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Things come together: symbolic violence and guerrilla mobilisation

2007; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 28; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/01436590601153705

1360-2241

Gordon H. McCormick, Frank A. Giordano,

Anthropology: Ethics, History, Culture

Abstract Abstract Nascent insurgencies often face an opening mobilisation dilemma that can cripple their ability to grow into a mature threat to the state. The source of this dilemma lies in the fact that the great majority of people who are prepared to support an insurgency in principle are only willing to do so conditionally, depending not only on the costs and benefits of their alternatives but the probabilities they assign to each side's success. At the outset of such conflicts, when the emerging group is very small, the probability that the insurgency will be successful is low and the probability that it will fail is high. The expected costs of participation are correspondingly high, and the expected benefits of supporting the opposition are low. Why would anyone join such an undertaking? We examine how armed opposition groups resolve this dilemma through the use of symbolic violence and the manipulation of violent images. If successful, they transform their generated images into facts to achieve a self-sustaining mobilisation programme. Notes 1 A Oberschall, 'Loosely structured collective conflict: a theory and an application', Research in Social Movements, 3, 1980, p 47. 2 J March, A Primer on Decision Making: How Decisions Happen, New York: Free Press, 1994, pp 2 – 3. 3 Leites and Wolf refer to this as the 'dominance of predictions over preferences'. While some percentage of the population may begin the game as active (but conditional) supporters of the incumbent, as they come to believe that the opposition is likely to win, the expected benefits of continuing to support the status quo will decline and the expected payoff of supporting the insurgents will increase. Should these trends continue, it will be advantageous at some point to switch sides. Note here that the pure preferences of this sub-set of the population have not changed, only their predictions concerning which side is likely to win. The result is a change in behaviour. They are prepared to abandon the side they would prefer to see win in order to support the side they would prefer to see defeated. N Leites & C Wolf, Rebellion and Authority: An Analytical Essay on Insurgent Conflicts, Santa Monica, CA: rand, R-462-ARPA, 1970. 4 MI Lichbach, The Rebel's Dilemma, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1995, p 66. 5 C Bicchieri, Rationality and Coordination, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993, p 29. 6 Parts of the following argument build on a previous discussion by GH McCormick & G Owen, 'Revolutionary origins and conditional mobilization', European Journal of Political Economy, 12, 1996, pp 377 – 402. 7 TC Schelling, Micromotives and Macrobehavior, New York: Norton, 1978; M Granovetter, 'Threshold models of collective behavior', American Journal of Sociology, 83, 1978, pp 1420 – 1443; T Kuran, 'Sparks and prairie fires: a theory of unanticipated revolution', Public Choice, 61, 1989, pp 41 – 74; Kuran 'The East European revolution of 1989: is it surprising that we were surprised?', American Economic Review, 81, 1991, pp 121 – 125; Kuran, 'Now out of never: the element of surprise in the East European revolution of 1989', World Politics, 44, 1991, pp 7 – 48; and G Marwell & P Oliver, The Critical Mass in Collective Action: A Micro-Social Theory, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. 8 GH McCormick & F Giordano, 'The dynamics of insurgency', paper presented to the Insurgency Board of Experts, Department of Defense Analysis, Naval Postgraduate School, June 2002. 9 For most individuals maintaining a neutral position between the two sides (ie choosing neither) means that the expected value of remaining independent is greater than EV(r) and EV(s). Unless such people are 'hard-core' neutrals, their neutrality is itself a conditional position which is subject to change as the costs, benefits and expectations associated with supporting the state and the insurgency change over time. We can distinguish here between 'fair weather neutrals' or 'neutrals of convenience' and those for whom neutrality is a matter of principle. The number of people who fall into the latter category is insignificantly small. 10 Schelling, Micromotives and Macrobehavior. 11 The reader should note that a change in xp results in a movement along the reaction curve, while a change in yp results in a movement of the curve itself. 12 C Johnson, Revolutionary Change, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1982. 13 This is the so-called 'spark and tinder model' of revolt. A 'spark', in this model, 'will create a prairie fire'. Mao Tse-tung, 'A single spark can start a prairie fire', in Selected Military Writings, Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1967. According to this theory, all that is required to get things moving is a 'precipitating event' that will pull people into the streets. Once this begins, the rebellion will feed on itself. A rebellion, in this case, is essentially an event. While this model is often associated with Mao's famous 1930 essay, cited above, it actually has little to do with Mao's mature operational doctrine, which assumes that political mobilisation is a problematic and iterative process of gradually shifting the balance of power between the guerrilla and the state over time. This is the strategy that must be pursued in the type of mobilisation environment shown in Curve B. The 'spark and tinder' assumption underlies the 'Cuban' or 'foco' model of rebellion advanced by Guevara and Debray, as well as their many theoretical followers. E Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare, Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1985; and R Debray, Revolution in the Revolution: Armed Struggle and Political Struggle in Latin America, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1980. According to this doctrine, the power of example, provided by the actions of the foco, is enough to set things in motion. Once this is done, the revolt will take on a dynamic of its own, sweeping the old regime from power. The actions of the foco, in this respect, serve as a manufactured precipitant. For a theoretical discussion of the differences between these two models, see G McCormick, 'People's wars', in J Ciment, KL Hill, C Skutsch & D Macmichael (eds), Encyclopedia of Conflicts Since World War II, Armonk, NY: Sharpe Reference, 1999. For a discussion of the roles of precipitants and causes in revolt, see H Eckstein, 'On the etiology of internal wars', History and Theory, 4, 1965, pp 133 – 163. 14 Curve B is 'typical' in the sense that it describes a mobilisation environment in which who wins and who loses will be a function of how both sides play the game. Victory is not preordained. Curve C, by contrast, represents an environment in which the insurgency is destined to lose, at least for as long as its response curve f(xp) remains below the diagonal xw = xp. While hard-core supporters of the opposition may still be in a position to carry out attacks indefinitely, within their means, they will never be in a position to generate widespread popular support. Curve A represents an environment in which the insurgency, once initiated, has the potential to expand catalytically. The insurgents, in this case, assuming they know how to exploit the effects of this potential catalytic response, have a good chance of winning. By way of example, Kuran has suggested that this was essentially the situation that prevailed in Eastern Europe on the eve of the revolutionary outbreaks of 1989. Kuran, 'The East European revolution of 1989'. As in the East European case, most situations that have reached this point, however, are likely to have evolved out of the kind of environment represented by Curve B as a result of a long-standing interaction between the opposition and the state. 15 Schelling, Micromotives and Macrobehavior. 16 T Thornton, 'Terror as a weapon of political agitation', in H Eckstein (ed), Internal War, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1980, p 74. 17 This 'precipitating' function, which is a prerequisite for getting things started, can also be played by natural catastrophies or generated events beyond the insurgency itself. The purpose it serves, in either case, is the same: to show conditional elements within the population that the incumbent is vulnerable and that revolt is possible. See discussions by Johnson, Revolutionary Change; and Eckstein, 'On the etiology of internal wars'. In Iraq the precipitating event that led to the emergence of organised resistance in mid-2003 was the occupation authority's unwillingness or inability to put down the looting that swept across much of the country in the wake of the invasion. In failing to establish law and order, the US military signalled that would-be opponents had the room for manoeuvre needed to resist the occupation. 18 Thornton, 'Terror as a weapon of political agitation', p 74. 19 R Taber, The War of the Flea, New York: Lyle Stuart, 1965, p 20. 20 M Begin, The Revolt, trans S Katz, London: WH Allen, 1979, p 52. 21 Ibid, p 121. 22 GH McCormick, 'Terrorist decision making', Annual Review of Political Science, 4, Palo Alto, CA: Annual Reviews, 2003. 23 The phrase is that of Regis Debray in Debray, Revolution in the Revolution, p 42. 24 J DeNardo, Power in Numbers: The Political Strategy of Protest and Rebellion, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985, p 234. 25 Quoted in N Leites, 'Understanding the next act', Terrorism, 3, 1979, pp 1 – 46. 26 C Marighella, The Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla (1971), reprinted in R Moss, Urban Guerrilla Warfare, Adelphi Paper 79, London: International Institute of Strategic Studies, 1971, p 19. 27 Ibid, p 40. 28 Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare, p 189. 29 Debray, Revolution in the Revolution, pp 51 – 52, emphasis in the original. 30 JS Coleman, quoted in Lichbach, The Rebel's Dilemma, p 74. 31 P Kropotkin, quoted in Z Iviansky, 'Individual terror: concept and typology', Journal of Contemporary History, 12 (1), 1977, p 46. 32 A Oberschall, Social Conflict and Social Movements, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1973, p 308. 33 As with any kind of symbolic action, one should distinguish here between the 'target of attack', against which the operation is carried out, and the 'target of influence', which is the audience or audiences for whom the image generated by the attack is actually intended. If the insurgency is going to achieve its intended effects at a price it can afford to sustain, its actions must be 'symbolically efficient'; the indirect effects of its targeting programme on those it needs to influence must be greater than its direct consequences on the battlefield. During the initial period of the struggle, at least, the latter will be largely insignificant, which is why the insurgency must resort to a campaign of 'smoke and mirrors' in the first place. 34 G Weiman, Terror on the Internet: The New Arena, the New Challenges, United States Institute of Peace Press, 2006. 35 These efforts can be and often are supplemented by outside assistance. There are limits, however, to the degree to which outside support can offset an unfavourable mobilisation environment if the insurgents' operational objective is to grow an opposition force (and undermine the state) by mobilising a popular following. At some point exogenous assistance will result in diminishing returns to scale. 36 The nature of this minimum can be interpreted in a number of different ways. In the short run it can be defined by what it would take to put the group out of business at a point in time, effectively pushing it below its breakpoint. Over the long run it can be defined by the (typically fluctuating) point at which the group's rate of attrition (in leaders and followers) begins to exceed its rate of growth. In either case underground organisations require a minimum level of internal security (by maintaining a critical level of invisibility) to stay in the game and go on to win. 37 We should remind the reader that we are discussing the conditions for victory in a closed fight between an armed opposition group and a domestic incumbent. If the insurgency is unable to grow beyond its low level equilibrium point it will never be in a position to pose a terminal threat to the state. Assuming it is operating in a typical insurgent environment, as we discussed earlier, this will require it to achieve a self-sustaining level of growth at x = xp = xc (see Figure 4, Curve B). It should be noted, however, that this is not a requirement for victory in the event that the insurgency is facing a foreign opponent, such as an occupying power. (The obvious example is the USA in Afghanistan and Iraq.) Victory in this case does not require the opposition to grow to the point where it is strong enough to seize power, but only to the point that it is able to inflict a level of pain that it is sufficiently high to force the occupying power to reconsider the costs and benefits of remaining in the game.