships, the laying of submarine mines, and bombardment by naval forces. A Third Hague Conference was planned for 1915, but World War I intervened. In 1999, on the centenary of the first Hague Conference, both a rather low-key governmental conference and a major nongovernmental conference, organized by The Hague Appeal for Peace, took place in The Hague. Following the general revulsion against the use of poison gas in World War I, the Geneva Gas Protocol, precursor of the Chemical Weapons Convention, was enacted in 1925. It prohibited ‘‘the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and of all analogous liquids, materials and devices.’’ During World War II, as is only too well known, humanitarian law was largely ignored by all parties to the conflict. Witness the V-2 rocket attacks by Germany on London and Canterbury and the fire bombing of Dresden and Tokyo by Allied planes. However, the aftermath of the war produced two documents of transcending importance. The Nuremberg Charter (1945) created the International Military Tribunal (IMT) with jurisdiction over crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. It confirmed the principle of individual responsibility for these crimes, even if committed by heads of state or on the basis of superior orders. The Geneva Conventions of 1949, produced by a conference organized by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), reaffirmed and expanded two earlier Geneva Conventions (1929) dealing with the treatment of prisoners and the sick, wounded, and shipwrecked and, in response to the enormous loss of civilian life during World War II, added, for the first time, a detailed ‘‘Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War.’’ The Genocide Convention (1948), largely the work of one determined Holocaust survivor, Professor Raphael Lemkin, criminalized the following acts ‘‘committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, or religious group’’: ‘‘(a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.’’ Often invoked, but rarely applied, the Genocide Convention remains one of the surpassing legal creations of the postwar period, but one incapable, so far, of preventing the horrors of Bosnia, Rwanda, or Darfur.

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Another conference was convened by the ICRC in Geneva in 1977. It produced two protocols to the 1949 conventions. Protocol I, in essence, reaffirms and partially expands the provisions of the previous Hague and Geneva conventions concerning the protection of victims of international armed conflicts. More importantly, Protocol II, in recognition of the upsurge in civil wars and other internal armed conflicts, lays down, for the first time, rules ‘‘Relating to the Protection of Victims of NonInternational Armed Conflicts.’’ There have been no treaties or conventions relating to the general conduct of warfare – as distinguished from the prohibition of specific weapons – since the 1977 Geneva Protocols. Space does not permit the listing of the many declarations and resolutions of a nonbinding character which have been adopted during the past 150 years by such bodies as the ICRC, the United Nations, or the International Law Association. All of these, however, add to the body of humanitarian law in the form of customary law. The principles of humanitarian law

From the foregoing account of the development of humanitarian law in modern times, it is possible to distill the following generally recognized and legally binding principles: Moderation: The means of injuring the enemy are not unlimited. Humanity: It is prohibited to use weapons or tactics which inflict unnecessary suffering or shock ‘‘the public conscience.’’ Prisoners, the sick, and wounded must be treated in a humane manner. Discrimination: It is prohibited to use weapons or tactics that fail to discriminate between civilians and combatants. Neutrality: Belligerents are obliged to respect the territorial integrity of neutral states and the health and welfare of their inhabitants. These principles are clear enough. Unfortunately, they tend to be obscured by two other principles of doubtful legal or moral value. One is the principle of proportionality, according to which reprisals must be proportionate to their antecedents. But what does this mean? Surely no one would argue that if country A starts beheading the prisoners it has taken from country B, then country B can do the same to the prisoners from country A. The other is the principle of necessity, which holds that belligerents may not use weapons or tactics greater than those required to achieve a legitimate military objective. This is the usual justification for ‘‘collateral civilian damage.’’ But it begs the question of what is a legitimate objective and how quickly it may legitimately be achieved. The United States, in World War II, was anxious to defeat Germany and Japan as quickly as possible with a minimum loss of American lives. Did this justify either the

firebombing of Dresden or the nuclear devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Most military men would say ‘‘yes,’’ most international lawyers ‘‘no.’’ It should also be mentioned that the emerging international law of the environment, while not traditionally part of humanitarian law, is increasingly coming to be seen as a restraining force on military activities. Prohibition of Specific Weapons Weapons of mass destruction

The desire to rid the world of WMD – biological, chemical, and nuclear – is part of the common moral/political vocabulary of the world community. Biological weapons have been outlawed by a convention in force since 1975, chemical weapons by another one in force since April 1997. There is no convention outlawing nuclear weapons, by far the most destructive of all, and no indication as of this writing that the nuclear weapon states have any intention of negotiating such a convention. Yet Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty obliges all parties to it, including all the declared nuclear weapon states (United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia, and China) ‘‘to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to . . . nuclear disarmament.’’ Furthermore, the ICJ, in an Advisory Opinion rendered on 8 July 1976 at the request of the General Assembly of the United Nations, held that ‘‘the threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, and in particular the principles and rules of humanitarian law’’ and that ‘‘there exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control.’’ (An excellent discussion of this opinion has been provided by John Burroughs.) A draft of a nuclear weapons convention, prepared by an international group of lawyers, scientists, and diplomats under the auspices of the New York-based Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy, was introduced by Costa Rica into the record of the 52nd United Nations General Assembly. The quinquennial Review Conference of the Non-Proliferation Treaty in 2000 ended with ‘‘an unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear weapon states to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals.’’ By the next conference, in 2005, this undertaking was described by representatives of some of the nuclear weapon states as ‘‘political, not legal’’ and as having been overtaken by events, that is, 9/11 and ‘‘the war on terror,’’ thus giving new meaning to the word ‘‘unequivocal.’’ Conventional weapons

While WMD, particularly nuclear weapons, have the potential to wreak horrendous destruction, in fact a great many more people have been killed in this century by so-called conventional weapons, which might more

Legal Theories and Remedies

appropriately be called killing weapons. Few weapons of this type have been banned by international agreement. Dumdum bullets, as we have seen, were outlawed as early as 1899 and poison gas, which falls somewhere between conventional and mass destruction weapons, as early as 1925. More recently a number of states (71 as of 1 November 1997) have ratified a little-known and lengthily titled ‘Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May Be Deemed to Be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects’. (As of October 2007, 103 states had ratified or acceded to the framework convention, and smaller numbers to the various protocols.) The Convention has five protocols of rather limited scope dealing, respectively, with weapons that produce fragments not detectable by X-rays in the human body, land mines and booby traps, incendiary weapons, blinding laser weapons, and explosive remnants of war. It is worth noting that this treaty reaffirms the basic principles of Hague and Geneva: In the preamble, the High Contracting Parties recall the principle of moderation (the right to choose methods or means of warfare is not unlimited), humanity (superfluous injury and unnecessary suffering are to be avoided), and discrimination (the civilian population is to be protected). The preamble also restates the Martens Clause and picks up from Geneva Protocol I (Article 55) the then novel proposition that ‘‘it is prohibited to employ methods or means of warfare which are intended, or may be expected, to cause widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment.’’ A major step forward was taken in Ottawa in December 1997, when 124 countries signed the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction. As of August 2007, 155 countries had ratified or acceded to this Convention, which having been concluded outside the framework of the United Nations, must be considered a singular achievement by civil society.

Remedies The International Court of Justice The ICJ in The Hague is, under Article 92 of the UN Charter, ‘‘the principal judicial organ of the United Nations.’’ As such, it is the highest tribunal in the world dealing with questions of international law. It sits on disputes between states and renders advisory opinions to certain international organizations. Of the few cases involving the laws of war that have come before it and its predecessor, the Permanent Court of International Justice, the following stand out: In the Corfu Channel case (1949), the Court held Albania responsible for laying mines in the channel

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separating it from Greece without adequate notice to international shipping, resulting in severe damage to two British warships and attendant loss of life. In the Nicaragua case (1986), the Court held, inter alia, that the United States had violated customary international law by using force against Nicaragua. In 1994, Bosnia Herzegovina filed a complaint in the ICJ accusing Yugoslavia of genocide and violating various provisions of the Hague and Geneva Conventions. In 2007, the Court held that Yugoslavia had violated the Genocide Convention by failing to prevent the genocide at Srebenica, but denied Bosnia’s request for damages on the ground that Yugoslavia itself had not committed genocide. As noted, the Court rendered an advisory opinion in 1996 on the legality under international law of the threat and use of nuclear weapons. The opinion, and the separate statements of the various judges, contain extensive discussions of the contemporary state of the laws of war. These cases show that the doors of the ICJ are open to the adjudication of claims of violation of the laws of war, both ius ad bellum and ius in bello.

Ad Hoc Tribunals The best known international tribunal dealing with war crimes is, of course, the Nuremberg tribunal established by the Charter of the IMT of 8 August 1945. This was followed by the IMT for the Far East established in 1946. The Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals have been accused, rather unfairly, of engaging in victors’ justice, since the judges went out of their way to make clear that they were operating under existing principles of international law and not newly created principles. After a half-century hiatus there has now been a spate of new ad hoc tribunals: International Criminal Tribunal for the former • The Yugoslavia (ICTY), 1993 International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda • The (ICTR), 1994 Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL), 2000 • The The • Special Tribunal for Cambodia, 2003. The International Criminal Court On 17 July 1998, the Statute of the ICC was adopted in Rome at a diplomatic conference convened by the United Nations. The vote was 120 in favor and 7 against, including the United States. Initially, the court has had jurisdiction over genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and aggression. However, agreement has not been reached on the definition of aggression. As of

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March 2008, there are 105 states parties to the Rome Statute, and eight arrest warrants have been issued.

unilateral diplomatic and military intervention in various conflicts, depending on their assessment of the impact of these conflicts on their ‘‘national interest.’’

Domestic Tribunals War crimes and other war-related human rights violations are cognizable not only by international tribunals, but also by domestic ones. Such trials may not only be directed at members of enemy armed forces or governments, but also against one’s own citizens. An early example of the former is the court-martial of Captain Henry Wirz, commandant of the infamous Confederate Andersonville prison camp, by a military commission in Washington in 1865. Captain Wirz was convicted of causing the deaths of a large number of Union prisoners, ‘‘in violation of the laws and customs of war,’’ (Friedman, 1972) and sentenced to be hanged. A prime example of the latter type of trial is the courtmartial of Lieutenant William Calley for the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War. In the last 15 years or so, the principle of universal jurisdiction which holds that some crimes, for example, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, are so heinous that they should be subject to trial in any country, regardless of where or by whom committed, has begun to make its way into the legislation and courts of a number of countries. An example is the judgment of the Spanish Supreme Court of 4 July 2007, sentencing Adolfo Scilingo, a former Argentine naval officer, to 1084 (sic!) years of prison for multiple crimes against humanity committed in Argentina.

Conclusion The legal machinery, both practical and theoretical, for the prevention of conflicts, and for keeping conflicts within humane bounds when they do occur, is in place. The political will to use it, the ability to shed the caveman mentality after millennia of reaching for the sun, is still largely lacking. The vision of a world without war, which inspired the first and second Hague Peace Conferences, and the founding of the League of Nations and the United Nations, has dimmed considerably in presidential offices and chanceries throughout the world. At the same time, the role of civil society, which is largely on the side of peace, has gained in importance. Perhaps this century will see the abolitionists – of nuclear weapons, inhumane tactics, and war itself – succeed in knocking together the heads of the ‘‘hard-headed realists’’ in government, who need to be reminded that war and the way wars are fought are not only immoral and impractical, but also illegal under the very precepts that they and their predecessors in government have written into law. See also: Chemical and Biological Warfare; Just-War Criteria; Law and Violence; Nuclear Weapons Policies; War Crimes; Warfare, Trends in; Weaponry, Evolution of

Further Reading The Obligation to Resolve Disputes Peacefully The obligation to settle disputes by peaceful means, in Article 2(3) of the UN Charter, is now generally accepted, as well as frequently disregarded. All kinds of mediation and arbitration procedures are available from the United Nations and other international and regional institutions, as well as from third-party countries and ‘‘eminent persons,’’ like former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Oscar Arias. Sometimes they work, sometimes not. Whenever they do not, and hostilities break out, the Charter has been violated, but no one, since Nuremberg, has been convicted of launching a war of aggression. The United Nations can and should do a great deal more than it has hitherto done in the areas of conflict prevention, peacemaking, and peacekeeping. But it cannot do so as long as a number of countries, and particularly the United States, ‘‘the world’s only remaining superpower,’’ arrogate to themselves the right of

Boyle, F. A. (1985). World politics and international law. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Brownlie, I. (1963). International law and the use of force by states. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Burroughs, J. (1997). The (il)legality of threat or use of nuclear weapons: A guide to the historic opinion of the international court of justice. Mu¨nster: Lit Verlag. Damrosch, L. F. and Scheffer, D. J. (eds.) (1991). Law and force in the new international order. Oxford: West-view Press. Falk, R. A. (1968). Legal order in a violent world. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Franck, T. (1970). Who killed Article 2(4). American Journal of International Law 64, 804. Friedman, L. (1972). The law of war – A documentary history. New York: Random House. Grotius, H. (1925). De jure belli ac pacis. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Hammer, R. (1971). The court-martial of Lt. Calley. New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan. Henkin, L. (1971). The reports of the death of Article 2(4) are greatly exaggerated. American Journal of International Law 65, 544–548. Kaleck, W., Ratner, M., Singelstein, T. and Weiss, P. (2007). International prosecution of human rights crimes. Berlin: Springer-Verlag. Keegan, J. (1993). A history of warfare. New York: Knopf. Lachs, M. (1945). The unwritten laws of warfare. Tulane Law Review 20, 10. Meyrowitz, E. L. (1989). Prohibition of nuclear weapons – The relevance of international law. Dobbs Ferry, NY: Transnational Publishers.

Linguistic Constructions of Violence, Peace, and Conflict Moynihan, P. (1990). On the law of nations. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Pictet, J. (1951). The new Geneva conventions for the protection of war victims. American Journal of International Law 45, 462–475. Schindler, D. and Toman, J. (1988). The laws of armed conflict – A collection of conventions, resolutions and other documents. Dortrecht: Martinus Nijhoff. Schwarzenberger, G. (1968). From the laws of war to the laws of armed conflict. Journal of Public Law 17, 61–77. Walzer, M. (1977). Just and unjust wars. New York: Basic Books. Weiss, P. (1977). University of Iowa College of Law. Symposium: Nuclear weapons, the world court and global security. Transnational Law & Contemporary Problems 7(2), 313.

Relevant Websites http://www.ialana.net – International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms.

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http://www.elmundo.es – El Supremo eleva a 1.084 an˜os de ca´rcel la pena impuesta al ex militar argentino Scilingo, elmundo.es http://www.globalpolicy.org – Special Tribunal for Cambodia, Global Policy Forum. http://www.haguepeace.org – Haugue Appeal for Peace. http://www.icc-cpi.int/home.html – International Criminal Court. http://www.icrc.org – International Committee of the Red Cross. http://www.law.cornell.edu – The Legal Information Institute (LII), Cornell Law School. http://www.un.org – UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, United Nations. http://www.un.org/icty – International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, United Nations. http://www.sc-sl.org – The Special Court for Sierra Leone. http://69.94.11.53 – International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

LGBT Minorities, Violence Against See Sexual Minorities, Violence Against

Linguistic Constructions of Violence, Peace, and Conflict C D Mortensen, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA ª 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Linguistic Inheritance Selective Advantages of