International Journal of Conflict and Violence (IJCV - Universität Bielefeld)
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Exploring Health Effects of Terrorism: A Multi-Level Analysis for Turkey
Full text linkTerrorism has the potential to affect population health through various pathways. Since the literature mostly analyzes tangible economic costs, there is dearth of evidence on health effects of terrorism. In an effort to address that gap, this article explores the relationship between terrorism and health satisfaction of Turkish citizens by combining province-level and individual-level data sets. In order to quantify determinants of health satisfaction, a multi-level modeling framework is employed. Empirical analysis suggests that individuals with higher exposure to terrorism are more likely to report lower health satisfaction in Turkey. Health satisfaction of individuals is significantly and positively correlated with individual-level covariates such as education level, marital status, employment status, household income, housing floor area per person, interest in health issues and becoming a parent within the past year. Age, being female and utilization of health services display negative associations with health satisfaction of individuals. Finally, province level GDP per capita and schooling ratio exhibit significantly positive associations with individual health satisfaction in Turkey
The Impact of Segregated Diversity on the Code of the Street: An Analysis of Violence-related Norms in Selected Post-Industrial Neighborhoods in Germany
Full text linkYouth violence remains a concern in Germany, particularly in specific “risky” neighborhoods that tend to be socially segregated and ethnically diverse. In this paper we critically compare the results of twenty-seven qualitative interviews conducted in three risky neighborhoods in the German Ruhr area with the code of the street. While this theoretical framework is frequently cited in explaining youth violence, it was based on research in an ethnically homogenous neighborhood in the United States and thus does not engage with questions of diversity. Our findings show that the core of the code of the street is also applicable in heterogeneous contexts, thus extending the generalizability of the theoretical framework. Manifestations of manhood, reputation, and symbolic power were found to be major elements of street culture, although characterized somewhat differently than in the original work
Looking Through and Beyond Conflicts: Communal Violence and the Social Order in Hyderabad (India)
Full text linkCommunalism permeates the political, academic, media and everyday discourse in and about India. As a dominant interpretive framework, it expresses a particular politics of interfaith relations that normalises socio-political conflicts and violence intersecting with gender, class and caste relations. These intersections emerge in the experiences, practices and spaces of marginality and violence, revealing both the mechanisms of their normalisation in the context of communal violence and the experience of living within, through and despite it. Everyday life becomes the privileged context for reading communalism in light of a systematic reorganising of the gender-socio-economic governance, and the possibility to interrogate it. Based on an ethnographic study carried out in Hyderabad between 2009 and 2012, the paper reveals a politics of communal violence embedded in everyday social practices. It shows that the gender-socio-economic governance is not parallel to communalism but in fact constitutive of its logic and practices. The paper offers a perspective on how socio-political conflicts become actualised in a social order and how agency within such contexts unfolds as awareness of and action upon the space/possibility of their reconfiguration
Education as Treatment for Chronic Pain in Survivors of Trauma in Cambodia: Results of a Randomized Controlled Outcome Trial
Full text linkBased on the hypothesis that pain is a stand-alone problem, not just a symptom of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), the effect of group psycho-education (“pain school”) for survivors of the Khmer Rouge regime with pain-PTSD comorbidity was tested in Cambodia in 2015. After baseline assessment comprising pain-related measures (Brief Pain Inventory, Disability Rating Index) and measures for PTSD, anxiety, depression, and distress, 113 subjects were randomized to a waitlist control group (CG, n = 58) and a treatment group (TG, n = 55). After treatment TG improved significantly, with clinically relevant effect size. Effect size was, however, substantially lower than in two prior pilot trials, and the improvement was not maintained at six-month follow-up. The main reason for this is hypothesized to be that the intervention had been delivered in too condensed a format. It is concluded that treatment addressing pain can also ameliorate mental health problems, implying that more attention should be paid to pain treatment for subjects suffering from pain/PTSD comorbidity
Killing in Pairs: Radicalisation Patterns of Violent Dyads
Full text linkIn recent years there has been an upsurge in violent attacks conducted by pairs of individuals who have undergone a shared process of radicalisation. Violent dyads remain a relatively understudied phenomenon. Using a relational approach, this article analyses the unique character of dyadic radicalisation and how it differs from instances of lone actor or group-based terrorism. It draws on a number of recent case studies, analysing instances of non-kin, fraternal, and spousal dyads. Its principal case study is a failed attack in Germany in 2006, based on a range of documentary sources as well as an interview with one of the perpetrators
Pre-war grievances and violence against civilians in civil wars. Evidence from the Spanish Civil War in Catalonia.
Full text linkThis article claims that the role of pre-war grievances as a predictor of violence against civilians in civil wars may have been systematically underestimated because the “grievance hypothesis” has not been properly tested. Pre-war grievances can only affect civilian victimization in civil wars if they have been intensely mobilized in the period close to the outbreak of the conflict and if there is a temporary collapse of state capacity. This article presents a “fair test” of the grievance hypothesis. It analyses in depth a specific case of a pre-war grievance that met these two conditions. This case is the conflict around land property rights in Catalonia before the Spanish Civil War and its effects on violence against civilians during the war. The results show a non-negligible effect of pre-war grievances on civilian victimization
Processes of Radicalization and Polarization in the Context of Transnational Islamist Terrorism
Full text linkThe present special issue brings together papers that focus on relevant theoretical perspectives and empirical research concerning individual and collective processes of radicalization, and social dynamics and conflicts associated with them. It also examines strategies to prevent the initiation of such processes and thereby connects analyses and transfer. Eight articles advance the current state of the art with regard to three aspects of radicalization within the context of Islamist terrorism, namely: 1) radicalization as a relational process; 2) social challenges and the role of foreign policy; and 3) prevention strategies. Together they represent important current empirical studies and point to directions where research is urgently needed
The Power of a Good Story: Narrative Persuasion in Extremist Propaganda and Videos against Violent Extremism
Full text linkThe perceived threat of extremist online propaganda has generated a need for countermeasures applicable to large audiences. The dissemination of videos designed to counter violent extremism (CVE videos) is widely discussed. These videos are often described as “counter-narratives,” implying that narrativity is a crucial factor for their effectiveness. Experimental research testing this assumption is rare and direct comparisons of narrativity effects between propaganda and CVE videos are lacking. To fill this gap, we conducted two experiments (one in a laboratory and one online) in which we confronted German participants with different religious affiliations and from various cultural backgrounds (NStudy 1 = 338 and NStudy 2 = 155) with Islamist extremist or right-wing extremist propaganda videos and with corresponding CVE videos. The results confirmed that narrativity (a) increases persuasive processing of propaganda and CVE videos, (b) fosters amplification intentions regarding these videos, and (c) increases attraction to extremists versus counter-activists. Thus, our studies highlight the crucial role of narrativity in both extremist propaganda and video-based CVE approaches
The burden of history(?): Remembering the Holocaust and Attitudes toward Asylum Seekers in Israel
Full text linkTwo connected studies examine how universalist and particularist views of the Holocaust influence Israeli Jews’ attitudes toward asylum seekers. Study 1 (N = 500) investigated the degree to which universalist and particularist perceptions of the “lessons” of the Holocaust correlate with exclusionist views toward asylum seekers. It was found that a universalist perception of the “lessons” of the Holocaust was negatively related to exclusionist attitudes, and a particularist perception positively related to exclusionist attitudes—even after controlling for religiosity and political affiliation. Study 2 comprised three survey experiments (N = 298, 280, and 320, respectively) investigating whether presentation of universalist versus particularist texts about the Holocaust would impact exclusionist attitudes. It was found that exposure to a universalist text reduced negative attitudes toward asylum seekers and increased support for treating wounded Syrians in Israeli hospitals. Exposure to a particularist did not increase exclusionist attitudes
Neighbourhood Effects on Jihadist Radicalisation in Germany? Some Case-Based Remarks
Full text linkAbout twenty young people travelled from a small German former mining settlement named Dinslaken-Lohberg to become fighters with al-Nusra and ISIS. They drew particular attention, with media reports about “members” of what they termed the “Lohberg Brigade” killed in the fighting, or in air strikes by the anti-ISIS coalition, or in spectacular suicide attacks claiming many victims. Drawing on that case, the article explores how neighborhood can effect the emergence and persistence of radicalisation to jihadi neo-Salafism. The author presents a series of local elements that interfere with one another to strengthen each other’s persistence and effects and thus promote the emergence and persistence of the radicalisation phenomenon at hand. The interference of elements is not an automatic but a social process, enacted by neighbors telling stories of conspiracy, of discrimination and recounting experiences of spirituality, heroism, masculinity, and femaleness. It is performed by neighbors setting, crossing and avoiding symbolic boundaries. And finally it is played by neighbors simply following their routines. The author shows how explaining space-related radicalisation processes means more than adding up spatial factors. His approach rejects the idea of isolating a single social fact – such as local structures, events, processes or social actors that existed, occurred or acted prior to the emergence of radicals in their neighbourhood – as definite cause for radicalisation