This is my summary of the course Mobilization of Violent Collective Action in an Age of Terrorism. In this summary you can find my lecture notes and an extensive literature summary of the course given in 2022. You can find the exact literature that I have summarized in the table of contents.
Table of contents
Week 1................................................................................................................................... 3
1.1 Lecture 1...................................................................................................................... 3
1.2 Readings...................................................................................................................... 8
1.2.1 Jackson & Dexter - The Social Construction of Organised Political Violence.......8
1.2.2 Mason - Chapter Four: Mobilising Peasant Social Movements...........................13
1.2.3 Ruiz-Junco - Feeling Social Movements.............................................................19
Week 2................................................................................................................................. 23
2.1 Lecture 2.................................................................................................................... 23
2.2 Readings.................................................................................................................... 28
2.2.1 Bhatia - Fighting words: naming terrorists, bandits, rebels and other violent
actors.......................................................................................................................... 28
2.2.2 Fuist - The dramatisation of beliefs, values and allegiances...............................31
2.2.3 Meier - The strategic use of emotions in recruitment strategies of armed groups
.................................................................................................................................... 36
2.2.4 Snow & Byrd - Ideology, Framing Processes and Islamic Terrorist Movements. 41
Week 3................................................................................................................................. 48
3.1 Lecture....................................................................................................................... 48
3.2 Readings.................................................................................................................... 53
3.2.1 Mason - Chapter six: State repression and the escalation of revolutionary
violence....................................................................................................................... 53
3.2.2 Nepstad & Bob - When do leaders matter?........................................................59
3.2.3 Tarrow - Chapter eight: threats, opportunities and regimes................................66
3.2.4 Weinstein - The industrial organisation of rebellion............................................73
Week 4................................................................................................................................. 76
4.1 Lecture....................................................................................................................... 76
4.2 Readings.................................................................................................................... 81
4.2.1 Kalyvas - Collaboration. The logic of violence in civil war...................................81
4.2.2 Kalyvas - Control. The logic of violence in civil war............................................84
4.2.3 O’Neill - Insurgent strategies..............................................................................89
4.2.4 O’Neill - Organisation and unity..........................................................................93
4.2.5 O’Neill - External support....................................................................................97
Week 5............................................................................................................................... 101
5.1 Lecture..................................................................................................................... 101
5.2 Readings.................................................................................................................. 106
5.2.1 Demmers & Gould - an assemblage approach to liquid warfare.......................106
5.2.2 Plakoudas - Strategy in Counterinsurgency......................................................111
5.2.3 Zhukov - Counterinsurgency in a non-democratic state: the Russian example.115
5.2.4 Williamson - Using humanitarian aid to ‘’win hearts and minds’’: a costly failure?
.................................................................................................................................. 118
Week 6............................................................................................................................... 124
6.1 Lecture..................................................................................................................... 124
6.2 Readings.................................................................................................................. 128
6.2.1 Aliyeh - Strong Militias, weak states and armed violence.................................128
6.2.2 Blair & Kalmanovitz - On the rights of Warlords: Legitimate Authority and Basic
Protection in Wor-Tom societies................................................................................133
6.2.3 Fumerton - Beyond Counterinsurgency............................................................138
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,6.2.4 Jentzsch, Kalyvas & Schubiger - Militias in civil wars.......................................143
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,Week 1
1.1 Lecture 1
Collective action: collaborative action in pursuit of common goals. Violent conflict is a form
of collective action. For violent conflict to happen it requires collective action, thus collective
action makes violent conflict possible.
In conventional wars between states, mobilising collective action is not difficult because most
modern states have a standing army. The army follows the political leaders. But since the
Second World War the nature of armed conflicts changed from conflicts between states to
conflicts within states. This shift came to being due to historical processes: decolonisation
and the emergence of postcolonial states (violent process). The shift from interstate wars to
intrastate armed conflict made a change from conventional armies to another type of
warfare. John F Kennedy is known for the term another type of warfare.
Another term for intrastate war is civil war: ‘’armed combat within the boundaries of a
recognized sovereign entity between parties
subject to a common authority at the outset of
hostilities’’ (Kalyvas). Civil war is portrayed in the
picture.
Insurgency is an organised, protracted political-
military struggle designed to weaken the control
and legitimacy of an established government,
occupying power, or other political authority while
increasing insurgent control.
The most important question for scholars has been: Why does armed insurgency happen?
There are several possible explanations. One possible explanation is discontent /
grievance (psychological explanation):
● Relative deprivation theory: a theory of discontent; relative deprivation is the gap
between what one believes one should get and what one gets. It refers to a
psychological sense of injustice. The process goes as follows. The perception of
relative deprivation makes individuals feel frustration, which leads to aggressive
behaviour making them susceptible to engage in violent collective action. Relative
deprivation was a highly popular theory in the 1960s and 1970s and is still very
relevant.
Critique: However, relative deprivation does not give a sufficient cause as to why, in
many cases, politically frustrated people do not embark on violent insurgency.
● Conditions (structural explanations): For example, structural conditions such as:
poverty, weak or failing state, corrupt leaders etc. In Zimbabwe there was a crisis in
2007-2008, there was poverty which created a huge food shortage for the people
who cannot afford food. The condition of life in Zimbabwe is one of food shortages.
More than two million Zimbabweans were on the brink of starvation. However, there
was never a rebellion of non-state actors against the government.
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, ‘’Grievances and discontent are not the causes of revolutions. If they were, most
Third World countries would be in continuous turmoil’’.
So why does armed insurgency happen: because it can. But just because people want to
rebel, does not mean they can. Perhaps the right question then is how is armed insurgency
made possible? War and violence is neither spontaneous nor inevitable, war requires
supportive structures (both discursive and material) and agents in order to enable and
sustain it.
The main subject of this course is the mobilisation of violent collection action. Fumerton’s
central argument is that: Civil wars happen not as the inevitable outcome merely of cognitive
and emotional motivations (like fear, hate or grievance), and also not simply as the result of
structural conditions (like poverty or discrimination). Rather civil wars are the products of
human choice and coordinated efforts that mobilise human, material, technological and
ideological resources for violent collective action. Thus, armed conflict does not break out
just because conditions happen to be right, but because it is organised. He will answer four
main questions:
1. How does agency manifest itself through participation in and mobilisation of insurgent
collective action?
2. What are the structural conditions in which insurgent collection action becomes
possible?
3. How is insurgent collective action expanded and sustained?
4. How do states respond to insurgent collective action?
Analytic framework
Analysis is the breaking down of a phenomenon into its constituent parts and determining
the relationship between these parts in relation to the whole. Following an analytical
framework must, by definition, help us break down the phenomenon. Our analytic framework
is collective action theory. The components of collective action theory are:
1. Opportunity structures & external relational fields
2. Mobilising processes
3. Meaning-generating practises
In the coming weeks in greater detail each of these three components of collective action
theory will be explained in relation to the four main questions that structure this course.
This framework however is not made up of static categories. We need to view violent
collective action as involving continuous interaction between social structures and human
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