This document discusses several topics related to violence and conflict, including why governments torture, why terrorism occurs, and issues with fighting a "war on terrorism." It provides arguments for why torture does not work as an interrogation technique due to information asymmetries between interrogators and detainees. Regarding terrorism, it outlines how terrorists can be viewed as rational actors and the different waves of terrorism after WWII. It also notes the high costs and consequences of fighting wars or being in a state of conflict.

1. All the Bad
Things Before
the Good….
Torture, Terrorism, Civil War, Coups,
and Propaganda

2. Why Study Violent Phenomena in Peace Studies?
1. Understand how conflicts emerge.
2. Learn the grievances and troubles of people who support the violence narrative.
3. Avoid being “nonviolence” sycophants.
4. Develop educated, strong, and academic arguments in support of real peace and
nonviolence.

3. Why Torture?

4. What is Torture?
• Torture is the intentional act of inflicting severe pain on a
person
• Can be physical or psychological
• Torture can be carried out by anyone, but we will focus on
torture committed by governments

5. Why Governments Torture, Reason 1
• Social control
• Fear, submission, punishment
• The expectation of torture for deviating from government
decree raises the cost of such deviations

6. Why Governments Torture, Reason 2
• From this perspective the main benefit of torture is that it a
mechanism for encouraging the revelation of important information
or to induce a confession
• Postulated logic: Torture raises the cost of hiding information
desired by the torturing government

7. Information Revelation
• In authoritarian regime torture is used to reveal deviations (actual
or potential) from dictates of government; confession of a crime,
etc.
• Proponents of torture in countries that claim to protect human
rights typically justify some level of torture based on “ticking time
bomb” logic
– Example: U.S. post-9/11, Abu Ghraib prison and the war on
terror

8. “Laws” against torture…

9. United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, 1948
• First expression of global human rights
“No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel,
inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
— Article 5

10. • International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights (ICCPR)
• Multilateral treaty adopted by UN
(1976)
• “No one shall be subjected to torture
or to cruel, inhuman or degrading
treatment or punishment. In
particular, no one shall be subjected
without his free consent to medical or
scientific experimentation.”
— Article 7

11. • United Nations Convention against Torture and
Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or
Punishment (UNCAT), 1987
• Requires governments to prevent torture
within their borders, and forbids states to
transport people to other countries where
they will be tortured

12. Enforcement of Anti-
Torture Laws?
• The five permanent members of the UNSC with
veto power all practice consistent reported torture:
• China, France, Russia, UK, US
• Should we expect them to enforce anti-torture
laws?

13. Democracy and Torture
• Darius Rejali. 2007. Torture and Democracy. Princeton University Press
• Dispels the myth that democratic governments don’t engage in torture
• Traces the migration of “clean torture” techniques from western democracies
(France, Britain, the U.S.) to authoritarian regimes
• Clean torture – torture that does not leave any physical evidence (e.g., sleep
depravation, electro torture, water torture, stress and duress, noise, etc.)
• Ex: The “Water Cure” in the Philippines

14. Why Torture Does Not Work!

15. Players in the Torture “Game”
• Interrogator:
• Can be “pragmatic” and torture only as a last resort and only up
to the point necessary to secure information
• Can be a “sadist” who enjoys torturing and will do so whether
information is revealed or not

16. Players in the Torture “Game”
• Detainee:
• Can be “Knowledgeable” and “Strong” – knows relevant
information but withholds it even when some level of torture is
inflicted
• Can be “Knowledgeable” and “Weak” – knows relevant
information and will break easily
• Can be “Innocent” – knows nothing of relevance

17. Assume the Best Case
• Government only employs pragmatic interrogators
• No “bad apples”
• If the interrogator believes that the detainee has either revealed all
of the relevant knowledge, or lacks such knowledge (i.e., they are
“Innocent”), the interrogator prefers not to engage in torture

18. Key Issue
• Information asymmetry
• The torturer does not know the detainee’s true agent type

19. The First Torture Dilemma
• The interrogator needs to establish a credible reputation for
torturing those that do not reveal information
• “Innocent” detainees can’t reveal information because they
don’t know anything (telling the truth)
• “Knowledgeable” and “Strong” detainees won’t reveal
information even though they are not “Innocent”
• The problem is that these two agent types are observationally
equivalent to the interrogator
• The interrogator will therefore need to torture innocent people
absent reliable information about the true agent type

20. • The likelihood of a pragmatic interrogator engaging in torture is
even greater because:
• Absent the reputation for torturing those that do not reveal
information, the “Knowledgeable” and “Weak” detainee will
also pretend to be an “Innocent” detainee since they know they
won’t be punished by the pragmatic interrogator
• This logic provides further incentive for interrogator’s to
engage in torture of those who fail to reveal information
even if the detainee is truly “Innocent”

21. The Main Takeaway 1
• If torture is to work as a threat it must be credible
• In order to be a credible threat, the pragmatic interrogator must engage in
some torture when he/she does not receive information they consider
valuable
• Prediction: All three types of detainees will be tortured in order to
establish a credible reputation to torture those that don’t provide
information
• This implies those who are “Innocent” are treated as if they are not
and the frequency of torture will be greater than it should be under
a situation of perfect information

22. Main Takeaway 2
• Once torture techniques are introduced, the incentive facing
the interrogator is to increase the harshness, or intensity, of
torture to ensure that the appropriate threshold (cost of
torture) has been met
• The only time this doesn’t exist is when the
“Knowledgeable” & “Weak” detainee reveals information
and the interrogator is confident it is complete and accurate
information
• Even here, it is possible that the interrogator was too
intense relative to the weak detainee’s threshold for
revelation

23. Conditions for Effective Torture
• Effective torture requires two things:
• Interrogators must be able to recognize truth when they hear it
• Interrogators must be able to credibly commit to refraining from, or
stopping, torture when they hear truth
• Why? If torture continues after the detainee reveals the truth, and
the detainee expects this, there is no incentive for them to reveal
the truth since they will be tortured either way

24. Further Reading
• Alfred McCoy, 2007. A Question of Torture.
• Shane O’Mara. 2015. Why Torture Doesn’t Work: The Neuroscience of Interrogation
• Eric Fair, 2016. Consequence: A Memoir
• Mark Fallon, 2017. Unjustifiable Means: The Inside Story of How the CIA, Pentagon,
and US Government Conspired to Torture

25. Why Terrorism?

26. Characteristics of
Terrorism
• Violence, or the threat thereof, for political ends
(e.g. religious freedoms, economic equality,
income redistribution, nationalism, separatism,
issue-specific goals, etc.)
• Terrorism is a planned and calculated act
• Terrorists are not bound by established rules or
codes of warfare conduct (treaties, conventions)
• Terrorist acts are intended to have far-reaching
psychological effects that go beyond the target

27. Terrorists as Rational Actors
• Terrorists have a willingness to take innocent lives, and even their own. Why?
• Terrorism acts as a substitute for when conventional war is too costly to engage in.
• The fruits of terrorism are a public good enjoyed by the entirety of the terrorist group and
their sympathizers. They weaken the “enemy” and send a threatening message.
• Terrorist groups usually provide compensation for relatives in the event of death or
disablement.
• The terrorist is championed and remembered as a hero and a martyr if he dies, which
adds more rational incentives to become a terrorist for the utility of fame or pride.

28. An Incentive for “Muslim” Terrorists
• Terrorist groups provide absolute insurance after death. A Paradise
monopolized by the true Muslims with every luxury you can imagine.
• Unsurprisingly, Islamic terrorist groups mostly belonged to followers of
extremist Wahhabism. It is responsible for 94% of Islamic terrorism (2001-
2015) according to the Global Terrorism Index.
• Fortunately, this ideology is in retreat.

29. Terrorists Too Need
to Allocate Their
Resources and
Manpower Cost-
efficiently
• They hit vulnerable targets to maximize
the fear and reaction to their attack.
• Fear induces chain reactions that pressure
governments to change policies in favor of
terrorists to calm their citizens.
• They also hit densely populated areas to
maximize casualties per terrorist.

30. Three Waves of
Terrorism After
WWII
• National liberation and ethnic
separatism
• Left-wing terrorism
• Religious Terrorism

31. National Liberation Terrorism
• Algerian liberation
• Bombings in France to liberate French Algeria
• Cyprus EOKA
• Terrorism to kick the British out of Cyprus
• Israeli Irgun and Lehi
• Bombings of British buildings and hotel.

32. Left-wing terrorism
• Red Army Faction in West Germany: 1972-1975 bombings.
• Italian Red Brigade: kidnapping and murder of politicians.
• The BR were credited with 14,000 acts of violence in the first ten years of the group's
existence
• Irish Republican Army assassinations

33. • In comparison to Anti-
Colonial Terrorism, Left-
Wing terrorism was not
nearly as successful.

34. Religious Terrorism
• Wahhabism in Yemen, Syria,
Iraq and Afghanistan.
• JDL and Kahane
• Assassinations of Palestinians
and Arab intellectuals.

35. Can there be a War
on Terrorism?
Technical problems vs. entangled problems

36. Cost and Consequences of War
All War is Evil.

37. Economic Consequences
War reduces growth during the period of conflict through several channels:
• Direct destruction of capital and infrastructure
• Real resources effect!
• Both physical and human capital diversion.
• Capital (financial and human) exit the country.
• Shift away from productive economic activities and toward unproductive
activities.
• Potential spillover to other, neighboring countries.

39. Social Consequences
• Death
• Displacement
• Injury and loss of health (non death) related to war
• Destruction of “social capital” – networks that allow for gains from
interaction/exchange
• Civil war is correlated with increases in the spread of disease
• War can destroy part or all of the education system leading to loss of
human capital

40. Psychological Consequences
• Survivors of wars experience significant trauma (loss of family, friends,
community, property, job, etc.)
• There have been some studies indicating that those who must live in a
refugee camp or transitory settlement suffering “secondary wounds” due to
the destruction of their normal way of life

41. Civil Wars

42. Civil War Defined
• In the broadest sense, a civil war is a conflict between groups within a
geographic territory
• Scholars studying civil war/conflict attempt to provide a more specific
definition
• There are two main definitions in the academic literature: “Civil War”
and “Civil Conflict”

43. Source: Chris Blattman and Edward Miguel. 2010. “Civil War,” Journal of Economic Literature 48(1): 3-57.
Distribution of Civil War or Civil Conflict
Years Across Countries, 1960-2006
20% of nations have
experienced at least ten
years of civil war

44. Source: Chris Blattman and Edward Miguel. 2010. “Civil War,” Journal of Economic Literature 48(1): 3-57.
Proportion of Countries With Active
Civil War/Conflict, 1960-2006
Peak: 20%+ of all countries
involved in civil war or
conflict

45. Motivations
• A distinctive feature of civil war is the emergence and
persistence of a rebel army
• An economic theory of civil war needs to explain this
phenomena
• Two potential motivations:
• Greed – private gain from rebellion
• Grievances – e.g., territory, land, resources, independence
and decolonization, ethnic, religious, ideology, etc.
• Usually a mixture of both drives people.

46. Why Civil Wars?
• Why do we observe civil war/conflict given the costs involved? Wouldn’t the
parties bargain?
• Asymmetric information regarding capabilities
• Inability to credibly commit
• Inability to identify rebel leaders ex ante
• Hatred (sometimes reciprocal) which trumps gains from pre-emptive
redistribution

47. Empirical Evidence
• The correlates of civil war
• Civil war is more likely to occur in countries that:
• Are poor
• Are subject to negative income shocks
• Have weak state institutions
• Possess rough geographic terrain (mountainous, jungle
cover)
• Have natural resources which can be exploited
• Other findings: proxies for political grievances (e.g., ethnic and
cultural diversity) have little predictive power

48. Empirical Evidence
• Empirical evidence indicates a relationship between duration of conflict and
inequality of income
• Conflict lasts longer in societies with low income and high inequality
• Such societies are likely to have a weaker incentive for peace.
• Low-income societies have a lower relative cost of conflict for the
poor
• Larger income inequalities imply a greater difference between
winning and losing

49. The Three Policies for Prevention
1. Target the grievances of likely rebel groups
• Can involve fundamental changes to the system or buying off rebels
2. Target the material feasibility of successful rebellion
– By domestic government or by international governments/organizations
– Strategies: curtailing finances or weapons to rebels groups, repressing
certain groups
3. General policies of economic and political development (Harmony)
– Economic: raise opportunity cost of rebellion civil war (free markets).
– Political: provide non-violent means of voicing displeasure/grievances
(protect freedom of speech/press).

50. Civil War Specific costs
• Civil war is “development in reverse”
• According to one estimate, one year of conflict reduces a country’s
economic growth rate by about 2.2%
• The average civil war lasts 7 years
• On average, it takes about 20 years of peace to get back to the level
of GDP that would have prevailed without civil conflict!

51. Political Consequences
• Civil war can undermine already weak and/or dysfunctional
political institutions
• Empirical evidence indicates that civil wars lead to equally bad, or
even slightly worse, political institutions in the initial period
following the war
• No increase in political rights and no increase in representation
of minorities in political institutions
• No improvement in human rights indices
• No increase in religious toleration or freedom

52. Sanctions

53. Sanctions
• Sanctions are a penalty imposed by a country, or group of
countries, against another country, or group of countries
• Type of sanctions:
• Economic – e.g., ban on trade, financial assets
• Diplomatic – e.g., severing diplomatic relationships
• Military – e.g., arms embargo
• Sports/culture – e.g., preventing a country from
participating in international sporting/cultural events
• Travel – e.g., preventing leaders or citizens from targeted
country from traveling to other countries

54. The Purpose of Sanctions
• Sanctions can be used for a variety of purposes:
• Promote democracy and human rights
• Enforce international law and resolutions
• Prevent military aggression and armed conflict
• Foster regime change
• Prevent nuclear proliferation
• As part of broader counterterrorism efforts
• Etc.

55. Economic Sanctions
• There are two main forms of international economic sanctions:
• Trade restrictions
• Financial restrictions
• There are different degrees of each category
• All trade may be suspended or trade in one type of good may
be suspended
• Financial flows may be partially blocked or assets may be
completely seized

56. Unilateral vs. Multilateral Sanctions
• Unilateral sanctions: imposed by a single state
• Multilateral sanctions: imposed by several states (e.g., by
a regional organization, the United Nations, etc.)

57. • Multilateral sanctions are typically considered to be more
effective than unilateral sanctions because of substitution
possibilities
• E.g., Cuba circumvented the long-standing U.S. trade
embargo by trading with other countries
• However, multilateral sanctions require enforcement
and compliance to be effective

58. The Iraq Sanctions
• Sanctions included:
• A general embargo on all oil exports from Iraq, which constituted a
significant portion—60-75%—of the country’s economic activity
• Limitations on what goods could be imported by Iraq:
• Import licenses had to be acquired with approval by the UN
Sanctions Committee which met in secret
• For the most part anything that could potentially have military use
was banned
• Issue of the “dual use” problem: computers, water treatment
chemicals, farming equipment, etc.

59. The Impact of the Iraq Sanctions
• According to one estimate, the “excess child mortality” due to sanctions
was over 650,000
• This is an estimate of the # of children under 5 who died during
sanctions but who would not have died under the country’s economic
policies before sanctions
• See Joy Gordon, The Invisible War: The United States and the Iraq
Sanctions
• Note that there are a range of estimates, the lowest of which is 150,000
• Who actually loses from sanctions? Elite or populace?

60. Targeted or untargeted, you’re harming the
people…
• How targeted are targeted sanctions?
• For example, some in the U.S. government have pushed for
tightening sanctions on Iran and have emphasized targeting Iran’s oil
and gas industries, its national shipping routes, and banking system
• Key point: even targeted sanctions can be more or less broad
depending on the specifics

61. The Effectiveness of Sanctions
• Robert Pape. 1997. “Why Economic Sanctions Do Not
Work,” International Security 22(2): 90-136.
• Did the target state concede to a significant part of the
coercer’s demands?
• Were economic sanctions threatened or imposed before the
target changed its behavior?
• Are there no more-credible explanations (outside of
sanctions) for the target’s change of behavior?
• E.g., threat or use of outside military force, covert special
operations (assassinations, coups, etc.)

62. • Using these three criteria to reevaluate the Hufbauer, Schott, and Elliott data
set Pape concludes that:
• Only 5 of the 115 cases, or 4%, can truly be considered cases of success due
to sanctions
• Of the 40 cases of success identified by HSE:
• 18 were ultimately settled by use of force (direct or indirect)
• In 8 cases there is no clear evidence that the target made the desired
concessions to the coercer’s demands
• 6 cases do not qualify as instances of economic sanctions but rather as
trade disputes
• 3 cases are indeterminate
• 5 cases were successful

63. • Pape argues that economic-related sanctions are limited in their
effectiveness because their use assumes that economic punishment can
overwhelm the commitment to broader political goals
• However,
• Sanctions can contribute to political nationalism strengthening the status
quo
• Targets can substitute through formal or informal channels
• Targets can often shift the burden of sanctions to the disenfranchised or
politically underrepresented

64. • Pape argues that economic-related sanctions are limited in their
effectiveness because their use assumes that economic punishment can
overwhelm the commitment to broader political goals
• However,
• Sanctions can contribute to political nationalism strengthening the
status quo
• Targets can substitute through formal or informal channels
• Targets can often shift the burden of sanctions to the disenfranchised or
politically underrepresented

65. Why Might Sanctions Fail
• In order for sanctions to be effective they have to impose a cost on the
desired target that is sufficiently high so as to induce a change in behavior
• Unilateral sanctions are weak because of substitution possibilities
• Multilateral sanctions have greater potential to be effective, but
international cooperation among a wide range of actors is still necessary
• The importance of mechanisms to implement, monitor, and enforce
sanctions
• Alternative channels (e.g., black markets) still exist

66. • Sanctions might be so excessive that they isolate a target from bargaining
to resolve the initial issue
• E.g., North Korea – some argue that coercive measures and adversarial
relationships have provided a disincentive to cease pursuit of nuclear
weapons

67. Further Reading
• Peter Andreas. 2005. “Criminalizing Consequences of Sanctions: Embargo
Busting and Its Legacy,” International Studies Quarterly 49(2): 335-360.
• Dursun Peksen. 2009. “Better or Worse? The Effect of Economic Sanctions
on Human Rights,” Journal of Peace Research 46(1): 59-77.
• Dursun Peksen and A. Cooper Drury. 2009. “Coercive or Corrosive: The
Negative Impact of Economic Sanctions on Democracy,” International
Interactions 36(3): 240-264.

68. Group thoughts?
• Sanctions on Iran and Russia:
• What are possible consequences?
• Who will the biggest losers be?
• Will this strengthen or weaken the current ruler?

69. Propaganda: Manufacturing Militarism

70. Definition of Propaganda
• Propaganda involves the dissemination of biased or false
information to promote a political cause championed by
the propagandist. Its purpose is to manipulate the beliefs of
the recipients to align with the aims of the propagandist
even if those goals are at odds with the interests of the
target audience.

71. Why Propaganda?
• Governments, to a certain extent, must be responsive to their citizens.
• Ideally, citizens select political agents to represent them. In this scenario,
citizens have knowledge and they evaluate freely and the politicians
implement.
• Propaganda flips the equation. Politicians control information available for
citizens to choose from.

72. Propaganda Ramps Up During War
• Soon after entering World War I, President Woodrow Wilson signed Executive
Order 2594 on April 13, 1917, which established the Committee on Public
Information (CPI), also known as the Creel committee . The purpose of the CPI was
to systematically influence domestic public opinion in support the U.S.
government’s participation in World War I.
• On June 13, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9182,
which authorized the Office of War Information (OWI). See Winkler (1978) for a
detailed discussion of the OWI.

73. More Examples
• Dehumanization of Muslims in movies.
• Saddam’s Iraq and babies in incubators.
• “Iran is the world’s #1 exporter of
terrorism.”

74. American Propaganda

75. Even Dr. Suess!

76. Society Loses During War. Who Wins?
• Weapons Manufacturers
• War Bureaucracy
• Human Capital with Strictly War-related Skills
• Politicians with Shares of Weapons Manufacturing Companies
• Government agents who want power (Ratchet Effect).

77. Pro-British Imperialism

79. Why Nonviolence and Peace Studies?
• To understand the roots of the problems we’re studying, to be
able to come up with solutions!
• Any questions?