Civilian Casualties, Humanitarian Aid, and Insurgent Violence in Civil Wars

Author(s):  
Jason Lyall
Keyword(s):  
2012 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 10-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Armatta

Controversy over Serbia's1 role in the decade of wars in the former Yugoslavia continues. The trial of Slobodan Milošević unearthed significant new material in documents and testimony, despite the trial's premature end with Milošević's death. While there was no legal resolution, evidence revealed at trial provides a rich resource for historians to further examine some of the major controversies arising from the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the decade of wars that ensued. This article will highlight evidence relevant to the following issues: Was Serbia opposed to disintegration and war or did Milošević seek it in his quest for power? Were the wars in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina civil wars in which Serbia was not involved except to provide humanitarian aid and negotiate for peace or was Serbia a primary protagonist? What was Serbia's role, if any, in the Srebrenica genocide?2 Was Serbia, NATO or the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) responsible for war and ethnic cleansing in Kosovo? While the trial of Milošević did not attempt to establish Serbia's or the FRY's responsibility, actions taken by Milošević as Serbia's president and de facto leader of the FRY necessarily implicate them as political entities.


2019 ◽  
Vol 73 (4) ◽  
pp. 901-926 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Lyall

AbstractIndiscriminate violence against civilians has long been viewed as a catalyst for new rounds of violence in civil wars. Can humanitarian assistance reduce violence after civilians have been harmed? Crossnational studies are pessimistic, drawing a connection between humanitarian aid and increased civil war violence, lethality, and duration. To date, however, we have few subnational studies of wartime aid and subsequent violence. To examine this relationship, I draw on the Afghan Civilian Assistance Program (ACAP II), a USAID-funded initiative that investigated 1,061 civilian casualty incidents (2011–13). Aid was assigned as if randomly to about half (55.8%) of these incidents, facilitating counterfactual estimation of how assistance affected Taliban attacks against the International Security Assistance Force, Afghan forces, and civilians. Challenging prior studies, I find that ACAP was associated with an average 23 percent reduction in attacks against ISAF, but not Afghan forces or civilians, at the village level for up to two years after the initial incident.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard J. Blakemore ◽  
Elaine Murphy
Keyword(s):  

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynette H. Bikos ◽  
Michael Klemens ◽  
Leigh Randa ◽  
Alyson Barry ◽  
Thomas Bore

2017 ◽  
pp. 142-155
Author(s):  
I. Rozinskiy ◽  
N. Rozinskaya

The article examines the socio-economic causes of the outcome of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1936), which, as opposed to the Russian Civil War, resulted in the victory of the “Whites”. Choice of Spain as the object of comparison with Russia is justified not only by similarity of civil wars occurred in the two countries in the XX century, but also by a large number of common features in their history. Based on statistical data on the changes in economic well-being of different strata of Spanish population during several decades before the civil war, the authors formulate the hypothesis according to which the increase of real incomes of Spaniards engaged in agriculture is “responsible” for their conservative political sympathies. As a result, contrary to the situation in Russia, where the peasantry did not support the Whites, in Spain the peasants’ position predetermined the outcome of the confrontation resulting in the victory of the Spanish analogue of the Whites. According to the authors, the possibility of stable increase of Spanish peasants’ incomes was caused by the nation’s non-involvement in World War I and also by more limited, compared to Russia and some other countries, spending on creation of heavy (primarily military-related) industry in Spain.


2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 263-278 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ayham Dalal

Camps are temporal spaces where refugees are provided with humanitarian aid until durable solutions are made possible. During this period of ‘endless waiting’, these camps are planned to be economically self-contained. However, through time, refugee camps tend to urbanise: their initial empty spaces transform into vibrant markets, habitats and social spaces. In response to this ‘unexpected’ - and sometimes ‘unwanted’ - process, the economically self-contained system of camps breaks. This paper looks into the emerging socio-economic dynamics in Zaatari camp in Jordan, on the light of its urbanisation process and the Jordanian economy. It first explains the how humanitarian aid is provided, and then shows how and why, refugees use it to diversify the economy of the camp. The findings of this paper are then articulated on the existing policies to reduce the financial aid such as ‘self-reliance’ and ‘development’.


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