POLI 360 Lecture Notes - Lecture 19: Geography Of Algeria, Appeasement, Expected Utility Hypothesis
Document Summary
Poli 360 notes: the logic of massacres in algeria. Mass civilian massacres since 1996 not irrational extremist islamic nonsense. Instead they are rational moves in order to disincentivize freeriders. Targeted mass violence actually garners maximum civilian support given the circumstances because it punishes defection. > large-scale massacres viewed under a rationalist lens. The political/social circumstance which incentivize this behaviour in a civil war are (a) fragmented and unstable rule, (b) mass civilian defections toward the incumbents and (c) escalation of violence. Data since the 1960s shows that even though there were 5 times as many days of protest as rebellion, rebellions were much more deadly. 10 000 protest deaths vs. over 3 million rebellion deaths. Need to make the distinction between non-violent and violent collective action as two separate things, not degrees of the same thing. Only testing the plausibility of a thesis, not saying this is always true no matter what.
